Catriona E-Book

Robert Louis Stevenson

• Herausgeber: Robert Louis Stevenson
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

"Catriona" (also known as David Balfour) is a novel written in 1893 by Robert Louis Stevenson as a sequel to his earlier novel "Kidnapped".This novel is an ode to love, justice and patriotism. Once again tells the story of David Balfour, a Scottish boy back in possession of its assets. The opera is set in Edinburgh in 1751, when the city was split in two between the Jacobites and the supporters of King George II. David, in this tense climate, help two of his friends to flee from Scotland because accused of murder. Just at this juncture, he meets Catriona Mac Gregor Drummond… 

Leseprobe

Catriona

by

Robert Louis Stevenson

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Dedication.

Part I— The Lord Advocate

A Beggar on Horseback

The Highland Writer

I Go to Pilrig

Lord Advocate Prestongrange

In the Advocate’s House

Umquile the Master of Lovat

I Make a Fault in Honour

The Bravo

The Heather on Fire

The Red-headed Man

The Wood by Silvermills

On the March Again with Alan

Gillane Sands

The Bass

Black Andie’s Tale of Tod Lapraik

The Missing Witness

The Memorial

The Tee’d Ball

I Am Much in the Hands of the Ladies

I Continue to Move in Good Society

Part II— Father and Daughter

The Voyage into Holland

Helvoetsluys

Travels in Holland

Full Story of a Copy of Heineccius

The Return of James More

The Threesome

A Twosome

In which I Am Left Alone

We Meet in Dunkirk.

The Letter from the Ship

Conclusion

Dedication.

TO CHARLES BAXTER, Writer to the Signet.

My Dear Charles,

It is the fate of sequels to disappoint those who have waited for them; and my David, having been left to kick his heels for more than a lustre in the British Linen Company’s office, must expect his late re-appearance to be greeted with hoots, if not with missiles. Yet, when I remember the days of our explorations, I am not without hope. There should be left in our native city some seed of the elect; some long-legged, hot-headed youth must repeat to-day our dreams and wanderings of so many years ago; he will relish the pleasure, which should have been ours, to follow among named streets and numbered houses the country walks of David Balfour, to identify Dean, and Silvermills, and Broughton, and Hope Park, and Pilrig, and poor old Lochend — if it still be standing, and the Figgate Whins — if there be any of them left; or to push (on a long holiday) so far afield as Gillane or the Bass. So, perhaps, his eye shall be opened to behold the series of the generations, and he shall weigh with surprise his momentous and nugatory gift of life.

You are still — as when first I saw, as when I last addressed you — in the venerable city which I must always think of as my home. And I have come so far; and the sights and thoughts of my youth pursue me; and I see like a vision the youth of my father, and of his father, and the whole stream of lives flowing down there far in the north, with the sound of laughter and tears, to cast me out in the end, as by a sudden freshet, on these ultimate islands. And I admire and bow my head before the romance of destiny.

R. L. S. Vailima, Upolu, Samoa, 1892.

Part I— The Lord Advocate

Chapter 1

A Beggar on Horseback

The 25th day of August, 1751, about two in the afternoon, I, David Balfour, came forth of the British Linen Company, a porter attending me with a bag of money, and some of the chief of these merchants bowing me from their doors. Two days before, and even so late as yestermorning, I was like a beggar-man by the wayside, clad in rags, brought down to my last shillings, my companion a condemned traitor, a price set on my own head for a crime with the news of which the country rang. To-day I was served heir to my position in life, a landed laird, a bank porter by me carrying my gold, recommendations in my pocket, and (in the words of the saying) the ball directly at my foot.

There were two circumstances that served me as ballast to so much sail. The first was the very difficult and deadly business I had still to handle; the second, the place that I was in. The tall, black city, and the numbers and movement and noise of so many folk, made a new world for me, after the moorland braes, the sea-sands and the still country-sides that I had frequented up to then. The throng of the citizens in particular abashed me. Rankeillor’s son was short and small in the girth; his clothes scarce held on me; and it was plain I was ill qualified to strut in the front of a bank-porter. It was plain, if I did so, I should but set folk laughing, and (what was worse in my case) set them asking questions. So that I behooved to come by some clothes of my own, and in the meanwhile to walk by the porter’s side, and put my hand on his arm as though we were a pair of friends.