The Dark Mile by D. K. Broster
Aug. 15th, 2020 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeJacobites!, part three.
The Dark Mile (1929) is the third entry in the increasingly inaccurately named Jacobite trilogy. It's partly a sequel to The Gleam in the North, and partly the tenuously related story of the romance between Ewen Cameron's younger cousin Ian Stewart and Olivia Campbell, whose last name gives an indication of why their love is not what you might call very welcome from the perspective of those around them.
It's 1755, two years after Archibald Cameron went to the scaffold, and the question of who exactly sent him there—who tipped off the Government that he was in Glenbuckie—has never been resolved. Finlay MacPhair of Glenshian, Ewen's neighbour, was definitely doing something fishy regarding the Government and spying in '53, and Ewen suspects that he was the informer, but can't prove anything. We meet MacPhair in this book accusing Ewen of the classic Highland crime of cattle theft against himself. Meanwhile, Ian Stewart witnesses a carriage accident suffered by a young lady and her father. He gallantly rescues the young lady, Olivia, who goes back to Ian's family's house of Invernacree to recover from her injuries, and learns that the father is Mr Campbell of Cairns—the commander of the Campbell militia who killed Ian's brother Alan at Culloden. The next few days at Invernacree are awkward—and are made more so by the growing attraction between Ian and Olivia. These two plots are linked by the figure of David Maitland, a family friend of the Campbells of Cairns... and, unbeknownst to anyone else, he's also the man who betrayed Archibald Cameron.
This book no longer has very much to do with Flight of the Heron. There are one or two oblique references to Keith near the end, and a few more mentions of things connected to FotH, but nothing more. In that respect my feelings about it are basically the same as what I said about Gleam in the North, but more so—the whole thing feels very removed from that story, and missing its own heart as a result, and it's a shame.
However, I've said all that already, so I shall discuss this book on its own merits, which are for the most part pretty enjoyable. It picks up those plot threads from Gleam in the North which were left unresolved in the all-consuming tragedy of the ending—the question of who betrayed Archie, the question of what exactly Finlay MacPhair was doing and Ewen and Hector's disagreement with him. Finlay, now come into his inheritance as chief and living at Glenshian not far from Ardroy, spends the book trying to get revenge on Ewen and Hector on the one hand and trying to find out who the informer was on the other, while getting increasingly frustrated that the Government remain reluctant to give him the financial reward he expects for spying for them. It was good to see these points get some resolution; David Maitland's story was surprisingly tragic, and Ewen's eventual enlightening as to the truth of what happened provided some of the closure that he didn't get at the end of the last book. I also enjoyed all of the plotting and intrigue going on—there's less unimpeachable honour (Broster does manage to get in a duel, although it's fought for a rather silly reason) and more scheming and characters making genuinely bad decisions which they later bitterly regret.
The balance of the story has moved on since GitN; Ian, rather than Ewen, is the protagonist here, and this gave a slightly strange feeling to the book's structure and pacing. While the Ian/Olivia parts of the book work well enough done this way, Ewen is still very much the main character of the Finlay/betrayal plot—it's his old score with Finlay MacPhair that has to be settled, and his grief over Archie's death that gets some resolution at the end—but we don't see his POV and he's not placed at the centre of the story as it's told. The effect is kind of similar to what I said about GitN, where Ewen is the protagonist but Archie is the main character, and it's odd.
Finlay MacPhair, who was merely unpleasant and suspicious in GitN, is a fully-fledged moustache-twirling villain in this book, concocting schemes to frame his enemies for theft, locking them up in dungeons and monologuing about his evil plans to deceive the Government he's spying for. It's great fun, although difficult to take quite so seriously as the issues in the plot of, for instance, FotH. I'm not surprised that Broster felt the need to fictionalise the identity of Alastair MacDonnell of Glengarry if she was going to portray him like this. Although doing so causes a bit of a continuity issue: it's more obvious in this book that not only is Finlay a disguised Alastair, Glenshian the place is intended to be Glengarry.. except that Glengarry is mentioned several times in FotH under its real name. There's a memorable sequence in this book that takes place on the same section of lochside that Keith Windham rides along in the first chapter of FotH, and the specific, distinctive castle there, which was Invergarry Castle, has mysteriously become Castle Shian instead.I'm going to take this as evidence that GitN and TDM actually don't take place in the same continuity as FotH and are just a weird AU, but seriously, I think it is evidence that Broster didn't come up with the idea for the later books until after FotH—which is pretty interesting.
Other good things about this book: more Aunt Margaret being her brilliant self, and more lovely nature descriptions, especially of the landscape round Ardroy where much of the later part of the book is set. (Although I couldn't shake the feeling that the happy state of things at Ardroy is wrong, it's not what really matters... yeah, I think at this point I'm remembering FotH more than Broster wants me to).
Somewhat to my surprise, I also quite enjoyed the Ian/Olivia romance, at least at first—it's all a bit overwrought, and causes Ian to behave very badly towards Hector Grant, but there are some lovely descriptive scenes and the 'forbidden' element was good (I had osmosed that Olivia being a Campbell was what made it forbidden, but not the specific personal element, and I thought that, unlike some justifications for 'forbidden love' plots, that was actually a pretty sensible reason to have second thoughts about wanting to marry someone—I sympathised with Ian! And, of course, it means you don't get so much of the 'it's right and natural and the way things should be' attitude that's why I dislike a lot of canon het... and neither did I ship either of them with anyone else, the other big reason :P). So I was pretty interested to see how Broster was going to resolve this—will they decide to forget past enmity and become a symbol of peace in the new generation, will they actually nobly renounce each other, is one of them going to die? And the big reveal that resolves it: it turns out Olivia was never a Campbell at all! She was secretly adopted all along, so it's actually perfectly fine for Ian to marry her! I thought that was a massive cop-out and a real let-down at the end of what could have been a really good story.
So, on that somewhat disappointing note, Broster leaves Ewen Cameron and the Jacobites behind for a while—her next book is Ships in the Bay!, which I believe is a return to Royalist France—and I'm going to have a break from the read-through while I go and read other things. (Although I will of course need to re-read SIatF at some point...)
The Dark Mile (1929) is the third entry in the increasingly inaccurately named Jacobite trilogy. It's partly a sequel to The Gleam in the North, and partly the tenuously related story of the romance between Ewen Cameron's younger cousin Ian Stewart and Olivia Campbell, whose last name gives an indication of why their love is not what you might call very welcome from the perspective of those around them.
It's 1755, two years after Archibald Cameron went to the scaffold, and the question of who exactly sent him there—who tipped off the Government that he was in Glenbuckie—has never been resolved. Finlay MacPhair of Glenshian, Ewen's neighbour, was definitely doing something fishy regarding the Government and spying in '53, and Ewen suspects that he was the informer, but can't prove anything. We meet MacPhair in this book accusing Ewen of the classic Highland crime of cattle theft against himself. Meanwhile, Ian Stewart witnesses a carriage accident suffered by a young lady and her father. He gallantly rescues the young lady, Olivia, who goes back to Ian's family's house of Invernacree to recover from her injuries, and learns that the father is Mr Campbell of Cairns—the commander of the Campbell militia who killed Ian's brother Alan at Culloden. The next few days at Invernacree are awkward—and are made more so by the growing attraction between Ian and Olivia. These two plots are linked by the figure of David Maitland, a family friend of the Campbells of Cairns... and, unbeknownst to anyone else, he's also the man who betrayed Archibald Cameron.
This book no longer has very much to do with Flight of the Heron. There are one or two oblique references to Keith near the end, and a few more mentions of things connected to FotH, but nothing more. In that respect my feelings about it are basically the same as what I said about Gleam in the North, but more so—the whole thing feels very removed from that story, and missing its own heart as a result, and it's a shame.
However, I've said all that already, so I shall discuss this book on its own merits, which are for the most part pretty enjoyable. It picks up those plot threads from Gleam in the North which were left unresolved in the all-consuming tragedy of the ending—the question of who betrayed Archie, the question of what exactly Finlay MacPhair was doing and Ewen and Hector's disagreement with him. Finlay, now come into his inheritance as chief and living at Glenshian not far from Ardroy, spends the book trying to get revenge on Ewen and Hector on the one hand and trying to find out who the informer was on the other, while getting increasingly frustrated that the Government remain reluctant to give him the financial reward he expects for spying for them. It was good to see these points get some resolution; David Maitland's story was surprisingly tragic, and Ewen's eventual enlightening as to the truth of what happened provided some of the closure that he didn't get at the end of the last book. I also enjoyed all of the plotting and intrigue going on—there's less unimpeachable honour (Broster does manage to get in a duel, although it's fought for a rather silly reason) and more scheming and characters making genuinely bad decisions which they later bitterly regret.
The balance of the story has moved on since GitN; Ian, rather than Ewen, is the protagonist here, and this gave a slightly strange feeling to the book's structure and pacing. While the Ian/Olivia parts of the book work well enough done this way, Ewen is still very much the main character of the Finlay/betrayal plot—it's his old score with Finlay MacPhair that has to be settled, and his grief over Archie's death that gets some resolution at the end—but we don't see his POV and he's not placed at the centre of the story as it's told. The effect is kind of similar to what I said about GitN, where Ewen is the protagonist but Archie is the main character, and it's odd.
Finlay MacPhair, who was merely unpleasant and suspicious in GitN, is a fully-fledged moustache-twirling villain in this book, concocting schemes to frame his enemies for theft, locking them up in dungeons and monologuing about his evil plans to deceive the Government he's spying for. It's great fun, although difficult to take quite so seriously as the issues in the plot of, for instance, FotH. I'm not surprised that Broster felt the need to fictionalise the identity of Alastair MacDonnell of Glengarry if she was going to portray him like this. Although doing so causes a bit of a continuity issue: it's more obvious in this book that not only is Finlay a disguised Alastair, Glenshian the place is intended to be Glengarry.. except that Glengarry is mentioned several times in FotH under its real name. There's a memorable sequence in this book that takes place on the same section of lochside that Keith Windham rides along in the first chapter of FotH, and the specific, distinctive castle there, which was Invergarry Castle, has mysteriously become Castle Shian instead.
Other good things about this book: more Aunt Margaret being her brilliant self, and more lovely nature descriptions, especially of the landscape round Ardroy where much of the later part of the book is set. (Although I couldn't shake the feeling that the happy state of things at Ardroy is wrong, it's not what really matters... yeah, I think at this point I'm remembering FotH more than Broster wants me to).
Somewhat to my surprise, I also quite enjoyed the Ian/Olivia romance, at least at first—it's all a bit overwrought, and causes Ian to behave very badly towards Hector Grant, but there are some lovely descriptive scenes and the 'forbidden' element was good (I had osmosed that Olivia being a Campbell was what made it forbidden, but not the specific personal element, and I thought that, unlike some justifications for 'forbidden love' plots, that was actually a pretty sensible reason to have second thoughts about wanting to marry someone—I sympathised with Ian! And, of course, it means you don't get so much of the 'it's right and natural and the way things should be' attitude that's why I dislike a lot of canon het... and neither did I ship either of them with anyone else, the other big reason :P). So I was pretty interested to see how Broster was going to resolve this—will they decide to forget past enmity and become a symbol of peace in the new generation, will they actually nobly renounce each other, is one of them going to die? And the big reveal that resolves it: it turns out Olivia was never a Campbell at all! She was secretly adopted all along, so it's actually perfectly fine for Ian to marry her! I thought that was a massive cop-out and a real let-down at the end of what could have been a really good story.
So, on that somewhat disappointing note, Broster leaves Ewen Cameron and the Jacobites behind for a while—her next book is Ships in the Bay!, which I believe is a return to Royalist France—and I'm going to have a break from the read-through while I go and read other things. (Although I will of course need to re-read SIatF at some point...)
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Date: Aug. 15th, 2020 06:51 pm (UTC)Anyway, I was always rather puzzled by the idea that it would be a problem for Ian to marry a Campbell, because Lochiel's wife is a Campbell, and three of Lochiel's sisters were married to Campbells. So that in itself can hardly be a problem--but having her father be the leader of the militia that killed Alan, yes, I do see that this could be a problem! Although in general the Campbells acted pretty well in the aftermath of Culloden, and it wasn't unusual for Jacobite clansmen to say that they would surrender, but only to a Campbell.
And the big reveal that resolves it: it turns out Olivia was never a Campbell at all! She was secretly adopted all along, so it's actually perfectly fine for Ian to marry her! I thought that was a massive cop-out and a real let-down at the end of what could have been a really good story.
This sounds really weird. For one thing, wouldn't it be a better story if they had to work through that? And for another, I don't think it would actually resolve it, because she still grew up as a Campbell, right?
Also, I am sorry we don't get Ewen's POV. : ( Although I guess it could also be interesting to get an outside POV on him.
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Date: Aug. 15th, 2020 07:26 pm (UTC)I was actually a bit surprised that there wasn't more made of the whole Campbell thing, since Ewen's hatred of the Campbells in general is set up quite firmly in both the earlier books. I suppose Lady Lochiel and the other Cameron relatives were Jacobite Campbells, which was different. :P (although it'd be interesting to look in more detail about intra-clan Jacobite/Whig splits and how that affected clan loyalty—Broster portrays it very much as everyone on the same side, but of course it wasn't really).
it wasn't unusual for Jacobite clansmen to say that they would surrender, but only to a Campbell.
Huh!
This sounds really weird. For one thing, wouldn't it be a better story if they had to work through that? And for another, I don't think it would actually resolve it, because she still grew up as a Campbell, right?
I thought it would have been! And, yeah, that twist has some really weird essentialist anti-adoption implications when you think about it—the narrative acts as though now she's got no connection to Campbell of Cairns at all, when she was still raised as one and presumably is still going to be close to the man who treated her as his daughter, even if she wasn't really.
The outside POV on Ewen is pretty good—there's one line near the end from Ian's POV that I found particularly touching, but I won't spoil it because it's obliquely about Keith...
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Date: Aug. 15th, 2020 07:12 pm (UTC)less bitterdifferent point of view ;)I definitely agree with you in that this book (and the previous one) feel quite removed from the original story--"missing its own heart" is really how I saw it too, because the core of Tfoth is the bond between Ewen and Keith. It has many other lovely things, but it wouldn't be the same without it, and it's probably one of the reasons why I found the sequels enjoyable and entertaining enough, but without that same feel, you know?
Ohh, that's brilliant and makes perfect sense!
One of the reasons why I didn't enjoy the Ian/Olivia romance at all, was because it felt so forced! Sure, they met by chance, but the whole "Ian has to marry because his brother is dead and so he must now carry forward the family name" was... ugh. It might have been historically appropriate, but so was leaving your property to another family member if you had no children. I may be super wrong here, but the real "Pickle" did this (and so did Ewen in your story
so it's totally canon! :D)I may be super bitter here, so it's not a judgement of Broster's writing but totally a "me" thing... but I felt the "it's right and natural and the way things should be" attitude you mention, all through their plot, actually and it was very unsatisfying to me. And not just because of the disappointing big reveal and resolution of the story! I was never that invested in the romance, and the ending felt rather meh and easy to me.
I did like the themes of letting go of past enmity and looking forward to a hopefully peaceful future, so I guess that's why the MacPhair/Maitland subplot was the best part of the book for me, even if it seemed secondary compared to the romance. I appreciated seeing some sort of justice, and Ewen deserved all the closure. And I preferred the resolution of his subplot, sad as it was, because I felt it was in line with Doctor Cameron's convictions, and his feeling of mercy and forgiveneness. Maybe it's just me, but it felt more realistic, and I wish we had seen more of Ewen's point of view!
Oh, and by the way, didn't the duel in this book remind you a bit of the one in "The yellow poppy"? ;) And about Royalists... no spoilers, but let's just say that "Ships in the bay!" is an interest view of the French revolution! ;)
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Date: Aug. 15th, 2020 07:36 pm (UTC)<3
I like when that whole 'character is expected to marry because it's their duty' expectation is introduced in order to criticise it and show it for the horrible, harmful thing it is, and when characters find ways to reject it (hence the fic, haha...). I agree that the ending brought Ian/Olivia very much back into the conventional pattern, but I was hoping it'd go another way and they'd actually have to work through that obstacle.
I felt the "it's right and natural and the way things should be" attitude you mention, all through their plot, actually and it was very unsatisfying to me.
Mind you, I'm not saying it was great, 'better than most canon het' is not a high bar... :P but I suppose I enjoyed the tension between 'they're meant to be together' and 'but they can't be!'. But, yeah, the ending ruined that.
I did like the themes of letting go of past enmity and looking forward to a hopefully peaceful future, so I guess that's why the MacPhair/Maitland subplot was the best part of the book for me
Yes! Indeed, the theme of forgiveness and letting go of the past was lovely—as Maitland points out, Archie himself forgave the unknown man who betrayed him, and it felt very appropriate that Ewen was finally able to do that as well.
Oh, and by the way, didn't the duel in this book remind you a bit of the one in "The yellow poppy"? ;)
Haha, I see what you mean! Although I think this one was a little less fraught...
Ooh, I shall look forward to Ships in the Bay! when I return to the read-though :D
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Date: Aug. 16th, 2020 05:05 pm (UTC)I have not yet read The Dark Mile, so I sort of read this with my eyes half closed (even though in the past I have noticed you are always very clever about sharing all the commentary you want without revealing major spoilers and/or hiding spoilers under a cut!). But from what I did read of your post, I think I will give The Dark Mile a try now. A few months ago I did a ctrl+F in the book for the word Keith, did not get any hits, and then did not read... :D
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Date: Aug. 16th, 2020 06:34 pm (UTC)Hehe, thank you! I have put the big spoiler in this post under a cut, so if you read without clicking through there shouldn't be anything too major...
Huh, that's funny that you didn't get any hits—Keith Windham is never mentioned by name, but Keithie Cameron is in there quite a bit, so he should have come up. But anyway, I hope you enjoy the book :D
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Date: Aug. 31st, 2020 03:52 pm (UTC)'Ewen, that was my glove! I liked those gloves, and you have not even told me what that man has done. Kindly let me decide whether to keep it.'
'Alison, I am sorry! I was carried away by rage when I saw him, but I ought not to have done that.'
Etc. Arrrgh. Well, I suppose I am not the first person in the history of fandom to want to fix canon. : )
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Date: Aug. 31st, 2020 04:31 pm (UTC)I hope you enjoy the rest of the book, in any case :)
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Date: Aug. 31st, 2020 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sep. 1st, 2020 04:31 am (UTC)