THE LAST PRINCE OF ROMANCE.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 48, 24 August 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE LAST PRINCE OF ROMANCE.

• To follow the intrioacies of the wandering of Prinoe Charles Stuart after Culloden is impossible without a map. A reward of £30,000 was offered for his person, and would have been paid for his head. " Take no prisoners, you understand me," was said to have been Cumberland's advice to his soldiers. The western coast was watched by English vessels of war; everywhere the militia was out, and to harbour Charles was a if not a capital, offence. Captain O'Neill, O'Sullivan, Donald M'Leod, the pilot, and Allan Macdonald were his first companions. O'Neill's narrative appears to be inaccurate. Ned Burke, who ended his life as a chairman in Edinburgh, is a better authority. He it was who caught two salmon in a net, and so provided a meal for the starving Prince at Invergary. Later, on the little desert isle of Kiaback, they found some dry fish, left by fishermen, which the Prince cooked, as he had previously cooked a cake of cow's brains. Being becalmed between two isles, and very hungry, they mixed salt water with oatmeal, which the Prince called "no bad food." • Indeed, no man ever rose more superior to every hardship of hunger, cold, thirst, filthy and loathsome quarters, than the Prince. He always kept up his own heart and the hearts of his followers. When they had any liquor he drank "to the dark eyes " of the second French princess. Once the Prince shot a stag. As they were cooking collops a. hungry boy put his hand in the dish. Burke pushed him away. ' ' Oh, man," said the Prince," you don't remember the Scripture, which commands to feed the hungry. I cannot see a Christian perish for the want of food and raiment, had I the power to supply them." Some clothes were got for the boy, who tried to betray Charles, but was disregarded as a liar. Charles suffered much from dysentery, but doctored himself and Ned Burke " with drops out of a bottle." As long as au .earthen pitcher, which they found, lasted intact, they could brew warm punch, but it was presently broken. The Prince was " the best cook of them all," according to Donald M'Leod, but the boatmen were too respectable to dine with him. "We keepit twa tables, one for the Prince and the shentlemen, the other forthe boatmen," says Donald M'Leod. Occasionally they caught crabs on the rooks, which were very welcome. " Never meat nor drink came wrang to him, for he could take a share of everything be it good, bad, or indifferent, and was always oheerfii and contented in every condition. Charles smoked a good deal, using quills from bird's wings when the j stems of his pipes broke. Donald M'Leod "never knew in all his life, any one better at finding out a shift than the Prince was when he happened to be at a pinch, and he would- sometimes sing them a song to keep up their hearts." Donald was caught later, and Barrisdale threatened to put him in a torture " machine " which he used on thieves to make them confess. But by this time Charles had escaped, and no harm came of Donald's narrative. The Prince was considerate as well as -hardy ; he would not allow Captain M'Leod to oarry his heavy great coat for him, " alleging he was as able to carry it as the captain was.'' When disguised as M'Leod's servant, a Homeric incident occurred. A Highland lass was washing the captain's feet, but declined, like the

maids of Penelope in the case of Odysseus, to attend to Charles. " What'she but alow country woman's 1 son? I will not wash his feet, indeed." ' When pursued by militia, in a boat, the Prince was anxious that his men should not fire on the enemy. "He earnestly entreated John Mackinnon not to take life without absolute necessity." His later time in the Highlands was passed among The Seven Men of Glenmoriston, Jacobite brigands, and in Cluny's "Cage," described by Mr. Stevenson in " Kidnapped." Of Flora M'Donald's heroism any account is superfluous. Boswell has immortalised her courage in Dr. Johnson's " Tour in the Hebrides." Charles escaped on board a French vessel, on Sept. 19. His wanderings are the most romantic part of a career full of romance.— Andrew Lang, in Scribner's^