The Odyssey of John Buchanan

Reaching the River Clyde dockside at Glasgow the next morning, John and the prisoners are loaded onto the hold of the sailing ship Yancy, by CAPTAIN TOWNLEY and MR. WILLIAMSON for the journey to the Mersey River dock at Liverpool. When they arrive, the prisoners are kept in the hold.

Months later the English transferred the prisoners to the ship, Gildart for deportation to the colonies. In the transfer, DONALD MACINNIS is drowned when his boat is hit by a wave and overturns. The ship Gildart sets sail and John is distraught about the loss of his new friend. Without family members to support him, John now relies on his own bravery, cunning, and firm intention to succeed.

After sailing halfway to America, the ship is caught in an electrical storm. During the storm, CORPORAL BRENT attempts to throw JOHN overboard but he falls over the side of the ship and disappears in the raging sea.

When the ship reaches the Colony of Maryland, John is sold into servitude to a tobacco planter who owns slaves on his plantation where John befriends JOE, one of the slaves. John rescues another slave from the whip of the overseer.

The daughter of the owner is to be married to an older man and she threatens to accuse John of rape to her father unless he helps her run away. John decides to flee his servitude.

John teams up with WILLIAM TRAYNOR, an American Scot, and together they travel the road to William’s home in the Colony of Pennsylvania. At dark, they stop at an inn for food and then bed down on the road for the night. They survive an attack by the plantation owner’s men, pack up, and travel again towards William’s home.

In the morning, they reach and ferry over the Susquehanna River, reaching William’s Pennsylvania farm. William’s daughter Janet is similar in looks to John’s dead wife, Peg. They begin a romance.

William takes John to meet a friend, GEORGE BUCHANAN, an elderly Scot living on the frontier. In an emotional gesture, George presents John with some cloth in the tartan pattern of Clan Buchanan.

Arriving back at William’s house, a neighbor rides up to tell them that the renegade Indian, Topeka, has stolen a baby from their neighbor Bud Edmiston, and is in the hills with her. William recruits John to go with them to find the renegade Indian and the child.

In the woods, John has returned gone back to the horses for ammunition, when Topeka lunges at John with a large knife. John shoots and falls beside a tree, blood on his shirt.

The group arrives back at William’s house and John and the two others have survived but Topeka is dead. In a final confrontation with a renegade Indian, It appears that John has lost but, he survives the attack and returns a hero.

John no longer is driven by his determination to seek a different future. He finds his future in the love of William’s daughter and the promise of freedom in America. Their marriage is our last scene in this story, and they drive off to their honeymoon cottage.