R. L. S.
To Charles Baxter
The following quotes the extract, from Fountainhall’s “Decisions of the Lords of Council, etc.,” which suggested to Stevenson the romance of Cameronian days and the Darien adventure of which, under the title of Heathercat, he only lived to write the first few introductory chapters (see vol. xxi. p. 177, of this edition).
6th December 1893.
“October 25, 1685.—At Privy Council, George Murray, Lieutenant of the King’s Guard, and others, did, on the 21st of September last, obtain a clandestine order of Privy Council to apprehend the person of Janet Pringle, daughter to the late Clifton, and she having retired out of the way upon information, he got an order against Andrew Pringle, her uncle, to produce her.... But she having married Andrew Pringle, her uncle’s son (to disappoint all their designs of selling her), a boy of thirteen years old.” But my boy is to be fourteen, so I extract no further.—Fountainhall, i. 320.
“May 6, 1685.—Wappus Pringle of Clifton was still alive after all, and in prison for debt, and transacts with Lieutenant Murray, giving security for 7000 marks.”—i. 372.
No, it seems to have been her brother who had succeeded.
MY DEAR CHARLES.—The above is my story, and I wonder if any light can be thrown on it. I prefer the girl’s father dead; and the question is, How in that case could Lieutenant George Murray get his order to “apprehend” and his power to “sell” her in marriage?
Or—might Lieutenant G. be her tutor, and she fugitive to the Pringles, and on the discovery of her whereabouts hastily married?