Outlander Book Club: Voyager Chapter 4 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

We pick up in Voyager Chapter 4 with Jamie heading to the house. He comes to the house once a month to shave, and each time, he finds it difficult to start speaking. It’s not that he doesn’t want to speak, but that there’s so much to say and so many questions to ask.

Jamie wants to know about what’s been going on with the tenants and whether there’s any more danger. His brother-in-law Ian has been taken by the British Army to prison, where he’s been for three weeks. This happens regularly, as the British try to weed out the Jacobite sympathizers. The British also wants the lands of Lallybroch, but the deeds are now in Young Jamie’s name.

That certainly protects the family and the tenants. It’s going to be difficult to prove Young Jamie is a Jacobite sympathizer at just 10 years old.

However, the British soldiers have been after other tenants. Two were killed outright and one managed to escape and lived with Jamie in the cave for a few weeks. There were no trials, and now the families of those killed are relying on the Frasers for food and support.

That puts some pressure on Jamie. He needs to feed the family on what he can hunt, so he brings back everything he can at night. On one of the times in the chapter, he brings back a deer.

There is a little humor in the chapter, though. He spends some time with Fergus, Rabbie, and Young Jamie while shaving. The boys are surprised by the amount of hair Jamie has, and it leads to a conversation about hair on women. There is a comment about how the hair “down there” on women is shaped like an arrow to help point men in the right direction, which gets a chuckle.