This is a timeline of events in Kidnapped, together with an explanation of how I worked out the dates.
Robert Louis Stevenson's father originally intended that his son should follow his own profession, lighthouse engineering, and was disappointed when Louis chose instead to pursue a literary life. However, RLS made the right decision in not becoming an engineer; as an inspection of the text of Kidnapped reveals, he could not do maths.
Working all this out was therefore just a little bit tricky; argument and criticism of the reasoning detailed here is very welcome!
All dates are given in Old Style, that is, according to the Julian calendar used in Britain at the time the book takes place. These dates are 11 days behind those of the New Style or Gregorian calendar in use now—so, for example, 1 June 1751 would be 12 June in today’s calendar. Britain switched to the Gregorian calendar and New Style dates in 1752, but most other European countries had been using them for some time before then; see here for more details.
| I. | The timeline | |
| II. | Explanation of the timeline | |
| 1. | The evidence, chapter by chapter | |
| 2. | The reasoning | |
| III. | Some commentary on historical dates | |
Apart from David's birth and the Jacobite risings, events during this period cannot be dated exactly; in each case I've made my best guess within the plausible range given by canon.
Mid-late 1690s: Alexander and, a few years later, Ebenezer Balfour born.
1715: Ebenezer runs off to fight in the Jacobite rising, and Alexander goes after him and brings him back.
c. 1716: Alan is born.
c. 1726: Alexander and Ebenezer both fall in love with Grace Pitarrow. Drama follows; in the end Alexander and Grace marry and settle in Essendean, leaving Shaws to Ebenezer.
12 March 1733 or 12 March 1734, depending on the edition: David is born.
Some time between the early 1730s and 1745: Alan enlists in the British Army.
1745 to 1746: The '45 happens. Alan deserts and switches sides at the battle of Prestonpans in September 1745, subsequently fighting in the Jacobite Army; sometime in the summer or early autumn of 1746 he escapes to France.
Early 1751: Grace dies.
Mid-May 1751: Alexander dies.
In this section, covering the first four days of the book, canon does not provide exact dates. I've made my best guess within the plausible range; the earliest possible dates are 1-4 June and the latest possible about a week later than that.
Monday 3 June 1751: Chapter 1. David leaves Essendean.
Tuesday 4 June: Chapter 2 and the first part of chapter 3. David arrives in Cramond, reaches the house of Shaws and meets Ebenezer.
Wednesday 5 June: Chapter 3 continues, chapter 4. David and Ebenezer argue, and David agrees to stay at the house of Shaws; he discovers the book his father gave his uncle; Ebenezer gives him money; that night Ebenezer sends David up the tower.
Thursday 6 June: Chapters 5 and 6. Ransome arrives at Shaws, and David and Ebenezer go to Queensferry; David goes to the inn and talks to the landlord; David is tricked on board the ship. The kidnapping.
This section can be dated exactly from canon. Although there are several problems with these dates, there are no definite contradictions and I don't think there are reasonable grounds to change any of them.
Sunday 16 to Monday 17 June: Chapter 8 begins during the evening or night of the 16th; the time is variable, so the following events may be during the night of the 16th or the early hours of the 17th. Shuan murders Ransome, and David takes up his new duties in the round-house.
Tuesday 18 June: Chapter 8 continues. David speaks to Shuan about Ransome.
Tuesday 18 to Wednesday 26 June: End of chapter 8 and beginning of chapter 9 summarise events during this period.
Wednesday 26 June: Chapter 9. The brig collides with the boat; Alan comes on board and speaks to Hoseason and David; the sailors plot to kill Alan, David warns him, they prepare for the siege of the round-house.
Wednesday 26 June, into the early hours of Thursday 27: Chapter 10. The siege of the round-house.
Thursday 27 June: Chapter 10 continues, chapters 11, 12 and 13. After the fight David and Alan keep watch by turns. Alan holds the parley with Hoseason in the morning. Alan and David talk and tell each other their stories, and David learns about the Highland situation and the Red Fox. Late at night, the brig is wrecked; David goes overboard and swims to Earraid.
Friday 28 June: Chapter 14 begins. David arrives on Earraid half an hour after midnight. In the day he investigates the island and finds escape impossible. Alan and the surviving sailors get ashore on Mull, where they fight, and Alan escapes; first Alan, and later the sailors, visit the house where David later stays.
Saturday 29 June: Chapter 14 continues. David on Earraid; he explores more of the island, and settles upon the bay looking towards Iona as his base.
Sunday 30 June: Chapter 14 continues. David on Earraid; he realises his money is lost, and sees the fishers in their boat.
Monday 1 July: Chapter 14 continues. David on Earraid; the fishers return and tell him that the island is tidal; he crosses to Mull and reaches the old man's house.
Tuesday 2 July: Chapter 15 begins. David sets out across Mull about noon; about eight at night he gets to the house of the man with the financially flexible English, who agrees to be his guide.
Wednesday 3 July: Chapter 15 continues. David and his guide go to Hector Maclean's house, where they spend the night.
Thursday 4 July: Chapter 15 continues. David breaks with his guide, meets and parts from the blind catechist, and finally gets to Torosay, where he spends the night.
Friday 5 July: Chapter 16 begins. David crosses on the ferry to Kinlochaline, where he stays that night.
Saturday 6 July: Chapter 16 continues. David meets Mr Henderland, and stays at his house that night.
Sunday 7 July: Chapters 17, 18 and 19. David crosses the Linnhe Loch to Lettermore. Here he witnesses the murder of Colin Campbell, and reunites with Alan. David and Alan reach Aucharn about 10.30pm, and set off on their journey soon afterwards.
Monday 8 July: Chapter 20 and the beginning of chapter 21. David and Alan reach Glencoe, where they hide atop the rocks during the day; they come down about 2pm, rest at the burn, and set off again as night falls. They reach Corrynakiegh during the night.
Tuesday 9 July: Chapter 21 continues. Alan and David at Corrynakiegh; Alan makes the cross for John Breck, and delivers it that night.
Wednesday 10 July: Chapter 21 continues. Alan and David at Corrynakiegh; John Breck arrives about 12pm, and Alan sends him with the message for James.
Thursday 11 to Friday 12 July: Chapter 21 continues. Alan and David at Corrynakiegh.
Saturday 13 July: Chapter 21 continues. Alan and David at Corrynakiegh; John Breck returns about 5pm, and Alan and David set off again immediately after their conversation with him.
Sunday 14 July: Chapter 22 begins. David and Alan reach the moor in the early morning and begin crossing; they stop to sleep about 12pm; after David oversleeps, they set off again in the afternoon and keep going into the night.
Monday 15 July: Chapter 22 continues, chapter 23 begins. David and Alan are ambushed by Cluny's men and taken to the Cage, where Cluny and Alan begin their card game.
Tuesday 16 July: Chapter 23 continues. The card game starts to go Cluny's way, while David lies ill; Alan asks for his 'loan'.
Wednesday 17 July: Chapter 23 continues, chapter 24 begins. David discovers Alan's loss of their money. They set out from Cluny's Cage, and cross Loch Ericht that night.
Thursday 18 July: Chapter 24 continues. David and Alan cross Loch Rannoch at dusk.
Friday 19 July: Chapter 24 continues. David and Alan travel on from Loch Rannoch, scarcely speaking.
Saturday 20 July, possibly continuing into the early hours of Sunday 21st: Chapter 24 continues, beginning of chapter 25. David and Alan reach Balquhidder on the night of the 20th. They quarrel, attempt to duel and reconcile. They reach Duncan Dhu's house.
Sunday 21 July to Monday 19 August: Chapter 25 continues. Alan and David in Balquhidder. David is ill in bed for no more than the first week (to 28 July), and Robin Oig's visit takes place during this time.
From this point onwards canon provides two contradictory exact datings. I've picked the one I think is most plausible; the alternative would put all events one day earlier.
Tuesday 20 August: Chapter 26 begins. David and Alan leave Duncan Dhu's house in the evening, travelling by night.
Wednesday 21 August: Chapter 26 continues. David and Alan stay during the day at Duncan's friend's house in Strathire, then travel at night again.
Thursday 22 August: Chapter 26 continues. David and Alan sleep during the day on the hillside in Uam Var, and again travel at night, reaching Allan Water.
Friday 23 August: Chapter 26 continues. David and Alan spend the day on the islet near Stirling; that night they make their failed attempt to cross Stirling Brig, and then set out eastwards.
Saturday 24 August: Chapter 26 continues. David and Alan reach Limekilns and meet the lass at the change-house; they hide in the wood all day, and she returns to ferry them across Forth after 11pm.
Sunday 25 August: Chapters 27, 28 and 29. David reaches Queensferry and meets Mr Rankeillor; they set off for the house of Shaws, picking up Alan along the way, that evening, and carry out their scheme when they arrive. Following successful negotiations with Ebenezer, they sleep that night at Shaws.
Monday 26 August: Chapter 30. Alan and David part at Rest-and-be-Thankful.
Between 1783 and 1787: David writes Kidnapped.
There are five exact calendar dates given in the text of Kidnapped; every single one of them is, if not actually incompatible with the others, at least seriously difficult to reconcile with other information given, of which there is quite a lot. Therefore this section is just a little bit of a tl;dr.
Chapter 1: The book opens on 'a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of grace 1751'. Mr Campbell tells David that he can reach Cramond in 'two days of walk'. David is either sixteen or seventeen, depending on the edition. David's parents are recently deceased, and Mr Campbell refers to 'when your mother was gone, and your father… began to sicken'.
Chapter 2: David first sees Edinburgh 'on the forenoon of the second day'; he reaches Cramond in the evening, and 'night had begun to fall' by the time he gets to the house of Shaws.
Chapter 3: Takes place overnight to the next morning. Ebenezer says 'there's a fine moon', but David thinks there's none. David judges that the room where he sleeps has been neglected for 'ten years… or perhaps twenty'. Ebenezer's age is 'between fifty and seventy'. Alexander died 'three weeks' ago.
Chapter 4: Takes place the same day; David goes up the tower that night. Alexander is sufficiently older than Ebenezer to have written 'an excellent, clear, manly hand' at the time of Ebenezer's fifth birthday, but close enough in age that Ebenezer 'could read as soon as he could'.
Chapter 5: The next morning.
Chapter 6: The same day.
Chapter 7: David has 'no measure of time' during his ordeal in the ship's hold; but it seems not to have been a hugely long time, and I would guess that when he wakes in the forecastle the 'daylight' he sees is that of the next day. After that he remains in the forecastle for 'many days', interrupting our nice relative dating. Narrator!David refers to 'the rebellion of the colonies and the formation of the United States'.
Chapter 8: Begins 'one night, about X o'clock'—where X is either 'nine', 'eleven' or 'twelve' depending on the edition—with Ransome's murder and David's promotion to cabin boy. David speaks to Shuan about Ransome on his 'second day' in the round-house; after that 'the days came and went'.
Chapter 9: 'More than a week went by'; the collision takes place 'about ten at night' following 'the tenth afternoon' (after David's promotion to the round-house), and the rest of the chapter that same night.
Chapter 10: The siege of the round-house is the same night, and the chapter continues to the next morning: by the end of two three-hour watches it's 'broad day'.
Chapter 11: The same morning.
Chapter 12: The same day.
Chapter 13: Begins 'already late at night, and as dark as it ever would be at that season' the same day, after which the brig is wrecked and David swims to Earraid.
Chapter 14: David arrives on Earraid at 'half-past twelve in the morning'. He describes the first two days on Earraid; on the third day he sees the fishers; on the fourth day they come back, he learns the island is tidal and he crosses to Mull. Finally he confirms he was on Earraid for 'close upon one hundred hours'; he's overestimating—actually he was there for three full days, counting from midnight to midnight, and not more than sixteen hours of the fourth, which is 88 hours in total maximum—but it's not so far out as to suggest a problem with these dates.
Chapter 15: David gets to the house on Mull 'about five or six at night' the same day, and learns that Alan and the other survivors from the brig were there 'the day after' the shipwreck. David sets off 'near noon of the next day'; 'about eight at night' he reaches the house of the man with the financially flexible English, where he stays the night. The next morning they go to Hector Maclean's house and stay the rest of the day and night. David confirms that the next day is 'the fourth of my travels'; this day he breaks with his guide, meets the blind catechist and finally gets to Torosay, where he spends the night. Finally he confirms again that he took 'four days' to cross Mull (he starts counting the day he left Earraid).
Chapter 16: David crosses to Kinlochaline; there is a 'regular ferry'; he doesn't say how much time has passed before the next ferry, but I think we can assume it's the next day—see discussion below. He stays there that night, and the next day meets Mr Henderland and stays with him.
Chapter 17: The next day David crosses to Lettermore, witnesses the murder and reunites with Alan.
Chapter 18: Alan and David's conversation in the wood of Lettermore follows immediately; Alan describes how he got away from the sailors after the shipwreck. They set off for Aucharn.
Chapter 19: They reach Aucharn 'about half-past ten' at night, and set off again soon afterwards.
Chapter 20: David and Alan arrive in (what's probably) Glencoe around daybreak, stay on the rock until 2pm, leave after 'an hour or two', stop again at the burn, and finally set off again as night falls.
Chapter 21: It's now 'the beginning of July' and 'still dark' when they reach Corrynakiegh; here they stay 'five days'. Alan makes the message for John Breck on 'our first morning' and delivers it that night; John arrives 'about noon' the next day; he is 'three full days gone' and returns 'about five in the evening of the third', whereupon Alan and David set off again.
Chapter 22: After 'more than eleven hours' they reach the moor 'early in the morning' and begin crossing, stopping to sleep 'about noon'; David oversleeps, and they set off again that afternoon and into the night. It is 'still early in July'. Cluny's men ambush them the next morning.
Chapter 23: They reach Cluny's Cage the same day. The card game begins that day, and starts to go Cluny's way 'on the second day', when David is woken up 'about noon'; David then wakes again 'on the morning of the third day, when we had been forty-eight hours in the Cage', and their departure is planned for later that day. Narrator!David refers to Charles Edward Stuart in the present tense: 'the fault [alcoholism] that has since, by all accounts, made such a wreck of him…'
Chapter 24: David and Alan cross Loch Ericht 'under cover of night' and Loch Rannoch 'in the dusk of the next day'. They then go on travelling 'for the best part of three nights', and David reports their conversation on 'the second night, or rather the peep of the third day'; the final quarrel is on 'the third night'.
Chapter 25: David is in bed ill 'for no more than a week', and they leave Balquhidder 'before a month' is out. There's no statement of when during this time Robin Oig's visit happens, but David is still in bed when he arrives, suggesting it's during the first week.
Chapter 26. At the time they leave Balquhidder it's 'already far through August'; 'the first night' of the journey is followed by 'the twenty-first of the month', which they spend at Duncan's friend's house at Strathire (I've no idea why David suddenly starts giving us exact calendar dates in this passage; it's the only time in the book that he does); 'the twenty-second' they sleep on the hillside in Uam Var; 'that night' they reach Allan Water and Stirling, where they spend the next day on the islet; the failed attempt at crossing by the bridge is that night, and they then spend 'all night' walking east; 'about ten in the morning' they reach Limekilns and meet the lass at the change-house; they wait in the wood all day and 'past eleven' that night she ferries them across the Forth; they spend the rest of the night 'lying in a den on the seashore'.
Chapter 27: 'The next day' David goes to Queensferry. Mr Rankeillor tells us that 'the brig was lost on June the 27th… and we are now at August the 24th'. Mr Campbell visited Mr Rankeillor on the day of the shipwreck, and some time after that Hoseason returned to Queensferry with the news that David was drowned. David gives his date of birth as 12 March of either 1734 or 1733 depending on the edition; the former date would make him seventeen now, the latter eighteen.
Chapter 28: The visit to Mr Rankeillor continues the same day; David, Rankeillor and Torrance meet Alan and set off for the Shaws that evening. Ebenezer was old enough in 1715 to go and fight in the Jacobite rising of that year; the love triangle was in 'August, the same year I [Rankeillor] came from college'; Ebenezer has 'taken root' at Shaws for 'a quarter of a century'.
Chapter 29: Follows immediately; David, Alan, Rankeillor and Torrance all sleep that night at Shaws.
Chapter 30: The next morning.
All quotes are from the 1994 Penguin Classics edition; one thing I have not done is checked whether any of this information differs between editions, apart from the details I've already noted.
There are no days of the week in the book. I've obtained these from timeanddate.com (which, to anticipate one potential problem, does account for the calendar change in 1752). They both help to solve, and create, problems with the timeline for one major reason: with eighteenth-century Scottish Presbyterians who take the Sabbath seriously, we'd generally expect to know if it was Sunday. Maybe not on a random day when David is on the run, but if we see characters at work, the world in general seems to be doing everyday business and there's no mention of church services—especially when minister characters are involved—it's probably not Sunday.
Most of the book's events are clearly dated relative to each other. There are two definite exceptions:
As mentioned above, it's possible that the relative dating also fails at the beginning of chapter 16, when David takes the ferry from Torosay to Kinlochaline. To begin with, I think this is unlikely simply because there's no explicit indication of more than one day passing here, and everywhere else in the book David either tells us exactly how much time has passed or makes it clear when an indefinite period of time passes. We'll assume for now that the departure from Torosay is the day after the arrival.
There are five exact, absolute calendar dates:
There are also some inexact absolute dates:
Unfortunately, these all get a bit difficult to reconcile with each other…
The two failures of relative dating split the present-day action of the book into three periods.
Part I. From the beginning of the book to the kidnapping.
Part II. From Ransome's murder to the arrival in Balquhidder.
Part III. From the departure from Balquhidder to the end of the book.
There's also the backstory, and the (surprisingly well-specified!) historical future from which David is narrating. Immediately we can see that none of our exact absolute dates fall in Part I; so we start working out absolute dates in Part II, using the one date there: 27 June for the shipwreck. Ransome's murder is eleven days before this, on 16 June; the arrival in Balquhidder is twenty-three days after, 20 July.
At this point several problems become apparent:
The first problem could be solved by introducing more time at Torosay—if the ferry was two days after David's arrival rather than one, then the murder would be on a Monday, etc. However, this would exacerbate the second two problems! With the relative dates given, it's impossible for the 'beginning of July' to be earlier than the 8th or 'still early in July' earlier than the 14th, and we want to avoid making those mismatches worse. There's one other option: the shipwreck took place around midnight, so it's just possible that 27 June might be the day following (when everyone washed up on shore and started talking about the shipwreck) rather than the day preceding it. However, this causes other problems later on.
Right, now we can return to Part I, given that Part II begins with Ransome's murder on 16 June.
Obviously the earliest possible date for day 1 of Part I is 1 June, which would place the kidnapping and sailing on 4 June and give twelve days from here to Ransome's murder. How few days can count as 'many days' is a perplexing question, but I think it's probably not much less than a week; that would make the latest feasible date for the kidnapping 9 June, and hence for day 1, 6 June.
I have not considered plausible amounts of time for the distance covered by the ship, which could help with this; if any more nautically knowledgeable fans would like to weigh in on this, please do.
Here we can use the Sabbatarian argument. 2 June 1751 was a Sunday; there's no indication that either day 1 or day 2 falls on a Sunday and Mr Campbell would have let us know if they did, so they probably don't. Therefore we can eliminate 1 and 2 June for day 1. This argument also applies to day 4—Mr Rankeillor and Captain Hoseason are at work and the inn is open—which eliminates 6 June for day 1, and places it more precisely between Monday 3rd and Wednesday 5th.
One more thing that might help is the moon in chapter 3. Ebenezer thinks there's plenty of moonlight but David says there is none, and if Ebenezer isn't talking total nonsense (a definite possibility, mind), the most likely explanation is that the moon is reasonably near the full but it's cloudy (David also says there's no starlight). Helpfully, timeanddate.com also gives phases of the moon; there was a full moon on 29 May and the following half moon was 5 June, so this would argue for an earlier date.
While I don't think we can be exactly sure, my best estimate for the date of the book's opening is therefore Monday 3 June.
Right, now let's look at Part III.
Here we have a wealth of dates—three whole numbers—and the only problem is that they're blatantly incompatible. The first day after David and Alan leave Balquhidder, when they sleep at Strathire, is 21 August, and David's conversation with Mr Rankeillor at Queensferry is 24 August, and yet these events are definitely four days apart, not three (Strathire, Uam Var, Allan Water/Stirling, Limekilns and Queensferry are all on different days).
Can this be resolved using the Sabbatarian argument?
No! Trying to work out the Sundays makes it even worse! 25 August 1751 was a Sunday, and depending on which of the contradictory dates we listen to this is either the day of David's meeting with Rankeillor or the next day, the last day of the book's action. Neither of those days makes much sense as a Sunday: on the first Rankeillor is doing his legal business—and before meeting him David describes early morning in Queensferry, the town waking up and beginning to go about its business, but not apparently to church—and on the second Rankeillor sends David to the bank in Edinburgh to get money to help Alan escape the country. I think if we have to choose, the second is more implausible—the bank just wouldn't be open on a Sunday, whereas Rankeillor might be willing to have an informal legal chat on a day when he wouldn't normally be working—but I don't like it.
Here we must also return to the problem of the 'beginning of July' being on the 8th and 'early in July' on the 14th. With the dates worked out above, the stay in Balquhidder lasts one day less than a month (21 July to 20 August; or to 19 August if we take the earlier, more problematic set of dates for Part III), and we know it's less than a month. This leaves no room to make previous events earlier—whether by supposing that 27 June is actually the day after the shipwreck, or by any other means. Therefore I think our only option at this point is to suppose that those 'beginning' and 'early' references were approximate and ignore them.
Two historical clues allow us to date the in-universe composition of the book. David refers in chapter 7 to the American War of Independence and 'the formation of the United States'; it's therefore certainly after the US declared independence, in 1776, and the definiteness of that latter statement means it's most probably after they won the war, in 1783. In chapter 23 he refers to Charles Edward Stuart in the present tense, implying that he's still alive; Charles died in January 1788. This dates the writing of Kidnapped fairly precisely to the mid-1780s, when David would be in his early fifties.
As for the backstory…
Alexander had grown-up-looking handwriting when Ebenezer was five, but learnt to read no sooner than Ebenezer (though the second fact comes only from Ebenezer's not necessarily reliable statement). I would estimate the age gap between them at four or five years. Ebenezer's being between fifty and seventy when David first meets him puts his date of birth sometime in the 1680s or 1690s. The earlier end of that range would make Alexander an unusually (though not implausibly) old first-time dad to David, born in 1733 or 1734; and Ebenezer's rash running off to join the Jacobites in the '15 seems like the behaviour of a very young man, so I would put Ebenezer's date of birth in the mid-late 1690s and Alexander's a few years earlier.
The latest possible date for the Grace affair, which came to a head in August some time before Grace and Alexander's marriage, would be the next year but one before David's birth in March, i.e. 1731 or 1732 depending on edition. The earliest possible date would presumably be 1716. Mr Rankeillor's statement that Ebenezer has been in charge at Shaws for 'a quarter of a century' if interpreted literally would put it comfortably in the middle of that range in 1726; it's clearly not a literally exact statement, but is as good an estimate as we get, and it corresponds fairly well with the other clues available. David guesses in chapter 3 that his room at Shaws has been neglected for ten or twenty years; presumably Ebenezer didn't make an immediate start on turning the house into a ruin, and it can't have been fewer years than David's age anyway. It would put the brothers in their late twenties-early thirties, and I think this also corresponds with Rankeillor's statement that it happened 'the year I came from college'; he would then be in his early twenties, and his being a few years younger than Ebenezer accords well with his description of his own envy of the handsome, dashing young Ebenezer.
David's date of birth is either 12 March 1733 or 12 March 1734 depending on the edition—though this contradicts his stated age in chapter 1, so in the editions where his age is given as sixteen you could argue that his date of birth should be 12 March 1735.
The only indication of Alan's age is his description in the government bill as 'thirty-five or thereby', which puts his date of birth around 1716. I don't think anything else about Alan's backstory can be dated precisely, other than the obvious occurrence of the '45 in '45.
The text of Kidnapped deliberately contradicts the timeline of real history in two points: the date of the Appin murder, and the age of Al(l)an Breck Stewart.
Historically, Colin Campbell of Glenure was murdered on Thursday 14 May 1752. Stevenson acknowledges in the ‘Dedication’ that Kidnapped contradicts this, so we may accept that it was deliberate, though he doesn’t provide a reason:
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...
As D. K. Broster points out in ‘The House of Secrets’, the historical Allan Breck Stewart (the two-L spelling is usual, and I use it to distinguish him from the fictional Alan) was about thirty at the time of the Appin murder (and thus about 29 in 1751), rather than ‘thirty-five or thereby’. It’s less clear that this was deliberate, but I think Broster was probably right in supposing that it was. The evidence for Allan’s age, as detailed by Seamus Carney in The Killing of the Red Fox, is 1) a description of him circulated after the murder which includes the words ‘about Thirty years of age’, and 2) the record of his enlistment in the French army, which describes him as ‘aged 26 years’ in January 1749. Stevenson may not have known of the latter, but almost certainly would have known of the former, since it’s one of the descriptions on which the Government bill appearing in Kidnapped is based. Incidentally, both these sources and other descriptions of Allan give his height as about five feet ten inches, so Stevenson had already departed from the historical information in one detail and might have decided to do so in others too.