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Essays in Little by Andrew Lang
page 31 of 209 (14%)
As for the "Black Arrow," I confess to sharing the disabilities of
the "Critic on the Hearth," to whom it is dedicated. "Kidnapped" is
less a story than a fragment; but it is a noble fragment. Setting
aside the wicked old uncle, who in his later behaviour is of the
house of Ralph Nickleby, "Kidnapped" is all excellent--perhaps Mr.
Stevenson's masterpiece. Perhaps, too, only a Scotchman knows how
good it is, and only a Lowland Scot knows how admirable a character
is the dour, brave, conceited David Balfour. It is like being in
Scotland again to come on "the green drive-road running wide through
the heather," where David "took his last look of Kirk Essendean, the
trees about the manse, and the big rowans in the kirkyard, where his
father and mother lay." Perfectly Scotch, too, is the mouldering,
empty house of the Miser, with the stamped leather on the walls.
And the Miser is as good as a Scotch Trapbois, till he becomes
homicidal, and then one fails to recognise him unless he is a little
mad, like that other frantic uncle in "The Merry Men." The scenes
on the ship, with the boy who is murdered, are better--I think more
real--than the scenes of piratical life in "The Master of
Ballantrae." The fight in the Round House, even if it were
exaggerated, would be redeemed by the "Song of the Sword of Alan."
As to Alan Breck himself, with his valour and vanity, his good
heart, his good conceit of himself, his fantastic loyalty, he is
absolutely worthy of the hand that drew Callum Bey and the Dougal
creature. It is just possible that we see, in "Kidnapped," more
signs of determined labour, more evidence of touches and retouches,
than in "Rob Roy." In nothing else which it attempts is it
inferior; in mastery of landscape, as in the scene of the lonely
rock in a dry and thirsty land, it is unsurpassed. If there are
signs of laboured handling on Alan, there are none in the sketches
of Cluny and of Rob Roy's son, the piper. What a generous artist is
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