Flight of the Heron read-along: Part IV chapters 1-2

[regshoe]

Lots of drama in this week's chapters...!

Next week we'll continue with Part IV chapters 3 and 4.

Comments

[regshoe]

Epigraph notes: The epigraph to Part IV is from 'Stanzas Written on Battersea Bridge during a Southwesterly Gale', by Hilaire Belloc, published in Sonnets and Verse (1923). Unlike the previous epigraphs, this one has no particular Jacobite or Highland connection—but I think these lines are a very good encapsulation of the sort of situation Broster likes to create in her books.

These chapters contain my second favourite Ewen/Keith line—which is to say, my second favourite line—in the whole book, so I'd just like to appreciate it:

Did he then think the ties between them so close when they were only . . . What were they then? Was it really only philanthropy, as Keith had assured himself a few hours ago, which had sent him back to the shieling that night? It was certainly not philanthropy which was driving him to Fort Augustus now.

<3

I love all the weather in these two chapters, from that chilling Highland mist at the beginning to the torrential rain later on. The weather here right now is rather wild, and it seems an appropriate moment to be reading these descriptions!

Keith begins chapter 1 by wavering again in his feelings for Ewen and his opinions of his own side; he seems rather easily influenced, or perhaps he scared himself off by his 'fit of philanthropy' and is trying to bring things back to safe, cynical normality. Even so, he still seems rather naive, with his thoughts of trying to use his influence with the Duke of Cumberland to help Ewen. For such a cynic, Keith certainly seems reluctant to think as badly of other people as they deserve—Guthrie, too, as he's shocked by the extent of Guthrie's cruelty to Ewen (and his malice towards Keith himself—although he was unaware of the motive for that until Paton tells him). Later, he himself thinks he 'could not have guessed' just how badly his own side would behave—upon which the omniscient narrator immediately points out some historical examples of how it's only going to get worse. I think there may be a point being made in here.

Nf sbe Xrvgu orvat n qrprag naq pbzcnffvbangr crefba va trareny, ur hajvggvatyl frnyf uvf bja sngr jura ur ceriragf Znpxnl sebz fgnoovat gur fhccbfrqyl qrnq Ynpuyna. :(

Oh dear, well, the honourable tangle is really working itself out now, isn't it... Poor Keith, listening to Paton's recital of Guthrie's cruelties, 'miserably', 'his hand over his eyes'. But poor Ewen! There's something terribly affecting about seeing him at a remove in Paton's narration, proud and defiant, as loyal to Lochiel as ever, and even showing the same loyalty to Keith—at first... :( And, honestly, poor Paton. I like that he asked news of Ewen at Fort Augustus—what a good guy.

I'm terribly amused by the bit where Keith thinks 'there can't POSSIBLY be anyone as awful as Guthrie at Fort Augustus', and then immediately gets to Fort Augustus and meets Captain Greening. No, Keith, I'm afraid there are more thoroughly unpleasant characters than you imagine in your cynicism.

And from then on it's one long string of Keith being horrified and indignant and terribly, terribly caring about Ewen and not caring at all what he says and does as he tries to help him. I think it helps when he doesn't have a chance to think about things and get into a muddle, as E. M. Forster might put it, and I love him in the second half of chapter 2, being a beautiful 'bonfire' of righteous fury to Lord Loudon. Even a serious threat to his own position finds him 'too passionately indignant to care', and when Lord Loudon actually arrests him it 'only inflamed Keith Windham’s rage'. Keith 'Certainly Not Philanthropy' Windham is at his best here, and I am cheering him on. <3

[sanguinity]

Jnvg, gung npghnyyl JNF Ynpuyna? Guvf er-ernq, vg bppheerq gb zr gung vg zvtug or, ohg gura jura Xrvgu ybbxrq ng uvz evtug va gur snpr naq gur nffnvynag'f rlrf jrer bcra naq svkrq naq fgnevat, V svtherq vg pbhyqa'g or ohg vg jbhyq unir orra tbbq vs vg jnf.

Ohg abj er-ernqvat gur raq ntnva, V frr jr'er gbyq gung Ynpuyna znqr na nggrzcg ng Ynxr Gness, fb V fhccbfr vg jnf Ynpuyna nsgre nyy. Uhu. V fhccbfr guvf vyyhfgengrf ubj yhpxl Rjra jnf onpx ng gur fuvryvat gung ur'q unq n funir, vs guvf vf ubj onq Xrvgu vf ng erpbtavfvat orneqrq crbcyr...

In other news, Keith continues to be phenomenally bad at identifying his feelings. He needs a set of those cards with various expressions on it that they use to teach little kids to name their feelings.

I wonder how his initial plan for getting Cumberland to personally intervene would have worked out. Do we believe that Keith "I Got Personal Feelings All Over My Debt of Honour" Windham would have been able to keep his cool that long?

[hyarrowen]

wrt to your ROT'd paras - it never occurred to me that Keith would recognise the assailant. I'm dreadfully bad at faces myself. And good as Broster is at describing landscapes, ducks, etc, she does have characters recognising each other by voice rather than appearance a couple of times that I can remember. eg Keith suddenly realising who Ewen is in Edinburgh, and someone has a similar experience in GitN. I wonder if she was slightly face-blind?

[sanguinity]

I can't speak to Broster herself, but now that you point it out, I would agree that the hypothesis that Keith is at least a bit face-blind is supported by the text!

(omg, what must it be like to be faceblind in the military, when everyone is in identical uniform all the time?)

[hyarrowen]

I got dreadfully confused when watching Band of Brothers. Who is this young, white, dark-haired, uniformed fellow with an American accent who's wearing an enormous helmet? I really had no idea most of the time...

[sanguinity]

Yeah, my wife is a bit face-blind, and can struggle with TV. A couple of shows (such as The Terror) I've not bothered suggesting for just that reason: a whole cast of medium-build bearded dark-haired white men in very similar uniforms.

[tgarnsl]

As someone who is reasonably face blind, I can never get into any media where there are a bunch of similar looking people in uniforms. The Terror is a good show but I can recognise like three people on it.

I wholeheartedly support the notion that Keith is face blind, however, and am now amused/horrified at the thought of him not recognising Ewen at the shieling until it was too late.

[osprey_archer]

I'M GLAD IT WASN'T JUST ME. I watched it with my brother and had to ask him to identify every character almost every episode, and by the end I could STILL only reliably identify three of them. And one of them was the one guy who had lighter hair, of course.

[regshoe]

Oh, I like the idea of Keith (and, yeah, perhaps Broster) being face-blind! Also in the bits where he admires Ewen at amusing length, the focus tends to be on Ewen's body and manner rather than his handsome face (apart from the blue eyes, which I suppose are distinctive enough to stand out even without much face-recognition ability), which fits with that too.

I'm only slightly bad at faces, and the combination of identical uniforms and eighteenth-century wigs/hats obscuring hair makes me find trying to picture soldier characters a bit of a puzzle!

[regshoe]

Lrnu, vg'f nyjnlf fgehpx zr nf irel fgenatr gur jnl gung cnffntr frrzf gb tb bhg bs vgf jnl gb qrfpevor Ynpuyna nf boivbhfyl qrnq va n jnl gung jbhyqa'g or rnfl gb snxr, naq gura gur ovg yngre ba ernyyl qbrfa'g chg nal rzcunfvf ba ubj nznmvat vg jnf gung ur fheivirq—ohg NSNVPG vg vf fhccbfrq gb or uvz. (Xrvgu abgvprf gur Pnzreba gnegna ntnva, gbb!).

Keith's inability to identify his feelings is very endearing. I especially like the way he'll come to an awareness of his feelings, not by thinking about how he feels and understand it that way but by observing how he acts and then realising that he must have been motivated by these feelings he hadn't noticed before.

Do we believe that Keith "I Got Personal Feelings All Over My Debt of Honour" Windham would have been able to keep his cool that long?

Yeah, judging by his behaviour to Lord Loudon—and imagining the way Cumberland would probably have responded to a request like that—I doubt it a little...

[sanguinity]

Gur Pnzreba gnegna jnf n avpr vebavp gbhpu. Xrvgu unf graqre srryvatf sbe nalbar jrnevat vg, orpnhfr vg erzvaqf uvz bs Rjra. Jurernf gur yblnygvrf flzobyvmrq ol gung gnegna ner RKNPGYL jul guvf zna nggrzcgrq gb nffnffvangr uvz!

[luzula]

Ha, that is very true!

[regshoe]

Oh dear, good point :(

[hyarrowen]

Oof. So true.

[sanguinity]

Re his plan to petition Cumberland for Keith's freedom, I ran across this in a history of Culloden that I'm reading (Trevor Royle, Culloden: Scotland's Last Battle and the Forging of the British Empire):

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Whiteford was one of the more chivalrous and caring officers in Cumberland's army... He distinguished himself as a volunteer at Prestonpans, where he gallantly refused to abandon his position with the artillery after his gunners had fled, and was saved from summary execution by Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle, a Jacobite officer in the Appin Regiment. In the aftermath of Culloden Whitefoord repaid the debt by using his influence with Cumberland to save the life of Stewart of Invernahyle and his family.

(It then goes on to say that Walter Scott learned of the incident, and Whitefoord became the basis of Colonel Talbot in Waverley.)

Anyway, maybe Keith's plan to ask for Cumberland's intervention was better than we're giving him credit for?

[luzula]

Ah yes, I recognize that story from Duffy. In general a lot of people were trying to save Jacobites by using the patronage system and appealing to influential Whigs that they had some connection to, which in many cases was successful. So yeah, I don't think it's unreasonable for Keith to expect to be able to save Ewen that way.

Heee, I'm glad to see you're getting sucked into research reading. *g*

[sanguinity]

There was also a page or so in here about Loudoun, asserting that he was notably better than most of the government officers about treating surrendered Jacobites with decency. I note, too, that Loudoun was a Campbell, and thus surmise -- connecting the dots with something I think you said elsewhere -- that he was one of the Campbells in particular that Jacobites would insist on surrendering to, if they were going to surrender at all.

Which makes me wonder if Keith might have had a chance of success with Loudoun, had he 1) kept his cool, and 2) had this interview on his first pass through the fort.

[luzula]

Yeah, Loudoun was a pretty decent guy, from what I've read! I see why Broster apologized for slandering him...but hey, the plot needed to go where it needed to go. : D

Albemarle, who is seen sympathetically in FotH because he likes Keith (which he mostly does because he has the hots for Lady Stowe), was actually much worse.

Let's see if I can dig up a quote by Albemarle...okay, here we go: I [...] always feared from the bad inclination of the people in most of the northern counties and from their stubborn, inveterate disposition of mind, nothing could effect it but laying the whole country waste and ashes, and removing all the inhabitants (excepting a few) out of the kingdom.

[sanguinity]

Something to keep in mind when we see Albemarle. I wish I could say that is the only quote like that I've read from the government officers, but sadly, it's very much not. :-/

[hyarrowen]

Others will do more justice to Keith's actions and motives than I possibly can. But I would like to say how much I like the little details here - Lt Paton producing a couple of pails to sit on (something from Broster's own wartime experience, I don't doubt.) And the poor soldiers being turned out of their sleeping-quarters so the officers can talk in comfort! Hmpf!

[regshoe]

Yes, the detail is lovely. I did feel sorry for those soldiers, 'huddled against its wall for shelter' outside the barn while Keith and Paton are talking!

[luzula]

And it's raining all that time, too! Poor soldiers. : (

[osprey_archer]

The soldiers being turned out of their sleeping-quarters so the officers can talk ALSO seems like something out of Broster's wartime experiences. Peak officer behavior!

[hedgebird]

I've caught up again!

Oh Keith. Antagonizing half of Fort Augustus is not the best plan he's ever had, lol.

[sanguinity]

And yet it is a GLORIOUS plan, and we commend him for his commitment to it!

[luzula]

Hee. I doubt it's a plan so much as a blaze of indignation and feeling. : )

[sanguinity]

It is a GLORIOUS blaze of indignation and feeling, and we commend him for his commitment to it!

[regshoe]

Hehe—I have to agree with sanguinity here—perhaps not the most sensible thing, and yet, we love him for it. :)

[tgarnsl]

Keith is a cynic, but it’s clear that some part of him very much doesn’t want to be. He’s been hurt time and again by other people, but there’s this child-like need to believe that people are good, and even though he tries to wall himself off from others that need is still there, something I think is very clearly the aftereffects of an emotionally neglected childhood (as Gleam in the North makes clear). It’s no wonder he likes Ewen, who is so dependable in his affection, and why he’s so distressed to think that Ewen feels betrayed by him. I love these chapters because we really see Keith unravel a bit, and start to prioritise other things than military ambition. It’s a good look for him.

I have more thoughts, but alas will have to type them up tomorrow!

[regshoe]

Yes, absolutely—he's better than he thinks he is—and that is exactly why Ewen is so good for Keith. Aww, poor Keith <3