We end Lord John and the Custom of the Army in a bittersweet way. As Lord John Grey returns from the Siege of Quebec, he learns that people have died of a smallpox epidemic.
Lord John now has two situations to deal with, and he handles them both with grace. We also get to see how John Cinnamon believes that Lord John is his father in Written in My Own Heart’s Blood.
Lord John also receives some welcome news. He wasn’t the reason for the death of Nicholls.
Breaking down Lord John and the Custom of the Army Section 6
The section starts with Lord John Grey returning from the Siege of Quebec. He learns that smallpox has gone through the village. Both Charlie Carruthers and Malcolm Stubbs’s mistress have died of the disease.
The first step is to find out about Malcolm’s son. He learns that the mother’s mother is caring for the child. She offers to sell the baby to John, who decides that the woman should wait on that first. It’s not clear if he wants her to wait for her own sake, or if he wants to wait for his own sake.
Before that, he needs to deal with Carruthers. He knows that the body will be desecrated, so he decides to have Carruthers cremated. His ashes are scattered on one of the deserted islands.
Now John can take a look at a letter that arrived for him. Dr. John Hunter explains that John was not the reason for Nicholls’s death. John’s bullet hit a tree and then hit Nicholls’s shoulder, causing a minor injury. Nicholls actually died of an aneurysm. This was something completely unavoidable and untreatable. As we know now, aneurysms can blow at any point, and most people live with them without knowing about it until it’s too late.
John is relieved. He can now focus on what to do about Malcolm’s baby. With the help of Manoke, he buys the child from the grandmother. John wonders how she’ll cope without her daughter alive. There’s a lot for this elderly woman to do. That’s not his concern, though. John needs to figure out what to do with the child.
He takes the child to a priest, who believes that John is the father. John doesn’t really have the time or care to explain the situation. Instead, he would like the priest to raise the child. John will send money, arranging for £5 per year to be sent in return for a lock of the child’s hair and a progress report. We know that the priest keeps his word based on Written in My Own Heart’s Blood.
This child is John Cinnamon. John chooses the name, naming the child for himself and for the color of his hair from his father.
And with that, another Lord John Grey story is over.
Could this chapter be used in a TV series adaptation?
I’m still in two minds about whether this chapter would be used in an adaptation if there was one. If it was, this chapter would certainly need to be used. It wraps up everything.
The main reason to include this story is to find out where John Cinnamon comes from. That is only necessary if John Cinnamon comes up in Outlander Seasons 7B or 8. I don’t think there would be enough time for that, meaning we don’t really need this.
However, if the story was included, we need to see what John does with the baby. We would also need to see that Carruthers is never court-martialed and why. Then we’d need to find out that John didn’t kill Nicholls. This chapter wraps so much up that it would be a necessary part of the story.
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