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Reading books adventure Nowadays a big variety of genres are exist. In our electronic library you can choose any book that suits your mood, request and purpose. This website is full of free ebooks. Reading online is very popular and become mainstream. This website can provoke you to be smarter than anyone. You can read between work breaks, in public transport, in cafes over a cup of coffee and cheesecake.
No matter where, but it’s important to read books in our elibrary , without registration.



Today let's analyze the genre adventure. Genre adventure is a reference book for adults and children. But it serve for adults and children in different purposes. If a boy or girl presents himself as a brave and courageous hero, doing noble deeds, then an adult with pleasure can be a little distracted from their daily worries.


A great interest to the reader is the adventure of a historical nature. For example, question: «Who discovered America?»
Today there are quite interesting descriptions of the adventures of Portuguese sailors, who visited this continent 20 years before Columbus.




It should be noted the different quality of literary works created in the genre of adventure. There is an understandable interest of generations of people in the classic adventure. At the same time, new works, which are created by contemporary authors, make classic works in the adventure genre quite worthy competition.
The close attention of readers to the genre of adventure is explained by the very essence of man, which involves constant movement, striving for something new, struggle and achievement of success. Adventure genre is very excited
Heroes of adventure books are always strong and brave. And we, off course, want to be like them. Unfortunately, book life is very different from real life.But that doesn't stop us from loving books even more.

Read books online » Adventure » Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (the rosie project .txt) 📖

Book online «Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (the rosie project .txt) 📖». Author Robert Louis Stevenson



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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: Kidnapped

Author: Robert Louis Stevenson

Release Date: January 16, 2006 [EBook #421]
Last Updated: December 25, 2018

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KIDNAPPED ***




Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger







KIDNAPPED By Robert Louis Stevenson


Illustrated by Louis Rhead





BEING
MEMOIRS OF THE ADVENTURES OF
DAVID BALFOUR
IN THE YEAR 1751
HOW HE WAS KIDNAPPED AND CAST AWAY; HIS SUFFERINGS IN
A DESERT ISLE; HIS JOURNEY IN THE WILD HIGHLANDS;
HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH ALAN BRECK STEWART
AND OTHER NOTORIOUS HIGHLAND JACOBITES;
WITH ALL THAT HE SUFFERED AT THE
HANDS OF HIS UNCLE, EBENEZER
BALFOUR OF SHAWS, FALSELY
SO CALLED

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF AND NOW SET FORTH BY
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
WITH A PREFACE BY MRS. STEVENSON
0010m
0011m



0013m

PREFACE TO THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION

DEDICATION

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII  

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX I SET OFF UPON MY JOURNEY TO THE HOUSE OF SHAWS

I COME TO MY JOURNEY’S END

I MAKE ACQUAINTANCE OF MY UNCLE

I RUN A GREAT DANGER IN THE HOUSE OF SHAWS

I GO TO THE QUEEN’S FERRY

WHAT BEFELL AT THE QUEEN’S FERRY

I GO TO SEA IN THE BRIG “COVENANT” OF DYSART

THE ROUND-HOUSE

THE MAN WITH THE BELT OF GOLD

THE SIEGE OF THE ROUND-HOUSE

THE CAPTAIN KNUCKLES UNDER

I HEAR OF THE “RED FOX”

THE LOSS OF THE BRIG

THE ISLET

THE LAD WITH THE SILVER BUTTON: THROUGH THE ISLE OF MULL

THE LAD WITH THE SILVER BUTTON: ACROSS MORVEN

THE DEATH OF THE RED FOX

TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD OF LETTERMORE

THE HOUSE OF FEAR

THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE ROCKS

THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE HEUGH OF CORRYNAKIEGH

THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE MOOR

CLUNY’S CAGE

THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER

THE QUARREL IN BALQUHIDDER

END OF THE FLIGHT: WE PASS THE FORTH

I COME TO MR. RANKEILLOR

I GO IN QUEST OF MY INHERITANCE

I COME INTO MY KINGDOM

GOOD-BYE



0015m
0016m







PREFACE TO THE BIOGRAPHICAL EDITION

While my husband and Mr. Henley were engaged in writing plays in Bournemouth they made a number of titles, hoping to use them in the future. Dramatic composition was not what my husband preferred, but the torrent of Mr. Henley’s enthusiasm swept him off his feet. However, after several plays had been finished, and his health seriously impaired by his endeavours to keep up with Mr. Henley, play writing was abandoned forever, and my husband returned to his legitimate vocation. Having 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.

As I wanted a trial scene in the Old Bailey, I chose the period of 1700 for my purpose; but being shamefully ignorant of my subject, and my husband confessing to little more knowledge than I possessed, a London bookseller was commissioned to send us everything he could procure bearing on Old Bailey trials. A great package came in response to our order, and very soon we were both absorbed, not so much in the trials as in following the brilliant career of a Mr. Garrow, who appeared as counsel in many of the cases. We sent for more books, and yet more, still intent on Mr. Garrow, whose subtle cross-examination of witnesses and masterly, if sometimes startling, methods of arriving at the truth seemed more thrilling to us than any novel.

Occasionally other trials than those of the Old Bailey would be included in the package of books we received from London; among these my husband found and read with avidity:—

THE,
TRIAL
OF
JAMES STEWART
in Aucharn in Duror of Appin
FOR THE
Murder of COLIN CAMPBELL of Glenure, Efq;
Factor for His Majefty on the forfeited
Estate of Ardfhiel.

My 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 Appin murder. The 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. From the trial of James Stewart my husband gleaned much valuable material for his novel, the most important being the character of Alan Breck. Aside from having described him as “smallish in stature,” my husband seems to have taken Alan Breck’s personal appearance, even to his clothing, from the book.

A letter from James Stewart to Mr. John Macfarlane, introduced as evidence in the trial, says: “There is one Alan Stewart, a distant friend of the late Ardshiel’s, 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. He is a desperate foolish fellow; and if he is guilty, came to the country for that very purpose. He 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 colour.” A 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 coloured,” a costume referred to by one of the counsel as “French cloathes which were remarkable.”

There are many incidents given in the trial that point to Alan’s fiery spirit and Highland quickness to take offence. One witness “declared also That the said Alan Breck threatened that he would challenge Ballieveolan and his sons to fight because of his removing the declarant last year from Glenduror.” On another page: “Duncan Campbell, change-keeper at Annat, aged thirty-five years, married, witness cited, sworn, purged and examined ut supra, depones, That, in the month of April last, the deponent met with Alan Breck Stewart, with whom he was not acquainted, and John Stewart, in Auchnacoan, in the house of the walk miller of Auchofragan, and went on with them to the house: Alan Breck Stewart said, that he hated all the name of Campbell; and the deponent said, he had no reason for doing so: But 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 Breck renewed the former Conversation; and 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 Ardshiel’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.”

Some time after the publication of Kidnapped we stopped for a short while in the Appin country, where we were surprised and interested to discover that the feeling concerning the murder of Glenure (the “Red Fox,” also called “Colin Roy”) was almost as keen as though the tragedy had taken place the day before. For several years my husband received letters of expostulation or commendation from members of the Campbell and Stewart clans. I have in my possession a paper, yellow with age, that was sent soon after the novel appeared, containing “The Pedigree of the Family of Appine,” wherein it is said that “Alan 3rd Baron of Appine was not killed at Flowdoun, tho there, but lived to a great old age. He married Cameron Daughter to Ewen Cameron of Lochiel.” Following this is a paragraph stating that “John Stewart 1st of Ardsheall of his descendants Alan Breck had better be omitted. Duncan Baan Stewart in Achindarroch his father was a Bastard.”

One day, while my husband was busily at work, I sat beside him reading an old cookery book called The Compleat Housewife: or Accomplish’d Gentlewoman’s Companion. In the midst of receipts for “Rabbits, and Chickens mumbled, Pickled Samphire, Skirret Pye, Baked Tansy,” and other forgotten delicacies, there were directions for the preparation of several lotions for the preservation of beauty. One of these was so charming that I interrupted my husband to read it aloud. “Just what I wanted!” he exclaimed; and the receipt for the “Lily of the Valley Water” was instantly incorporated into Kidnapped.

F. V. DE G. S.





DEDICATION MY DEAR CHARLES BAXTER:

If you ever read this tale, you will likely ask yourself more questions than I should care to answer: as for instance how the Appin murder has come to fall in the year 1751, how the Torran rocks have crept so near to Earraid, or why the printed trial is silent as to all that touches David Balfour. These are nuts beyond my ability to crack. But if you tried me on the point of Alan’s guilt or innocence, I think I could defend the reading of the text. To this day you will find the tradition of Appin clear in Alan’s favour. If you inquire, you may even hear that the descendants of “the other man” who fired the shot are in the country to this day. But that other man’s name, inquire as you please, you shall not hear; for the Highlander values a secret for itself and for the congenial exercise of keeping it. I might go on for long to justify one point and own another indefensible; it is more honest to confess at once how little I am touched by the desire of accuracy. This is no furniture for the scholar’s library, but a book for the winter evening school-room when the tasks are over and the hour for bed draws near; and 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 awhile into the Highlands and the last century, and pack him to bed with some engaging images to mingle with his dreams.

As for you, my dear Charles, I do not even ask you to like this tale. But perhaps when he is older, your son will; he may then be pleased to find his father’s name on the fly-leaf; and 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. If it 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

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