regshoe

Epigraph notes: The epigraph to Part I is from The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. by James Boswell; the quoted passage is from the entry for 3 November 1773.

So, Keith! We learn a lot about him in the space of these two chapters, and I'm sure you all already love him as much as I do :D I love how much characterisation we get here: proud, impatient, determined, brave, with a warm, 'passionate and impulsive' heart hidden under depths of protective cynicism after a tragic backstory. I especially like the line 'Bullets, however, did not discompose him like cowardice', a very nice bit of word choice and arrangement which conveys a lot about his character.

And of course I absolutely love Keith and Ewen's first meeting, and Keith's reaction to Ewen :D I won't quote all the amazing things Keith thinks about Ewen, but I will note the very funny contrast between Keith's immediate attraction to and admiration of Ewen, which only get stronger once he sees—as he very quickly does—how gentlemanlike and courteous Ewen is, and his insistence that Ewen is a barbarian. 'This disturbing exponent of Highland chivalry' is another favourite line; one gets the sense already that Ewen is 'disturbing' to Keith in several different ways. And of course Keith is very much a gentleman too: he may think Ewen is a barbarian, but even in chapter 2 he thinks it shameful rudeness to let Ewen see that he thinks so.

After last week, the contrast between the landscape descriptions in the prologue and in chapter 1 is very stark. But the actual descriptive prose is as beautifully written as ever (I do like the image of mountains like 'a procession of elephants'!), and if there's one thing I like more than lovely nature descriptions, it's lovely nature descriptions used thoughtfully with character perspectives to convey different characters' personalities and relationships with the places they describe.

And Keith's hatred of mountains, while it may seem slightly ludicrous to a modern reader, is very historically accurate! Before the Romantics made upland scenery fashionable, mountains as horrible and ugly seems to have been the general view amongst educated English people. Christopher Duffy in The '45 (a book highly recommended for anyone wanting to learn more about the 1745 Rising) attributes it to Enlightenment ideas about landscapes deriving beauty from usefulness and productivity rather than dramatic natural scenery.

The actual geographical detail in these two chapters is also great. It's possible to follow the entire sequence of events on a map, and work out roughly where Ardroy—the only fictional location here—is supposed to be, as I did in this post a while ago.

There's plenty of detailed historical accuracy too, of course. The incident of the ambush at High Bridge by 'eleven men and a piper!' really happened pretty much exactly as described, and Broster again slots Keith's presence in very neatly. Captain James Scott, Keith's senior, is historical; in real life the second captain was James Thomson, who was taken captive with the rest. Another interesting historical detail is the identity of Keith's stepfather, the Earl of Stowe. This—or at least Earl Temple of Stowe—is a real title, but one that wasn't created until the nineteenth century. Keith might be related to the Temple family of Stowe in Buckinghamshire, who got their title a bit earlier in this version of history, or his stepfather might derive his title from one of the various other places in England called Stowe. The Windhams are also a real family and important in the eighteenth century—several Windhams were Whig politicians and one of them was Comptroller to the Household of the Duke of Cumberland, so there's the background of Keith's allegiances.

One historical detail I've not come across in any of my researches is the story of the stream where Keith stops for a wash, in which 'seven gory severed heads' were washed 'less than a hundred years before'. Does anyone know what this is referring to?

And the heron has returned, with ominous significance...