First edition 1825
An intriguing novel, with much good to say about it but with some negative aspects as well.
It is, above all, character driven, with a convoluted plot which is untangled rather abruptly at the end.
The hero has more about him than Scott's usual fare - Amherst Oakenwold - a tall handsome person...finely-proportioned figure...luxuriantly curled black hair and whiskers gave shade to his fair, untarnished, yet manly face; as the perfect arch of his ample eyebrows added to the beauty and nobleness of his forehead, and gave fire to his large, full, and intelligent eyes.
Eliza Malcolm (aka the real Delassaux) - all loveliness, gentleness, and grace, her figure rather above middle size for a woman, but soft and delicate in its mould...her hair, radiant as the sun, partly thrown aside from her alabaster forehead, and partly shading it with natural ringlets...her oval countenance, her Grecian nose, her large and melting blue eyes, the regular arch of her eyebrows, her delicate mouth, the extreme clearness and brilliancy of her complexion... No wonder Amherst was smitten. She copes relatively well with the successive torments (including twice being told she is not who she thinks she is) she has to endure and deservedly unites with Amherst at the end. She has more about her than many of Scott's heroine's but usually reacts to, rather than controls, events.
His father, Sir Cable Oakenwold's bluff seaman's approach to life is well described - not a man to stand shilly-shally, or to keep firing round bowls at a distance from the enemy, preferring to pour a broadside into people...
Lord Eaglesholme, Eliza's 'uncle'/'father'/not a relative!, a very Scott-like character, wracked with guilt, yet with a commanding presence; owner of an enormous library, with princeps editions, unique Caxtons, and illuminated manuscripts, all in superb old bindings, and dabbling in chemistry with a table covered with phials, jars, air-pumps, and electrifying machines...; is a fascinating portrayal; as is his Gothic castle - on a broad swelling promontory jutting into the lake...bearing all the appearance of having been calculated for powerful resistance, surrounded by gigantic and grotesquely-twisted fir-trees... One thinks of 'The Pirate' and 'The Bride of Lammermoor'.
The bulky and rather elderly Captain Cleaver, is Amherst's loyal friend and enjoyer of copious amounts of drink and food. He is another character who would be perfectly at home in the Waverley tales.
O'Gollochar, who attaches himself to his new master Amherst like a leech, is a well-drawn, humorous character with a fund of Irish phrases; as is Sir Alisander Sanderson, a fat, ruddy, good-humoured gentleman-like person, and well-rounded character both physically and metaphorically, who provides considerable humour; as does his acquaintance, Julius Caesar Macflae, a spare figure in black velvet breeches, whose tout ensemble bore a strong resemblance to those memento moris who walk before funeral processions, known in Scotland by the name of saulies. Another, splendidly drawn, Bacchanalian associate of Sanderson, is Dr Partenclaw, a little man with a large jowl, pig's eyes, red hooked nose, sack belly, spindle thighs, cased in dirty leather breeches, and limbs bound in a sort or black leather greaves, fastened with iron clasps. Lauder is quite adept at injecting humour: Sir Alisander's party was augmented by the august presence, and illuminated by the rubicund nasal promontory of Dr Partenclaw, who came puffing up to the door some hours before dinner, mounted on a tall, lean, wind-galled horse, that looked like a piece of animated timber. I can see him now!
The villains are also well-drawn: Brandywyn (aka Harrison) a tall, swaggering, sea-faring man...his black curly hair, and his large whiskers and eyebrows, gave uncommon fierceness to features, naturally handsome, had they not been disfigured by an expression of libertinism, mingled with certain touches of depravity...; Antonio the Neapolitan - almost a pantomime baddie, but compelling all the same and who pops up everywhere. Miss Olivia Delassaux, at first fomenting bewitching sensations in Amherst's unpractised mind, soon blots her copybook by unveiling her true unfeeling character (no wonder, as the tale progressed, we read of the no small deterioration of her fortune, as well as of her face); and her aunt, Lady Delassaux, a cold-hearted, intriguing bitch, who rightly gets her comeuppance by finally taking her own poisonous cake!
Then there is the Dwarfie Carline o' the Cove, who first appears on page 10 of Volume I, described as a creature, for human being it could hardly be denominated...was about three feet and a half high, and who regularly pops up in the most unlikely but useful places, for a long time seemed to be a caricature of Scott's unearthly (and often grating) beings. Although all her 'supernatural' exploits are explained towards the end of the tale, she is still too far-fetched a character.
All the above, seemingly, at first, with little to do with each other, are brought together by the end of the third volume. It is a winding track, with too many byways, needing drawn-out explanatory passages. This reader feels a story in two volumes would have been tighter, sharper and more enjoyable.
As for the plotting and coherence of the novel: the first 84 pages are set in the wild, Bacchanalian countryside of Scotland; there is a Chapter introducing the mysterious Captain Brandywyn to the assembled party at Sir Alisander's; it then switches to Sir Cable's Oakenwold Manor in Kent, some time prior to the previous chapters, and introduces Antonio the Neapolitan, Lady Deborah and Miss Olivia Delassaux. Luckily for Amherst, having rumbled the latter's character, he hies away to Scotland with Cleaver and O'Gollachar. and stumbles on the Gothic fortress of Lord Eaglesholme. Here, of course, he meets 'Eliza Malcolm' - the course of true love never did run smooth, and the rest of the volumes are taken up with reinforcing that point. There are the usual clutch of orphans to pull at the reader's heartstrings.
Travelogue? Too many long 'asides', occasioned perhaps to give a full-round characters to the various participants. It only succeeds in drawing attention away from the main plot. The drawn out description of Scottish scenery is a case in point; but the best example is Chapter IX in Volume III. A major weakness in the novel's construction is the author tries to pack in far too much explanatory material. Everything doesn't need to be detailed!
Coincidence is once or twice carried too far, even for a work of fiction. The most obvious examples are, first, the sheer chance that Brandywyn's (now unmasked as a George Harrison from Durham) partially-deranged and cast-off paramour just happens to be in York to see him carted off to jail; and, secondly, the clergyman sent to minister to the prisoner turns out be his long-estranged younger brother Henry. It rivals John Buchan's crashing coincidences or a Gilbert and Sullivan opera!
One of the strangest aspects about the novel is the title. Why call it Lochandhu? The reader first encounters him as Macgillivray, tall, bony, and athletic, appeared to be of middle age...he wore a small gold-laced cocked hat, from beneath which an enormous queue of black hair dangled between his broad shoulders. We soon discover he is in the shady business of smuggling and cattle-running, with a small estate in the Highlands some 50 miles from the coast. However, he is just one of the several secondary players. Why not call the work Oakenwold or Eaglesholme?
Oddments:
The tall, stout, good-looking, but extremely dirty hostess of a run-down public house, Mrs McClaver was ay been unco fond o' the Inglishers ever sin' Captain Clutterbuck lodged wi' me (His creator Scott would be proud!)
Two words I had to learn.
Somerset was also used in the nineteenth century to describe what we know as a somersault.
Megrim, another form of migraine.
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