93 pages • 3 hours read
A Breath of Snow and Ashes
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 8
Part 8: “The Call”
Chapter 58 Summary: “Love One Another”
Roger performs his first sermon at the Christies’ house, preaching about loving one’s neighbor as oneself. The sermon goes well. Later that night, Roger reflects on the feedback he got from his parishioners. Brianna asks him if he considers his new profession a calling, which he does. She has her own calling, she says, but she doesn’t know quite what it is yet. Later that night, Roger has a PTSD-induced nightmare about killing the bandits who kidnapped Claire. He realizes he knows one of them, “a wretched little thieftaker named Harley Boble” (783).
Chapter 59 Summary: “Froggy Goes A-Courting”
Lord John writes to Jamie, urgently warning him to distance himself from the Committee of Correspondence. He also warns that the mail is not secure, as Whigs and governmental authorities are opening and reading things; he advises sending letters only through Bobby. Lord John reveals that Bobby is interested in both Lizzie and Malva but has decided to try to wed Lizzie. If she accepts, Lord John will pay off the indentured servitude of both Lizzie and her father (in service to the Frasers). If she declines, he will attempt to win over Christie for Malva’s hand.
Jamie and Claire discuss the possible matches. Lizzie and her father have already been released from their servitude, although they keep up the appearance of it to protect both under Jamie’s assumed ownership. Claire wonders whether Ian might be a better match for Malva, in Christie’s eyes. Jamie worries that Lord John will stay faithful to the Crown. When discussing why people fight, Jamie tells Claire, without hesitation, that he fights for her: “For Brianna and the wee lad. For my family. For the future. And if that is not an ideal, I’ve never heard of one” (794).
Joseph declines Bobby’s request to marry Lizzie; he doesn’t want her marrying a branded murderer, no matter the circumstances. Bobby, meanwhile, travels alongside some pig farmers on his way to Fraser’s Ridge. He overhears them talking about a meeting of the Committee of Correspondence to pick delegates for a Continental Congress. They ask if Jamie will be there, but Jamie hasn’t been invited. They realize the other committee members don’t trust him.
Chapter 60 Summary: “The Pale Horseman Rides”
Padraic and Hortense MacNeill haven’t been seen recently. Claire, Lizzie, and Brianna go to their cabin to check on them, meeting Marsali on the way. The cabin is covered in flies and smells terrible. Hortense and her two small children are unconscious, severely dehydrated from extreme diarrhea, the cause of which is unknown. Padraic is passed out outside, but in less serious condition. They frantically try to give Hortense and the children water, but they can’t drink. Marsali tries to breastfeed the baby, but the baby dies in her arms. Hortense dies shortly after.
Chapter 61 Summary: “A Noisome Pestilence”
Claire is about to look at the stool samples from the MacNeill’s under a microscope when Jamie joins her, bringing her tea. Padraic and the older daughter will survive, thanks to Claire’s treatment. Watching Hortense and the baby die from a contagious germ has shaken Brianna. Aware that Jem hasn’t been vaccinated like she has, Claire scrubbed her hands with near boiling water after. Claire tries to explain to Jamie how horrifying death from dysentery is to people of modern times. To him, it’s routine. He convinces her to go to bed, leaving the stool analysis for the morning.
Chapter 62 Summary: “Amoeba”
Claire shows Malva the dysentery’s amoeba in the stool samples. A few more families have come down sick, and Claire can only treat them with the herbs and vegetables at her disposal. Brianna comes into Claire’s surgery, looking for sulfuric acid, or vitriol, with which to make paper. Curiously, Malva recognizes the smell as something her mother had when she was young. More deaths follow Hortense and her child, mostly young children but an older woman, as well. At one such funeral, Claire loses consciousness, seeing a giant amoeba floating in front of her.
Chapter 63 Summary: “Moment of Decision”
Claire is in the throes of sickness. In her fever dream, she sees visions of faces, strange and familiar. She doesn’t recognize anyone and can’t speak to them. She floats above her body and looks down on herself, near death. Jamie stands at the window in grief, and a young woman comforts him intimately. Claire decides to return to her body.
Chapter 64 Summary: “I Am The Resurrection, Part 2”
With Roger praying over her one day, Claire finally regains consciousness. Against Brianna’s wishes, Malva and Mrs. Bug have cut off all of Claire’s hair, a common practice in attempt to bring fevers down, at the time. Claire weeps and grieves her hair. Jamie, Marsali and Mrs. Bug try to get Claire to wear a cap, but she refuses.
Mrs. Bug arrives to clean up, with little Henri-Christian, who is covered in scrapes and bruises. Jamie tells Claire about some fisher kin’s kids putting Henri-Christian in a basket and floating it down the river. He nearly drowned before Roger saved him. The kids told Jamie they didn’t mean him any harm, but they’d heard from their parents that little people were born from the devil. They wanted to test this by seeing if he would float.
A day after this, Fergus tried to commit suicide. He thought Marsali would be better off remarried to someone who could better take care of the family. Jamie found Fergus and saved him, telling him he must go on for his family’s sake, but Fergus thinks he will have to send them away.
Chapter 65 Summary: “Moment of Declaration”
While escorting Major MacDonald home one day, Jamie runs into Brown and a few ex-Regulators. They are on their way to the Committee of Correspondence meeting, to which Jamie hadn’t been invited. Unknowingly, one invites Jamie to the meeting; the others insist he’s not welcome after he defended the printer from being tar and feathered. Another reveals that Duncan has been shipping pamphlets back to England in a display of Loyalism.
Jamie tells them he is in support of liberty and MacDonald is his friend. At this, the group becomes hostile, calling MacDonald a spy for the Crown. They intend to beat Jamie and MacDonald, but Jamie outsmarts them and hides in the forest with MacDonald. They steal MacDonald’s horse, but fierce Gideon remains when they find it safe enough to return to the road. In another display of irony, Jamie realizes that neither MacDonald nor the Committee of Correspondence men believed his declaration of being on the side of liberty. MacDonald laments that Jamie can’t be in the meeting to spy.
Chapter 66 Summary: “The Dark Rises”
Claire visits Christie. She believes he and she have not been suffering from dysentery, like the others. Christie’s symptoms (headaches and fever dreams) confirm this. She thinks they may have malaria. Christie insists on accompanying Claire home. Everyone is furious with her for leaving. Jamie puts her to bed and takes her clothes in an attempt to keep her sedentary while she recovers. They make love that night for the first time since Claire’s near-death sickness.
Chapter 67 Summary: “The Last Laugh”
Jamie brings Crombie to Bird’s village, at Crombie’s request, to preach to the Cherokee. The Cherokee find him odd, but they grant a feast and audience to Crombie’s painstaking Tsalagi. Jamie also gifts them with a few old muskets he’s accrued. This visit is Jamie’s last as Indian agent; he sends in his letter of resignation.
Part 8 Analysis
Tensions continue to rise around Jamie’s political allegiance as more and more of the Frasers’s biggest allies, like Lord John and Jocasta, reveal their Loyalist dedication. This foreshadows a large upheaval that will occur when the Frasers reveal their alliance with the rebellion. Claire and Jamie also discuss possibilities for Lizzie’s future husband, setting up much of the conflict regarding Lizzie in later chapters.
Claire’s skills are again put to the test when the MacNeills fall violently ill from amoebic dysentery. The primitive nature of 18th-century medical treatment takes its toll, and people begin to die from the illness. When Claire herself becomes sick, Roger’s prayers coincide with her return to consciousness and indication of survival, further bolstering his decision to become a minister. Even after Claire pulls through, things continue to unravel in the colony.
Fergus attempts suicide in reaction to superstitious bullying of Henri-Christian, and the child’s near death. Fergus’s actions stand in stark contrast to how Jamie deals with tragedy and hardship within his own family. While Fergus flees from his problems, Jamie stands up to them. While Jamie isn’t a modern hero, Gabaldon has written him like he is. His views on marriage and women may be dated, but Jamie doesn’t subscribe to the idea that people born differently abled are “less-than.” Gabaldon’s decision to develop her main character this way suggests that Jamie is both a product of his time and a product of his wife’s time. Fergus, on the other hand, is led by the cultural pressures of the 18th century. He would rather die than stand up to the social pressure of having a dwarf child.
Chapter 65 contains the big reveal that has been building up for Jamie: He publicly announces that he is a rebel on the side of liberty. Ironically, neither his new allies (who act like foes) nor his new foe (who acts like an ally) believes him. He resigns as Indian agent, which frees him up to better support the rebellion and discontinue his facade as a Loyalist.
Unlock all 93 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Diana Gabaldon
