Redgauntlet

Nearing the age of maturity, young Darsie Latimer was pleased with himself indeed. Heir to a decent fortune, he felt no need at all to bother himself with the study of law, a study his friend Alan Fairford was pursuing. Fairford's father was Darsie's guardian, bringing the two boys up together in his austere Edinburgh home. Darsie was feeling the need to break free and travel.

However, there was one major stipulation to Darsie receiving his inheritance; he was not to cross the border into England before his majority, even though he was English by birth. The identity of his parents was unknown to him. It would be revealed later. Naturally, this prompted the undisciplined Darsie to tempt fate and himself with a trip to Dumfries and the show more Solway Firth, with England on its south side.

Things started out calmly enough, as a fishing trip should. The story is told initially through letters between Darsie and Alan. Soon, however, Darsie was engaged in some real life lessons, and then kidnapped. His captivity is the heart of the story.

Quakers and smugglers, sometimes in the same person, wandering musicians, attainted Jacobites in hiding, Covenanters and Catholics, the mysterious and beautiful lady in the Green Mantle, and over it all Redgauntlet - they're all here, the denizens of Alan's new world. Here the law is murky. Not only that, it differs depending upon which side of the border it is being applied. Everything revolved around planning a never realized third Jacobite rebellion, in other words, treason, something it took our apolitical hero some time to realize.

How Darsie and Alan navigated it all, and how everyone fitted in, might seem far fetched at times, but it was lots of fun. There's action aplenty, enough to see echoes later in the works of Stevenson, Blackmore and Buchan.

Scott had said that the Jacobite movements provided a theme "perhaps the finest that could be selected for fictitious composition, founded upon real or probable incident". Redgauntletis the proof. show less

An imaginative tale that is based on a premise that Charles Stewart returns to Britain in the belief sufficient Jacobite support remains for him to mount a renewed rebellion.
A complex plot that is well managed and which introduces colourful romantic characters who suit such high charged circumstances.
The action is conveyed through letters between two young friends who are central to the story, in the initial stages. Later their individual accounts propel the action forward. The location takes place on both sides of the border by Solway Firth in, or about the year, 1765.
A recommended introduction to Walter Scott.

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