Skye, Island of (Scotland) -- Description and travel
Kingsburgh, Flora, and the prince then started for Portree,
Kingsburgh carrying the Highland dress under his arm. After walking
a short distance Charles entered a wood and changed his attire. He
now wore a tartan short coat and waistcoat, with philabeg and hose, a
plaid, and a wig and bonnet. Here Kingsburgh parted from the prince,
and returned home. Conducted by a guide, Charles then started across
the hills, while Miss Macdonald galloped along the common road to
Portree to see how the land lay, and to become acquainted with the
rumours stirring in the country.
There was considerable difficulty in getting the prince out of Skye;
a Portree crew could not be trusted, as on their return they might
blab the whereabouts of the fugitive. In this dilemma a friend of
the prince's bethought himself that there was a small boat on one of
the neighbouring Lochs, and the boat was dragged by two brothers,
aided by some women, across a mile of boggy ground to the sea-shore.
It was utterly unseaworthy--leaky as the old brogues which Kingsburgh
valued so much--but the two brothers nothing fearing got it launched,
and rowed across to Raasay.
When the news came that the prince was at hand, Young Raasay, who had
not been out in the rebellion, and his cousin, Malcolm Macleod, who
had been, procured a strong boat, and with two oarsmen, whom they had
sworn to secrecy, pulled across to Skye. They landed about half a
mile from Portree, and Malcolm Macleod, accompanied by one of the
men, went towards the inn, where he found the prince and Miss
Macdonald. It had been raining heavily, and before he arrived,
Charles was soaked to the skin. The first thing the prince called
for was a dram; he then put on a dry shirt, and after that he made a
hearty meal on roasted fish, bread, cheese, and butter. The people
in the inn had no suspicion of his rank, and with them he talked and
joked. Malcolm Macleod had by this time gone back to the boat, where
he waited the prince's coming. The guide implored Charles to go off
at once, pointed out that the inn was a gathering place for all sorts
of people, and that some one might penetrate his disguise--to all
this the prince gave ready assent; but it rained still, and he spoke
of risking everything and waiting where he was all night. The guide
became yet more urgent, and the prince at last expressed his
readiness to leave, only before going he wished to smoke a pipe of
tobacco. He smoked his pipe, bade farewell to Miss Macdonald, repaid
her a small sum which he had borrowed, gave her his miniature, and
expressed the hope that he should yet welcome her at St James's.
Early in the dawn of the July morning, with four shirts, a bottle of
brandy tied to one side of his belt, a bottle of whisky tied to the
other, and a cold fowl done up in a pocket-handkerchief, he, under
the direction of a guide, went down to the rocky shore, where the
boat had so long been waiting. In a few hours they reached Raasay.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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