The Dark o' the Moon is a 1902 historical adventure story by Samuel Rutherford Crockett, a sequel to The Raiders. A generation after the events of the original novel, Patrick and May's son Maxwell is kidnapped, and the family becomes embroiled in the rising of the Galloway Levellers.
Tropes:
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Maxwell comments that the landlords - especially large-scale ones and incomers to Galloway - are pretty uniformly grasping and callous, calling out Colonel Gunter and the Earl of Kirkham for particular cruelty.
- Artistic Licence – History:
- The real commanders of the army in Scotland during the Levellers' rebellion were Lord Carpenter and his famous successor Field Marshal George Wade. Here they are replaced with the fictitious General FitzGeorge.
- Joyce's secret aristocratic heritage makes her heir to an English viscountcy in her own right. While women could inherit titles of nobility in Scotland, this was not possible in England until long after the novel was written, let alone when it is set.
- The chronology is a mess:
- The Levellers' revolt took place in 1723-25, but over 20 years have passed since The Raiders, which was set shortly after King George I's accession in 1714.
- 22-year-old Maxwell apparently served in the Government forces during the 1715-16 Jacobite Rebellion (without seeing action). He would have been in his early teens - not impossible in the eighteenth century, to be sure, but his youth is never remarked on.
- Occasionally George I's death in 1727 is referred to as if it has already happened.; so is the 1733 death of Sir Robert Grierson.
- In the epilogue, Austin Tredennis has become Governor-General of the Canadian provinces - including Prince Edward Island, which wasn't under British rule until 1763 or given that name until 1798. The island is named after the general Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, who was born in 1767 and who served as Commander-in-Chief of the Maritime provinces from 1799 to 1800.
- Badass Preacher: Reverend Macmillan is a veteran of the Covenant rebellions and has zero respect for secular authority, openly harbouring outlaws and laughing at threats.
- Bastard Bastard: General FitzGeorge is the King's illegitimate son, and an unpleasant, antagonistic character.
- Belated Love Epiphany: Maxwell's ill-founded doubts about his own feelings for Joyce are resolved too late to prevent catastrophic consequences - but it works out in the end.
- But Not Too Foreign: It's eventually revealed that Joyce is not Romani by birth, but English.
- Can Always Spot a Cop: Silver Sand sees straight through Tredennis' disguise.
- Canon Welding: Crockett reveals that Quintin MacClellan, hero of his earlier novel The Standard Bearer, was actually a pseudonym for the young John Macmillan (now an ageing Badass Preacher). This also ties in to Men of the Moss Hags, as his wife Mary is Will Gordon's niece.
- Changing of the Guard: Patrick Heron is replaced as protagonist and narrator by his son Maxwell.
- The Clan: The Faas are both a literal example and the criminal subtype.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: Maxwell isn't entirely oblivious to the effect he has on women, but he is baffled by it.
- Cool Old Guy: Even Harry Polwart, who despises the clergy, temporarily warms to the elderly Reverend Macmillan on experiencing his remarkable mix of tolerance, courage, snarkery, and devil-may-care attitude.
- The Coup: Harry plots to unseat Marion as leader of the Levellers.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Once the Army find the rebel camp and manage to bring artillery within range, the Levellers don't stand a chance.
- Death Equals Redemption: Hector's crimes are forgotten when he makes his Heroic Sacrifice.
- Deconfirmed Bachelor:
- Captain Tredennis has reached the age of forty without any interest in women or romance. Then he meets Marion.
- Maxwell is a less striking example: he's much younger and not averse to female company, but he's always felt indifferent at best to the idea of romance until he spends time with Joyce.
- Distressed Dude: Maxwell spends a substantial chunk of the novel as a prisoner of Hector Faa. Various schemes to rescue him fail before Hector's daughter Joyce succeeds.
- Driven to Suicide: Joyce plans to keep her oath and marry Harry Polwart, then shoot herself.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Maxwell was nicknamed "Lassie-Boy" at school for his fine hair, long eyelashes, and delicate features, as well as his generally passive nature.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Silver Sand's Heroic Sacrifice is so awesome, it gets italics: "The chief had saved the clan!"
- Enemy Mine: To thwart Harry's plan to usurp Marion's leadership of the rebels and coerce Joyce into marriage, the heroes are obliged to ally with Hector Faa.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: General FitzGeorge, believing that All Men Are Perverts like himself, can only imagine one reason why Captain Tredennis would claim sole custody of female prisoners. Tredennis is actually trying to protect them.
- Foregone Conclusion: The Levellers are going to lose. Silver Sand warns them that they're fighting against an inevitably changing world.
- Foreign Ruling Class: A Downplayed Trope as the Scottish aristocracy and civilian administration remain in place, but real power resides mostly with the Army, whose officer corps is largely English and German. (The magnate-level aristocracy - who are mostly not native Gallovidians even if they are Scottish - are also shown to speak indistinguishably from their English counterparts, with none of the down-to-earth Scots language that the gentry still share with the common people.) Very much Truth in Television for the era depicted.
- Grow Old with Me: Patrick and May, the young couple from the first novel, are now middle-aged and remain happily married.
- Handicapped Badass: Harry remains a formidable fighter even after being struck blind.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Hector and Silver Sand give their lives to let their clansmen and the rebels escape.
- Historical Character's Fictional Relative: General FitzGeorge is an invented illegitimate son of King George I. (Oddly, though he should logically have been born and raised in Germany, he speaks like an upper class Englishman.) In real-life, George I had three known illegitimate daughters, but no known illegitimate sons.
- Hot Gypsy Woman: Joyce is a very beautiful supposedly Romani woman.
- I Am Not Your Father: Hector to Joyce, almost verbatim.
- Infallible Narrator: Maxwell is somehow able to give us detailed descriptions of scenes he isn't present for, including what other characters are thinking.
- The Infiltration: Austin Tredennis disguises himself as a neutral cattle dealer to gain entry to the rebel camp. It doesn't work for long.
- La Résistance: The Levellers fight back against enclosures, evictions, and political repression.
- Last-Minute Reprieve: Harry Polwart is about to be hanged when the two gaugers he supposedly murdered turn up alive.
- Meet the New Boss: Many of the rebels are old Covenanters whose earlier rebellions against the Stuarts helped pave the way for George I's rise to the throne. They are not finding him to be an improvement.
- Old Shame: By the epilogue, the entire story has become this for Marion and Austin, despite their own heroic role. Austin, having become a colonial governor, does NOT want his history of disobeying orders, let alone his wife's record of cross-dressing and (slightly less embarrassing to his mind) actual treason, to become public.
- Passive Rescue:
- Marion takes advantage of the smitten Tredennis' plan to free her from MacLellan's Wark by exchanging clothes with Joyce so she goes free instead.
- Joyce herself utilises Harry Polwart's help to sneak Maxwell out of his captivity... for a price.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: This is very much the philosophy of most of the Romani characters, especially Harry Polwart.
- Pinball Protagonist: Maxwell Lampshades his own lack of agency.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilised: Harry plans to hijack the Leveller movement and turn it towards blood, plunder, and revenge.
- Roguish Romani: Hector and his gang, as in the first novel, are Romani smugglers and cattle-lifters.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: General FitzGeorge's letter to a royal relative note is atrociously spelled.
- Scenery Porn: It wouldn't be a Crockett novel if it didn't lavish lyrical description on the Scottish countryside.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Captain Tredennis risks his career if not his life to free Marion in defiance of his orders.
- Secret Identity: The Levellers' leader Dick o' the Isle is actually Marion Tamson.
- Secret Legacy: Joyce turns out to be a Viscount's daughter.
- Serial Romeo: Jasper Jamieson is constantly falling in love. Even though he reuses his lines and gets in a lot of hot water, he is absolutely sincere every time (and seldom gets anywhere).
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Marion spends a lot of the novel in male disguise, either as the Leveller leader Dick o' the Isle, or as Maxwell and Grisel's fictional brother, Captain Richard Heron. Joyce also has occasion to dress as a man when escaping from MacLellan's Wark.
- Unknown Relative: Austin and Joyce turn out, by a seriously Contrived Coincidence, to be cousins.
- Upper-Class Twit: General FitzGeorge and the Earl of Kirkham are pompous, slow-witted fools, and Kirkham's daughter Sylvia is a classic airheaded heiress.
- The Upper Crass: General FitzGeorge is an obnoxious, lecherous boor, and the King's son.
- Vague Age:
- Marion, who was six when Patrick and May rescued her in the first book, must be about thirty - practically an old maid by eighteenth century standards; yet the narrative treats her as the contemporary of characters still in or barely out of their teens.
- Given that George I was 65 when the revolt ended, his son General FitzGeorge cannot be much older than the 40-year-old Captain Tredennis: yet he is repeatedly called "the old general", and Tredennis (himself referred to in the text as a "young man") regards him as borderline senile.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Joyce calls out Maxwell, Grisel, and Marion for not telling her that Harry was a) alive and b) under sentence of death.
- You Shall Not Pass!: Hector and his brother Silver Sand make a Last Stand to hold off the approaching Government troops so that the Levellers and the other Romani can escape.
