How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
We slept in the cave, making our bed of heather bushes which we cut for that purpose, and covering ourselves with Alan's great-coat. There was a low concealed place, in a turning of the glen, where we were so bold as to make fire: so that we could warm ourselves when the clouds set in, and cook hot porridge, and grill the little trouts that we caught with our hands under the stones and overhanging banks of the burn. (21.3)
Speaking of the Heugh of Corrynakiegh, here we are, sheltering with Alan and Davie in a cave and eating freshly caught fish. This seems positively luxurious compared to the limpets and periwinkles of Davie's Earraid adventure: where would he be without Alan around to introduce him to the secrets of the Highland landscape?
Quote #8
For though I had changed my clothes, I could not change my age or person; and Lowland boys of eighteen were not so rife in these parts of the world, and above all about that time, that they could fail to put one thing with another, and connect me with the bill. So it was, at least. Other folk keep a secret among two or three near friends, and somehow it leaks out; but among these clansmen, it is told to a whole countryside, and they will keep it for a century. (25.4)
Davie knows that everyone around him is aware that he is wanted by the English. But no one turns him in. Again, there's this overwhelming sense that the Highlands are filled with silence: the land's got its nooks and crannies, and the people will keep their secrets "for a century." What impression of the Highlands do you get from these Stevenson descriptions? Do you feel like Stevenson is portraying Highland customs positively or negatively? Or both? Or neither?
Quote #9
You are to remember that I knew no more of my descent than any cadger's dog; my uncle, to be sure, had prated of some of our high connections, but nothing to the present purpose; and there was nothing left me but that bitter disgrace of owning that I could not tell.
Robin told me shortly he was sorry he had put himself about, turned his back upon me without a sign of salutation, and as he went towards the door, I could hear him telling Duncan that I was "only some kinless loon that didn't know his own father." Angry as I was at these words, and ashamed of my own ignorance, I could scarce keep from smiling that a man who was under the lash of the law (and was indeed hanged some three years later) should be so nice as to the descent of his acquaintances. (25.12-13)
Robin Oig, son of famous outlaw Rob Roy, is as class-conscious in his own way as any lord or lady in a society novel. How do Stevenson's portrayals of Highland noblemen compare to your understanding of the English nobility? What kind of ranks and connections between nobility do these Highlanders have?