Inverness in 1745, as Chambers describes it, was a royal burgh in the vicinity of a half-civilized territory not yet emancipated from feudal dominion. Though a seaport, it had only a slight local commerce. The town bore every external mark of wretchedness. Its people, even its shopkeepers, wore the Highland dress, in all its squalor and scantiness; for the Highland plaids which we see to-day, in silk and wool, and sold in shops of luxurious appointment, are vastly different from the home-made fabrics of a century or more ago. The Inverness people generally spoke Gaelic. A wheeled vehicle had never yet been seen within the town, nor was there a turnpike road within forty miles of its walls. Some contact by sea with France and the dwelling in winter time of the Highland gentry in the town shed some gleams of intelligence over the minds of the kilted burghers. Yet when the Young Chevalier took up his residence at the house of Lady Drummuir, hers was the only dwelling that had even one room without a bed in it. It was from Inverness that “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” in 1745, marched out with his Highlanders to the gage of battle at Culloden, of which we tell in another chapter. At neither of our two visits to the Capital of the Highlands had we hosts or hostesses to invite us to drink with them the inevitable cup of afternoon tea, without which a Britisher does not feel that the island is safe, or that Britannia rules the waves. So we must needs be satisfied with hotel service for our Bohea and cups, though we are bound to say that the decoction was excellent and the white-capped and snowy-aproned maid’s voice was low and sweet. As we chatted over our excursion to Drummossie Moor, we recalled that the victor of Culloden, on arriving at Inverness, found not only a considerable quantity of provisions, which had been prepared for the poor Highlanders, but many of the Jacobite ladies, who had attended their husbands during the campaign. They had just enjoyed their afternoon tea-drinking and were preparing for an evening ball, at which the Prince and his officers were to be entertained, after his expected victory. It was the entrance of the fugitives, who informed them of the fatal reverse their friends had met with, which caused an abrupt change of plans. Yet the lovers of the lost cause cease not their celebrations. “Come o’er the stream, Charlie!” To this day, in the Highland glens, one can hear old women singing to the tune of “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” inviting him to “come over the border,” and feast himself on “the red deer and the black steer,” promising, also, that his loyal followers will “range on the heather, with bonnet and feather.” The remnant of English Jacobites still drink to the health of the Stuarts and hold an annual celebration _in memoriam_, in London and in Philadelphia. CHAPTER XV “BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE” Mary Queen of Scots, and Bonnie Prince Charlie! How they live with us yet, casting their spell over the centuries!