How It All Goes Down
Conversations with a Lawyer
- When Part 3 (On the Road) begins, Claire rides alongside Ned Gowan, a lawyer who joined clan Mackenzie because he thirsts for adventure.
- He's also kind of a gossip, telling Claire some of Jamie's family history.
- At night, they stop at a pub. Dougal makes a dramatic speech and then tears Jamie's shirt off, exposing the scars on his back.
- This rouses the patrons to throw their money on the table, and Claire realizes that Dougal is a Jacobite: "supporter of the Young Pretender [Bonnie Prince Charlie] against the lawful occupant of the throne of England, George II" (11.65).
- In other words: He's kind of a bad guy.
- Claire confronts Dougal for exposing Jamie against his will, but Dougal is less than sympathetic.
- She later overhears Dougal and Jamie arguing—Jamie is furious that Dougal is going behind Colum's back and collecting money for Jacobite causes.
- Their travels continue unchanged—inn, speech, stripping Jamie, collecting money—until one night a patron at the pub mouths off and Jamie beats him up.
- Jamie takes a few blows in the barroom brawl, so Claire stitches him up yet again.
- While repairing Jamie's body, Claire learns that Jamie has planned a secret rendezvous with a man named Horrocks, a man who knows who really shot the man Jamie was arrested for. Perhaps he can clear his name.