Outlander Book Club: Drums of Autumn Chapter 7 breakdown
Just the Outlander chapter
We start at the dinner, where Claire hears a conversation about the high rise in taxes. Claire can’t help but think a 2% tax is nothing compared to her latest IRS tax return from the 1960s. When did the Americans stop fighting so hard against taxes?
The conversation eventually moves onto the ruby that Claire is wearing. The German man they wanted to look at it is impressed with how perfect it is. Claire does think about Geillis was always going to have good quality stones. It is just the thing she and Jamie needed to hear, though.
Later that night, Claire manages to escape to some peace and overhears Philip Wylie and his sister commenting about Claire. They’re big gossips and awful people based on everything they were saying about her, and I do feel like this is just a reminder that Claire doesn’t fit in. It’s not that she’s out of time, but that she doesn’t come from the same class as the Wylies.
Once everyone has left, Claire goes in search for Jamie, which is when she overhears the conversation between Jamie and Governor Tryon. Tryon is willing to give Jamie a land grant. It’s something that’s worked for the last 30 years because North Carolina isn’t a place where many people want to settle. There are too many mountains and it’s costly to get the slaves in—not that this would be something Claire and Jamie would be concerned about.
Jamie agrees to consider the grant, but he points out that he’s not Protestant, and that is one of the stipulations. Tryon is willing to overlook that (and the fact that Jamie is a pardoned Jacobite) but it’s clear that there are stipulations. There is an oath Jamie will need to take, something that he’s already taken to get the pardon.
Later that night, he and Claire talk about the option. Jamie wants to know what Tryon wants out of this offer. He knows that it’s potentially something to do with the Regulators that were put down recently. Jamie knows that the Regulators could become a bigger problem and Tryon may be getting ready for that.
Claire doesn’t think about the Regulators. She’s never heard of them. She doesn’t know enough about American history to even consider it. But what I’m really surprised of is that she doesn’t even point out that the Revolutionary War is coming up soon. That she must have known.