Outlander Book Club: The Fiery Cross Chapter 19 breakdown
Just the Outlander chapter
Mr. Husband pays a visit, wanting to see Jamie about something. As he goes into the house for refreshments, Claire sees pamphlets in his saddlebag. We know in real life that Herman Husband was a pamphleteer and the leader of the Regulators. This is just a hint of the man that he was.
Claire does explain a little more. He’s a man who has been arrested numerous times and the Quakers have kicked him out because of his views. They fear that he insights violence.
All of this is important for when Jamie shows up (complaining about the sow!). The Frasers go to speak to Husband, who explains that he needs to sell his horse to Jamie. He’s going around the colony to sell off his items because he needs to pay the court-ordered fines. If he doesn’t sell the items, the sheriff will confiscate them anyway.
During the chapter, Husband has other requests of the Frasers. If something should happen to him, he would like his family to be taken care of. There’s no way that the Frasers would see Husband’s family out on the street. And they also agree to take the horse. Jamie doesn’t really want to because he doesn’t want to take anything from Husband at all, but Claire realizes that Husband needs to know that things will be settled if something happens to him.
You see, it’s not just the court-ordered fines. There’s a war coming. Tryon has sent out another letter of command for the militia. Jamie is to gather his militia and make his way to Tryon.
Husband isn’t angry that Jamie is on the opposite side of this coming war. They both understand each other’s predicaments, and it’s not like Jamie even wants to get involved in this at all. However, Husband refuses to back down as a leader of the Regulators, and Jamie has no choice but to follow the orders sent to him from Tryon.
They both agree that it is a case of better the devil you know than the one you don’t. I do have to question whether that is, though. Isn’t there going to be hesitation on either side? While that could be good, it could also be bad if one side starts firing and the other doesn’t want to.
This chapter certainly sets a weight to the things that are about to come. It’s easy reading about events in history and just being an observer. There are limited feelings to things that happened. When you start thinking of it as a person from that time, the feelings change, and that’s something this chapter offers.