This is a classic adventure novel about a teenage boy called David Balfour set in 18th century Scotland.
At the start of the book David leaves his home in the countryside, following his father's death, to take a letter of introduction from his father to his uncle. He walks for 2 days before arriving at his uncle's huge but neglected house near Edinburgh. His uncle is a miserly, unpopular old man who does not make David feel at all welcome. He acts very suspiciously and David deduces that his uncle may be keeping his inheritance from him.
When his uncle takes him down to the port to arrange a business deal, David gets bashed on the head and wakes up to find that his uncle has sold him to a ship's captain to be sold as a slave in America. David's life takes a turn for the better when the ship crashes into another boat and sinks it and they have to rescue the only survivor, Alan Breck.
The story was quite fast paced and the sword fighting is described very well. However, the language is quite hard to understand at times because it includes lots of Scottish words and is old fashioned so you have to be prepared to slow down to work out the meaning of some sentences. You might give up on it very quickly if you are not a confident reader. In the edition that I read there were some useful pages at the end which told you about Scottish history to help you understand the story.