Voyager - By Diana Gabaldon

Please discuss Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager ONLY in this thread. Thanks!
The SPOILER Thread can be found here.


PART 6 – Edinburgh
CHAPTER 30 Rendezvous

Heading to Arbroath to meet the French ship, Claire’s entertainment is watching the conflict of wills between the two very stubborn men Jamie and Young Ian, who wants to be involved with the smuggling operation. She thinks about Brianna’s Fraser stubbornness, too. Because the inn where Jamie intended to leave Claire and Ian is now rubble, they have to go along. For the second time, Jamie tells Ian to take care of his auntie (and wants Claire to take care of Ian, too). If anything happens, Ian is to take Claire straight home to Lallybroch.

Although Ian offers to hold the dark lantern, he’d make too big a target, so that is Mr. Willoughby’s job. Jamie is uneasy, but they can’t see anything wrong. Ian and Claire hide in some gorse bushes to watch and when someone approaches, Ian pulls out a pistol. Fortunately, he doesn’t shoot because it turns out to be Jamie. None of the other men are armed because it is a hanging offense to draw a weapon against the King’s Customs, but Ian is young enough that he’d likely be transported instead (not much consolation to Jenny and Ian, though).

As the lantern signaling goes on, excisemen appear out of the sand and Jamie tells his men to run (in Gaelic). They hear Mr. Willoughby scream so Jamie tells Ian and Claire to run and then shoots the lantern out and goes down the cliff.

Ian and Claire reach the road and hear the voices of another couple of excisemen waiting for any smugglers who escape the beach. They also hear that there are more men at the abbey, which is where the men are supposed to meet up if anything goes wrong. Claire sends Ian to the abbey to warn the men and heads to the road to try to distract the excisemen there. She also notes that when he was trying to decide what to do, Ian ran one hand through his hair, much like Jamie does. Ian is like his uncle in many ways.


- I thought it was amusing that Jamie’s stubbornness with respect to keeping Ian out of things reminded Claire so much of Brianna. Why does Claire mention that she considers Ian only half a Fraser when Jamie is half-Fraser, half-MacKenzie and Brianna is half-Fraser, half-Beauchamp with the environmental influence of Randall thrown in? Admittedly, elder Ian is a much calmer, easier-going person – and he’d have to be to be best friends with Jamie and husband to Jenny – but Young Ian is half-Fraser and half-Murray which doesn’t seem to preclude an equal amount of Fraser stubbornness, unless I am missing something.

- I love the growing closeness between Claire and Young Ian. Like when she spontaneously kissed his cheek before he left for the abbey.

- I think Jamie and Young Ian are a lot alike. Aside from their stubbornness and tendency to run a hand through their hair when tense, what other similarities do you see?

- Joey seemed to be Jamie’s lieutenant in this scene. Do we hear more about him later? I can’t remember if we see him again, but since he got mentioned by name I thought maybe we should.

Good point about the half-Fraser bit. LOL!

I think one of the reasons I love Young Ian so much is that I imagine that Jamie was much like him as a teen. Brave, impetuous, but foolish too, full of love, eager to be a man, stubborn, and wanting to be a part of the action.

The instant bonding with his auntie is priceless.

Lisa, I agree about Young Ian. He in so many ways seems more like Jamie's son to me.

Another great summary abl. I love the take care of your auntie comment and the knowledge that it went both ways.

Jamie showed incredible patience in explaining to Ian why he couldn't hold the lantern. He didn't just say no but why so he would learn.

I have seen this type of wild smugglers coast - the UK is dotted with the history of the excisemen - so it was easy to visualise the scene - I love the description - DG paints a scene so well...

No smooth tourist beach this -small pockets of sand lay ruffled and churned between heaps of seaweed and pebbles and juts of rock

As a child ,I played on beaches like this, and in fact did play "smugglers" although my mother would have been beside herself with worry had she known I was climbing down cliffs in search of smugglers caves - I never found any contraband though


I loved the burgeoning relationship between young Ian and "auntie Claire " and mindful of his responsibility , it made me smile when he offered to carry Claire across the mud - but he recognised a kindred spirit, even though Claire was doing the thinking for both of them, when Claire said " There's a time to follow orders young Ian, and a time to think for yourself "....

Quite a dangerous scene - Jamie 's life is fraught with danger, and Claire sees first hand just what he is tangled up in ......

I'm glad that made sense and I'm not the only one who thought it was a little odd.

TINK - Yes, Jamie was very patient explaining to Ian. And, considering the circumstances, that was pretty impressive (there was danger and not a huge amount of time).




I love that you played smuggler as a kid. I giggled at your use of the word "tangled" here because it reminded me of the tangled web we weave from the last chapter and the whole spider web discussion. And, I think Jamie, Claire and Ian all share the willingness to follow orders or to think for themselves when the situation demands it.

I wondered if anyone would get that I was still in spider mode -

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive - comes from Marmion - a poem by Sir Walter Scott -which is an epic poem written in 1808 and is about the Battle of Flodden Field(1513)


My smugglers games were inspired by reading a book called Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner, which was my favourite childhood read - Moonfleet

It can be read free at Project Gutenberg - a bit of a children's classic now but worth a read if you have never heard of it.