[Sidenote: _ROBERT STRANGE._] Strange was an Orcadean lad, who was early destined to study law, but who, hating the study, entered on board a man-of-war, out of intense love of the sea, and grew sick of it in half a year. He turned to what he hated, and seated himself on a high stool in the law office of his brother David, in Edinburgh. But there the real natural bent of his genius declared itself, and he was discovered, after drawing drafts of deeds, leases and covenants, drawing portraits, buildings, and landscapes, on the back of them. David was a sensible man: he straightway articled his brother Robin to Cooper, the celebrated engraver, for six years. Robin served his time with credit to himself. The world of art still profits by Robin’s assiduity. He was out of his time, and twenty-three years of age when, in 1744, bonnie Isabella Lumisden’s beauty made prisoner of his soul. ‘No man may be lover of mine,’ said Isabella, ‘who is not ready to fight for my prince.’ Strange, forthwith, became Isabella’s slave and Charles Edward’s soldier. Isabella’s father, also her better known brother, Andrew Lumisden, and herself, were uncompromising Jacobites. Robin became as _ultra_ as any of them. His first contribution to the cause was an engraved likeness of Charles Edward. His second was his plate of a promissory note, for the paper currency by which the Jacobite army was to pay its way, the note to be duly cashed after the Restoration of the Stuart dynasty! Robin became the prince’s ‘moneyer,’ and a gentleman of his Life Guards. Strange went through it all, from the first fray to the overthrow at Culloden. He escaped from the field, played a terrible game of hide-and-seek for his life, and at last reached Edinburgh. His old master Cooper is quoted by Robin’s biographer, Dennistoun, as his authority for saying that, ‘when hotly pressed, Strange dashed into the room where his lady (Isabella Lumisden), whose zeal had enlisted him in the fatal cause, sat singing at her needlework, and, failing other means of concealment, was indebted for safety to her prompt invention. As she quietly raised her hooped gown, the affianced lover quickly disappeared beneath its ample contour; where, thanks to her cool demeanour and unfaltering notes, he lay undetected while the rude and baffled soldiery vainly ransacked the house.’ Strange escaped, but he returned to Edinburgh, where he privately engraved portraits of the chiefs in both factions, and drew designs for fans, which were sold in London as well as in Edinburgh. [Sidenote: _STRANGE’S ADVENTURES._]