regshoe

These chapters, especially chapter 3, often feel a bit odd structurally—it's a little quiet interlude between the drama of Ewen's escape and the final chapter. Things are still building towards the ending, of course, but there's less sense of momentum than a lot of books have at this proportion of pages left to go. In the meantime, however, there are lots of interesting details and side questions introduced. I especially like getting to see a little bit more of Aunt Margaret and her backstory—her capably handling the running of Ardroy in Ewen's absence.

I love Ewen's attention to his tenants' welfare and his responsibilities as a landowner. He's so earnest and such a sweetheart. There's a tinge of 'perhaps this is something of an indulgent anachronism, this kind of massive inequality and concentration of economic power is actually bad'—though from what I've read, contemporary Scottish landowners' attitudes to noblesse oblige and all that varied widely, but some of them did care about this sort of thing.

Ewen has thought about Keith quite a few times, and 'his pulse quickened with pleasure' at the prospect of meeting him again. :) I wonder about the passage where Ewen suddenly sees the meaning of the 'twisted threads' part of the prophecy, before falling asleep—like those lines themselves, the exact significance of this seems slightly mysterious. Qbrf ur unir fbzr cerzbavgvba bs jung vg zrnaf ivf-à-ivf gur raqvat (ohg gur zbbq bs gur cnffntr qbrfa'g ernyyl frrz gb fhvg gung), be vg fbzrguvat zber yvxr n ernyvfngvba nobhg uvf naq Xrvgu'f eryngvbafuvc?

I'm amused by 'something wholly unintelligible in which the word "honour" was alone distinguishable'. I feel that this line expresses something very fundamental about D. K. Broster as a writer.

Aww, Ewen's ongoing anxiety about his 'betrayal' of Lochiel—he's so earnest, so scrupulous... His insistence that Archie tell Lochiel EVERYTHING followed by his horror at Archie including the bits that show Ewen himself in an admirable light is rather sweet. And it's at once a shame, slightly funny and somewhat admirable that Ewen regrets his insults to Lord Loudoun, to the point of bringing this up alongside his betrayal of Lochiel. I don't agree, Ewen!

We get quite a lot of information about the history going on in the background of these chapters, although it's in bits and pieces rather than a long scene-setting passage. The wanderings of the Prince (and of Lochiel!), the memorable Flora MacDonald, and even a brief skip into the future and Archibald Cameron's death. The image of Ewen, Margaret and Archie drinking a health to King James is both affecting and interesting—Broster, writing from the future, knows that the Jacobite cause 'had already taken its last, its mortal wound', but it wasn't at all certain at the time—either to the Jacobites or to the Hanoverian government—that this was the case, and I think Broster does well in portraying the perspectives of contemporary Jacobites, with her own knowledge of the future colouring the story she tells but not leading her to misrepresent it. (I read another Jacobite novel last week, Bonnie Prince Charlie by G. A. Henty, which is particularly bad at this—imposed perspectives of the Whiggish historian everywhere—and so it stands out as a strength of Broster's!).

And then the 'creeping sense of chill' as we learn of poor Lachlan's quest for vengeance. The sense of the supernatural in the scene with Ewen and old Angus is powerful and eerie—reading it, I was reminded of sanguinity's recent ghost fic and how very well ghosts fit into this world... Uzz, creuncf gurer'f fbzr cbgragvny va n fgbel jurer Ynpuyna UNF qvrq, rvgure sebz Xrvgu'f cvfgby-fubg be bgurejvfr, ohg uvf iratrshy funqr arireguryrff pbagvahrf gb chefhr Xrvgu...?

The last bit of chapter 4, in which Ewen says farewell to Loch na h-Iolaire, is very beautiful. It's sad but so peaceful, with Ewen still devoted to his home but having reconciled himself to the need to leave it, and with the heron once again flying over the loch as it did a year before. It feels like a conclusion; unfortunately, it isn't, and hence the next chapter...