Alan Breck Stewart

“ He gave us the news of the country; that it was alive with red-coats; that arms were being found, and poor folk brought in trouble daily; and that James and some of his servants were already clapped in prison at Fort William, under strong suspicion of complicity. It seemed it was noised on all sides that Alan Breck had fired the shot; and there was a bill issued for both him and me, with one hundred pounds reward.
This was all as bad as could be; and the little note the bouman had carried us from Mrs. Stewart was of a miserable sadness. ”

“ Ye may think that a small matter; but before it comes night, David, ye’ll give me news of it.”
I was anxious to redeem my character, and offered, if he would pour out the brandy, to run down and fill the bottle at the river.
“I wouldnae waste the good spirit either,” says he. “It’s been a good friend to you this night; or in my poor opinion, ye would still be cocking on yon stone. And what’s mair,” says he, “ye may have observed (you that’s a man of so much penetration) that Alan Breck Stewart was perhaps walking quicker than his ordinar’.” ”

“ No. Well, I'm better wanting it.) But these tenants (as I was saying) are doubtless partly driven to it. James Stewart in Duror (that's him they call James of the Glens) is half-brother to Ardshiel, the captain of the clan; and he is a man much looked up to, and drives very hard. And then there's one they call Alan Breck———"
"Ah!" I cried, "what of him?"
"What of the wind that bloweth where it listeth?" said Henderland. "He's here and awa; here to-day and gone to-morrow: a fair heather-cat. ”

“ I’ll stand by you.”
“Why, then,” said he, “what’s your name?”
“David Balfour,” said I; and then, thinking that a man with so fine a coat must like fine people, I added for the first time, “of Shaws.”
It never occurred to him to doubt me, for a Highlander is used to see great gentle-folk in great poverty; but as he had no estate of his own, my words nettled a very childish vanity he had.
“My name is Stewart,” he said, drawing himself up. “Alan Breck, they call me. A king’s name is good enough for me, though I bear it plain and have the name of no farm-midden to clap to the hind-end of it.” ”

“ The hero of his longest work is not David Balfour, in whom the pawky Lowland lad, proud and precise, but ‘a very pretty gentleman,’ is transfigured at times by traits that he catches, as narrator of the story, from its author himself. But Alan Breek Stewart is a greater creation, and a fine instance of that wider morality that can seize by sympathy the soul of a wild Highland clansman. ”

“ But the bouman, after feeling about in a hairy purse that hung in front of him in the Highland manner (though he wore otherwise the Lowland habit, with sea-trousers) , began to roll his eyes strangely, and at last said, “Her nainsel will loss it,” meaning he thought he had lost it.
“What!” cried Alan, “you will lose my button, that was my father’s before me? Now I will tell you what is in my mind, John Breck: it is in my mind this is the worst day’s work that ever ye did since ye was born.” ”

“ And then it was that my companion explained to me his thought in running away from Mr. Stewart, which was certainly worthy of his political intellect. The report of his death, he said, was a great guard to him; Mr. Stewart having recognised him, had become a danger; and he had taken the briefest road to that gentleman's silence. "For," says he, "Alan Black is too vain a man to narrate any such story of himself."
Towards afternoon we came down to the shores of that loch for which we were heading; and there was the ship, but newly come to anchor. ”

“ I have paid my tribute to Alan Breck, and I can only repeat that he is a masterpiece. It is interesting to observe that though the man is extravagant, the author’s touch exaggerates nothing: it is throughout of the most truthful, genial, ironical kind; full of penetration, but with none of the grossness of moralising satire. The figure is a genuine study, and nothing can be more charming than the way Mr. Stevenson both sees through it and admires it. ”

“ Thereupon I told him my story from the first, he listening with his spectacles thrust up and his eyes closed, so that I sometimes feared he was asleep. But no such matter! he heard every word (as I found afterward) with such quickness of hearing and precision of memory as often surprised me. Even strange outlandish Gaelic names, heard for that time only, he remembered and would remind me of, years after. Yet when I called Alan Breck in full, we had an odd scene. The name of Alan had of course rung through Scotland, with the news of the Appin murder and the offer of the reward ”

“ I had been entertained to many jovial dinners, and given some myself, all with no great change upon my sorrow; and we two (by which I mean Alan and myself, and not at all the cousin) had discussed a good deal the nature of my relations with James More and his daughter. I was naturally diffident to give particulars; and this disposition was not anyway lessened by the nature of Alan’s commentary upon those I gave.
“I canna make head nor tail of it,” he would say, “but it sticks in my mind ye’ve made a gowk of yourself. There’s few people that has had more experience than Alan Breck ”

“ This dialogue apart was unobserved by any one, and both son and mother speedily recovered their self-possession. The lady very cunningly set herself, straightway, to turn the weak and dribbling stream of Sir Allan’s thoughts from the subject which then occupied them, to some other, which was to her less disagreeable at the moment, and she easily succeeded.
Patrick Stewart’s attention was attracted from all this superstitious trifling, as well as from what followed it, by again observing the garnet brooch, which appeared in the bosom of the Lady Stradawn. ”

“ On all accounts we lay the next day in the borders of the wood and kept a close look-out, so that if it was John Breck that came we might be ready to guide him, and if it was the red-coats we should have time to get away.
About noon a man was to be spied, straggling up the open side of the mountain in the sun, and looking round him as he came, from under his hand. No sooner had Alan seen him than he whistled; the man turned and came a little towards us: then Alan would give another “peep!” and 230 the man would come still nearer ”

“ I told him, "Ay," it was the same; and he withheld me some time from my other letters, asking of our acquaintance, of Alan's manner of life in France, of which I knew very little, and further of his visit as now proposed.
"All we forfeited folk hang a little together," he explained, "and besides I know the gentleman: and though his descent is not the thing, and indeed he has no true right to use the name of Stewart, he was very much admired in the day of Drummossie. He did there like a soldier ”

“ By all accounts, he was a very fine man, and he may weel be proud of you. If ever I was to get married, it’s the marrow of you I would be seeking for a mother to my sons. And I bear a king’s name and speak the truth.”
He said it with a serious heat of admiration that was honey to the girl, and, through her, to me. It seemed to wipe us clean of all James More’s disgraces. And the next moment he was just himself again.
“And now by your leave, my dawties,” said he, “this is a’ very bonny; but Alan Breck’ll be a wee thing nearer to the gallows than he’s caring for; and, Dod! ”

“ He now remembered, that the feudal tenant of the neighbouring ground, who owed service to his [178] father, Sir Allan, was accustomed to hang a conical creel, or large rude basket, by the edge of the fall, for the purpose of catching the salmon that fell into it, after failing in their vain attempts to leap up.
“Ho, there!” cried Patrick Stewart, in that voice of thunder, which he required to exert in order to overcome the continuous roar of the cataract.
“Oh, help! help! help!” cried the fearful head from below.
“Man or demon, I will see what thou art!” ”

“ His son, Tom, was just twenty-one, and had inherited from his father the hasty temper and invincible stubbornness which belong to all the Stewarts.
It was in the fall of 1733 that they made the trip to Williamsburg which was to have such momentous consequences. The House of Burgesses was in session, and Mr. Stewart, as the custom was, took his whole family with him to the capital. I fancy I can see them as they looked that day. The great coach, brought from London at a cost of so many thousand pounds of tobacco, is polished until it shines again. ”

“ Even Alan Breck, by all that I hear, is a chield to be respected. There’s many a lying sneck-draw sits close in kirk in our own part of the country, and stands well in the world’s eye, and maybe is a far worse man, Mr. ”

“ The Free Trader's speech as he left the room, however, had touched the one flaw in Galen Albret's confidence of righteousness. Wearied with the struggles and the passions he had undergone, his brain numbed, his will for the moment in abeyance, he seated himself and contemplated the images those two words had called up.
Graehme Stewart! That man he had first met at Fort Rae over twenty years ago. It was but just after he had married Virginia's mother. ”

“ Behind them was the merry hum of voices and the rapid movement of feet hurrying to and fro, but for that moment they were as much alone as though they were in the shadow of the old fort wall.
"My home," said Stewart, looking out over the sea into nothingness. "My home in eastern Scotland is like that. Some day I hope you will see it. If you ever grow very homesick for America let me know, and I'll try to arrange to run up there for a day with you and mother. The long beach will remind you of home." ”

“ Stewart, on one such occasion, "that my cousin's tremendously fond of you?"
Lancaster looked up in surprise: Then he gave a short laugh. "She's tremendously mistaken," he said, "I'm not the sort that anyone should be fond of—now." He looked out over the sea. "There goes a steamer. I suppose it's the Aberdeen boat." He watched it wistfully.
"She thinks," continued Mrs. Stewart, heedless of his abstraction, "that you are a young man much to be envied. Already you have a name that is known far and wide, and all life is yet before you. ”

“ I had been pleased with Robin's playing, Alan's ravished me.
"That's no very bad, Mr. Stewart," said the rival, "but ye show a poor device in your warblers."
"Me!" cried Alan, the blood starting to his face. "I give ye the lie."
"Do ye own yourself beaten at the pipes, then," said Robin, "that ye seek to change them for the sword?"
"And that's very well said, Mr. Macgregor," returned Alan; "and in the meantime" (laying a strong accent on the word) "I take back the lie. I appeal to Duncan."
"Indeed, ye need appeal to naebody," said Robin. ”

“ Nay, he hath even warped the feeble judgment of Sir Allan himself to the same belief.”
“Serpent that he is!” cried Patrick Stewart. [208] “But let me hasten home to confront this vile traducer. My brother!—my brother Walter!” continued he, bursting into tears. “My brother Walter gone!—and I accused of his murder!—Oh, my brother!—my dear brother! Heaven above knows how willingly I would have laid down my life to have saved thine! Nay, how willingly would I now lay it down at this moment, were it only to secure to me the certainty that thou art yet alive! ”

“ He’s mighty weak in the big towns where the better element is entrenched, an’ churches grow as thick as blackberries. Even throughout the rooral regions, wherever a meetin’ house pokes up its spire, it’s onderstood that Old Stewart’s in a heap of danger. ”