00 Preface, Dedication, Disclaimer (Kidnapped)

01PREFACE TO THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION While my husband and Mr.

02Henley were engaged in writing plays in Bournemouth, they made a number of titles, hoping to use them in the future.

03Dramatic composition was not what my husband preferred, but the torrent of Mr.

04Henley's enthusiasm swept him off his feet.

05However, after several plays had been finished, and his health seriously impaired by his endeavours to keep up with Mr.

06Henley, playwriting was abandoned for ever, and my husband returned to his legitimate vocation.

07Having 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.

08The trial of James Stewart, in Ocarne, in Durer of Appen, for the murder of Colin Campbell, of Glen E.

09F.

10Q.

11Factor, for His Majesty, on the forfeited estate of Ardfield.

12My 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.

13The 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.

14From the trial of James Stewart my husband gleaned much valuable material for his novel, the most important being the character of Alan Brick.

15Aside from having described him as smallish in stature, my husband seems to have taken Alan Brick's personal appearance, even to his clothing, from the book.

16A letter from James Stewart to Mr.

17John McFarlane, introduced as evidence in the trial, says, There is one Alan Stewart, a distant friend of the late ordeals, 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.

18He is a desperate, foolish fellow, and, if he is guilty, came to the country for that very purpose.

19He is a tall, pock-pitted lad, very black hair, and wore a blue coat and metal buttons, an old red vest, and breeches of the same color.

20A 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 French clothes, which were remarkable.

21There are many incidents given in the trial that point to Alan's fiery spirit and highland quickness to take offense.

22One witness declared also that the said Alan Brick threatened that he would challenge Ballyviolan and his sons to fight because of his removing the declarant last year from Glendurier.

23On another page.

24Alan Brick Stewart said that he hated all the name of Campbell, and the deponent said he had no reason for doing so.

25But Alan said he had very good reason for it, 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 Brick renewed the former conversation.

26And the deponent, 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.

27Some 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 Glendurier, the Red Fox, also called Colin Roy, was almost as keen as though the tragedy had taken place the day before.

28For several years my husband received letters of expostulation or commendation from members of the Campbell and Stewart clans.

29I have in my possession a paper, yellow with age, that was sent soon after the novel appeared, containing The Pedigree of the Family of Appen, wherein it is said that Alan, third baron of Appen, was not killed at Flodone, though there but lived to a great old age.

30He married Cameron's daughter to Ewan Cameron of Lockheel.

31Following this is a paragraph stating that John Stewart Furse of Ardheel of his descendants Alan Breck had better be omitted, Duncan Bain Stewart in Achenderach his father was a bastard.

32One 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.

33In the midst of receipts for Rabbits and Chickens Mumbled, Pickled Samphire, Skirret Pie, Baked Tansy, and other forgotten delicacies, there were directions for the preparation of several lotions for the preservation of beauty.

34One of these was so charming that I interrupted my husband to read it aloud.

35Just what I wanted!

36He exclaimed, and the receipt for the Lily of the Valley Water was instantly incorporated into Kidnapped.

37Signed, F.

38V.

39D.

40E.

41G.

42S.

43Dedication long to justify one point and own another indefensible.

44It is more honest to confess at once how little I am touched by the desire of accuracy.

45This is no furniture for the scholar's library, but a book for the winter evening schoolroom, when the tasks are over and the hour for bed draws near.

46An honest Alan, who was a grim old fire-eater in his day, 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 the highlands and the last century, and pack him to bed with some engaging images to mingle with his dreams.

47As for you, my dear Charles, I do not even ask you to like this tale.

48But perhaps when he is older, your son will.

49He may then be pleased to find his father's name on the fly-leaf.

50And in the meanwhile it pleases me to set it there, in memory of many days that were happy, and some, now perhaps as pleasant to remember, that were sad.

51It 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 to-morrow 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 close where that great society, the L.J.R., held its meetings and drank its beer, sitting in the seats of Burns and his companions.

52I 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.

53How, in the interval of present business, the past must echo in your memory.

54Let it not echo often without some kind thoughts of your friend, Robert Louis Stevenson, signed in Scary Boar, Bournemouth.

55And now a disclaimer.

56Your reader is an American.

57I'm sorry.

58I will do my absolute level best to pronounce the Scots words accurately and the names as well, but I cannot promise that they are accurate.

59Neither can I pretend to a highland or a lowland Scots accent.

60I will make some kind of an attempt, but please bear with me when I fall short.

61Thank you and good listening.