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- Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Breakfast to the biographical edition. While my husband and mister Henley were engaged in writing plays in Bournemouth, they made a number of titles, hoping to use them in the future. Dramatic composition was not what my husband preferred, but the tord of mister Henley's enthusiasm swept him off his feet. However, after several plays had been finished, and his health seriously impaired by his endeavors to keep up with mister Henley, playwriting was abandoned forever, and my husband returned to his legitimate vocation. Having added one of the titles, The Hanging Judge, to the list of projected plays now thrown aside, and emboldened by my husband's offer to give me any help needed, I concluded to try and write it myself, as I wanted a trial scene in the Old Bailey. I chose the period of seventeen hundred for my purpose, but, being shared aimfully ignorant of my subject, and my husband confessing to little more knowledge than I possessed, a London bookseller was commissioned to send us everything he could procure, bearing on Old Bailey, trials. A great package came in response to our order, and very soon we were both absorbed, not so much in the trials as in following the brilliant career of a mister Garrow, who appeared as counsel in many of the cases. We sent for more books, and yet more, still intent on mister Garrow, whose subtle cross examination of witnesses and masterly, if sometimes startling methods of arriving at the truth seemed more thrilling to us than any novel. Occasionally, other trials than those in the Old Bailey would be included in the package of books we received from London. Among these my husband found and read with avidity, the trial of James Stewart in o'carne en, Durer of Eppin, for the murder of Colin Campbell of Glenor e f q Factor for his majesty on the forfeited estate of Ardfield. My husband was always interested in this period of his country's history, and had already the intention of writing a story that should turn on the Appen murder. The tale was to be of a boy, David Balfour, supposed to belong to my husband's own family, who should travel in Scotland as though it were a foreign country, meeting with various adventures and misadventures. By the way, from the trial of James Stewart, my husband gleaned much valuable material for his novel, the most important being the character of Alan Breck. Aside from having described him as smallish in stature, my husband seems to have taken Alan Breck's personal appearance, even to his clothing from the book. A letter from James Stewart to mister John McFarlane introduced his evidence in the trial, says, there is one Alan Stewart, a distant friend of the late Art deals, who is in the French service, and came over in March last as he said to some in order to settle at home, to others that he was to go soon back, and was, as I hear, the day that the murder was committed, seen not far from the place where it happened, and is not now to be seen, by which it is believed he was the actor. He is a desperate, foolish fellow, and if he is guilty, came to the country for that very purpose. He is a tall, hawk pitted lad, very black hair, and wore a blue coat and metal buttons, an old red vest, and breeches of the same color. A second witness testified to having seen him wearing a blue coat with silver buttons, a red waistcoat, black shag breeches, tartan hose, and a feathered hat with a big coat dun colored, a costume referred to by one of the council as wrench clothes, which were remarkable. There are many incidents given in the trial that point to Allan's fiery spirit highland quickness to take offense. One witness declared also that the said Alan Brick threatened that he would challenge Bally Violin and his sons to fight because of his removing the declarant last year from Glendura. On another page, Duncan Campbell change keeper at Annett, aged thirty five years married. Witness sighted sworn, purged and examined at Supra depones that in the month of April last the opponent met with Alan breck Stewart, with whom he was not acquainted, and John Stuart in Ochnachuan in the house of the walk Miller of Auchofragan, and went on with them to the house. Alan breck Stewart said that he hated all the name of Campbell, and the opponent said he had no reason for doing so, but Alan said he had very good reason for that. Thereafter they left that house, and after drinking a dram at another house, came to the deponent's house, where they went in and drunk some DRAMs, and Alan Breck renewed the former conversation, and the opponent making the same answer. Alan said that if the deponent had any respect for his friends, he would tell them that if they offered to turn out the possessors of Ardheel's estate, he would make black cocks of them before they entered into possession, by which the deponent understood shooting them, it being a common phrase in the country. Some time after the publication of Kidnapped, we stopped for a short while in the Appen country, where we were surprised and interested to discover that the feeling concerning the murder of Glennyeur the Red Fox, also called Colin Roy, was almost as keen as though the tragedy had taken place the day before. For several years my husband received letters of expostulation or commendation from members of the Campbell and Stuart clans I have in my possession of paper yellow with age that was sent soon after the novel appeared, containing the pedigree of the family of Appine, wherein it is said that Alan, third Baron of Appine, was not killed at Flowdone though there, but lived to a great old age. He married a Cameron, daughter to Ewen mccameron of Lochiel, following this as a paragraph stating that John Stuart, first of Ardshiel of his descendants Alan Breck had better be omitted Duncan Bain Stuart in Achonderach, his father was a bastard. One day, while my husband was busily at work, I sat beside him reading an old cookery book called The Complete Housewife, An accomplished Gentlewoman's Companion. In the midst of receipts for rabbits and chickens, mumbled nickeled samphire skirt, pye, baked tansy and other forgotten delicacies, there were directions for the preparation of several lotions for the preservation of beauty. One of these was so charming that I interrupted my husband to read it aloud. Just what I wanted, he exclaimed, And the receipt for the lily of the valley water was instantly incorporated into Kidnapped Signed F V D G S dedication. My dear Charles Baxter. If you ever read this tale, you will likely ask yourself more questions than I should care to answer, as, for instance, how the app and murder has come to fall in the year seventeen fifty one, how the Torran rocks have crept so near to Eiraid, or why the pretty trial is silent? As to all the touches David Balfour, these are nuts beyond my ability to crack. But if you tried me on the point of Allan's guilt or innocence, I think I could defend the reading of the text To this day you will find the tradition of appin clear in Alan's favor. If you inquire, you may even hear that the descendants of the other man who fired the shot are in the country to this day, but that other man's name. Inquire as you please, you shall not hear. For the Highlander values a secret for itself and for the congenial exercise of keeping it. I might go on for long to justify one point and own another indefensible. It is more honest to confess at once how little I am touched by the desire of accuracy. This is no furniture for the scholar's library, but a book for the winter evening school room, when the tasks are over and the hour for bed draws near. And honest, Alan, who was a grim old fire eater in his stay, has in this new avatar no more desperate purpose than to steal some young gentleman's attention from his ovid, carry him a while into to the highlands and the last century, and pack him to bed with some engaging images to mingle with his dreams. As for you, my dear Charles, I do not even ask you to like this tale. But perhaps when he is older, your son will. He may then be pleased to find his father's name on the fly leaf. And in the meanwhile, it pleases me to set it there in memory of many days that were happy, and some now perhaps is pleasant to remember that were sad. It is strange for me to look back, from a distance, both in time and space, on these bygone adventures of our youth. It must be stranger for you, who tread the same streets, who may tomorrow open the door of the old speculative, where we began to rank with Scott and Robert Emmett and the beloved and inglorious Macbean. Or may pass the corner of the clothes, where that great society the l j R. Held its meetings and drank its beer, sitting in the seats of Burns and his companion. I think I see you moving there by plain daylight, beholding with your natural eyes those places that have now become for your companion a part of the scenery of dreams. How in the interval of present business, the past must echo in your memory. Let it not echo often without some kind thoughts of your friend, Robert Louis Stevenson, signed in Scarybore, Bournemouth. And now a disclaimer your reader is an American. I'm sorry. I will do my absolute level best to pronounce the Scott's words accurately and the names as well, but I cannot promise that they are accurate. Neither can I pretend to a Highland or a Lowland Scot's accent. I will make some kind of an attempt, but please bear with me when I fall short. Thank you and good listening.