The hunt with which we are at present concerned, however, had other purposes than the killing of deer. The latter ostensible object concealed more secret designs, and to these we may confine our attention. It was now near the end of August, 1715. At the beginning of that month, the Earl of Mar, in company with General Hamilton and Colonel Hay, had embarked at Gravesend, on the Thames, all in disguise and under assumed names. To keep their secret the better, they had taken passage on a coal sloop, agreeing to work their way like common seamen; and in this humble guise they continued until Newcastle was reached, where a vessel in which they could proceed with more comfort was engaged. From this craft they landed at the small port of Elie, on the coast of Fife, a country then well filled with Jacobites, or adherents to the cause of the Stuart princes. Such were the mysterious preliminary steps towards the hunting-party in the forest of Braemar. In truth, the hunt was little more than a pretence. While the clansmen were out forming the tinchel, the lords were assembled in secret convocation, in which the Earl of Mar eloquently counselled resistance to the rule of King George, and the taking of arms in the cause of James Francis Edward, son of the exiled James II., and, as he argued, the only true heir to the English throne. He told them that he had been promised abundant aid in men and money from France, and assured them that a rising in Scotland would be followed by a general insurrection in England against the Hanoverian dynasty. He is said to have shown letters from the Stuart prince, the Chevalier de St. George, as he was called, making the earl his lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief of the armies of Scotland. How many red deer were killed on this occasion no one can say. The noble guests of Mar had other things to think of than singling out fat bucks. None of them opposed the earl in his arguments, and in the end it was agreed that all should return home, raise what forces they could by the 3d of September, and meet again on that day at Aboyne, in Aberdeenshire, where it would be settled how they were to take the field.