We head back to Helwater in The Scottish Prisoner Chapter 3. It’s time to find out who the Irishman is.
I do believe there was some foreshadowing in the first chapter as to what this Irishman wants. Jamie gets a sense of it, as well. It doesn’t take too long for us to find out the truth, and it’s just what we expected.
This chapter confirms a few things for Jamie, as well. He is allowed to write to his family now, allowing him to learn of everything that has happened.
Breaking down The Scottish Prisoner Chapter 3
The chapter starts with Jamie thinking about Betty and the Irishman. As he heads back to the horse stall that he was in the night before, he realizes that someone was there. This tells him that they saw what he had done, but that’s not the concern right now. He realizes that Betty making the move on him was a way to distract him from the Irishman getting out.
We learn in this chapter that Jamie has been trying to find out if there are other Jacobites out there. This was something Lord John Grey asked him to do, and it seems that Jamie doesn’t realize that Lord John Grey got to the bottom of the situation with his father. That was why Jamie was tasked with finding out about Jacobites living abroad.
What has come from that request is Jamie being allowed to write to his family. He is also allowed to receive mail from them. This gives him an element of peace he didn’t previously have.
Later that day, a groom, Hank, asks Jamie to take a string of horses to the pasture. Jamie senses rain, but he agrees to do it anyway. It’s too wet to get them to the upper pasture that day, but he does go up the next day. That’s the place where the old shepherd’s hut is, which is where Betty said to meet the mysterious Irishman.
That man is Tobias Quinn, Betty’s brother-in-law. Quinn married Betty’s sister, but she deserted him after the Rising. Quinn is still a Jacobite, and he says that the Cause is alive in Ireland. He wants Jamie to get in touch with the Scottish King to raise an army to bring the rebellion back.
Jamie makes it clear that he isn’t going to do this. He knows from Claire that it’s pointless. It’s not even like he wanted to be involved in the first place. However, that night, he has a nightmare of the Rising.
Could this chapter be used in a TV series adaptation?
If The Scottish Prisoner is used in a TV series adaptation, we would likely see this chapter used. After all, it sets up Jamie’s story for the rest of the novel.
This also gives us a look at Jamie’s life at Helwater now. We saw glimpses of it in the main Outlander series, but we need to see it in more detail. This is a look at him being able to write to his family, and there’s a risk to his freedom because of Tobias Quinn. We need to see him at risk as that creates the drama for him. Otherwise, it would be a bit of a boring story!