Who's Burning Paloma Blanca? Book

"'You deal with me very frankly, and I thank you for it,' said I. 'I will try on my side to be no less honest. I believe these deep duties may lie upon your lordship; I believe you may have laid them on your conscience when you took the oaths of the high office which you hold. But for me, who am just a plain man--or scarce a man yet--the plain duties must suffice. I can think but of two things, of a poor soul in the immediate and unjust danger of a shameful death, and of the cries and tears of his wife that still tingle in my head. I cannot see beyond, my lord. It's the way I am made. If the country has to fall, it has to fall. And I pray God, if this is wilful blindness, that He may enlighten me before too late.'"

This book, originally published as Catriona, is the sequel to Kidnapped, and the plot of this book picks up right at the point that Kidnapped leaves off. David Balfour is doing his best to set the record straight on the Appin Murder of a Campbell, but it soon becomes apparant that his factual statement is only muddying the waters of a case that has already been decided. James Stewart must swing. The Campbells work closely with the English, while the Stewarts are still doing their level best to reduce the stranglehold of England on Scotland. It only makes sense that, if a Campbell be lying in his own blood, a Stewart must have been the instigator of his death. It doesn't really matter which Stewart hangs for it, so why not have the one that is most a thorn in the side of England swing from the gibbet.

"'Andie,' said I, laying my hand upon his knee, 'this Hielandman's innocent.'

'Ay, it's a peety about that,' said he. 'But ye see in this world, the way God made it, we canna just get a thing that we want.'"

David is young enough to still believe that justice will prevail, that fairness is still the basis of the law, but he soon discovers that the system is designed to help those in power to keep control of the rest of us. He even is kidnapped and held on an island until his testimony will no longer be relevant to the trial. He's lucky he doesn't receive a deep probing strike in the kidneys for his trouble.

David meets Catriona Drummond, the daughter of another arrested Scot who is going by the name of James More. David is smitten by her, and the trials and tribulations of the second half of the book revolve around his uncertain relationship with her. Catriona's father is a rogue, a manipulator, a man in constant need of funds. David and Catriona end up in Holland, her without a red cent and he unable to leave her to her fate. David suggests that she be his sister so they can rent a place together without creating a scandal. Her father, when he arrives, is less concerned about her reputation as he is about liberating some of David's money for his own uses. Stevenson employs the classic boy meets girl, boy wins girl, boy loses girl plot device. We know that they must end up together, but there are certainly times during the novel when I was unsure how that could possibly be accomplished. Stevenson had his own problems with a woman, his future wife Fanny. He met Fanny in Europe, she returned to San Francisco, he followed her despite being ill and convinced her to divorce her husband to be with him. I can only imagine the emotional uncertainty he was under through the whole process. Certainly, David suffers numerous psychological setbacks in his pursuit of his true love.

Alan Breck Stewart also shows up for part of the book. He is Balfour's stalwart companion in Kidnapped and is still trying his level best to keep his feet from swinging over the ground under an English gibbet. Unfortunately, this novel does not have the action that Alan is such a part of in the first book. I do think that Stevenson misses one opportunity to add some spice to this novel. At one point, Catriona devises a scheme to free her father from prison, and Stevenson chooses to have that happen offstage. I would have dearly loved to have had Stevenson describe the sequence of events as they were happening.

Stevenson, as he does in all of his novels, weaves in some Scottish expressions to the plot like whilly whas, hag-rode, and byke of wasps. I really liked this one: "But he has need of a long spoon when he sups with the de(v)il." Or how about this one: "'Catriona,' said Alan, 'ye'll have to excuse me, my dear; but there's nothing less than my fine bones upon the cast of it, and I'll have to break this seal.'" At points, Stevenson's brogue is so thick I have to read a sentence a few times to catch what he be saying. Though I'm sure it will make some readers uncomfortable, he is doing his best to place the reader not only in Scotland but in 18th century Scotland.

This isn't as exciting a book as Kidnapped, but I'm still glad to have read the end of Balfour's story, and getting reacquainted with Alan Breck Stewart was also a treat. J. M. Barrie mentioned in one of his letters with Stevenson that he hoped that Stevenson had left Alan alive and well. It is nice to think of the possibility that Alan Breck can still emerge from over the crest of the steep hill and descend the heather the moment that we need him most.

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