He is said to have been wounded in the back and hands in the battle, and to have fled with great precipitancy from the field of battle. He obtained, it is supposed, that shelter which, even under the most dangerous and disastrous circumstances, was rarely refused to the poor Jacobites. The exact spot of his retreat has never been ascertained; yet persons living have been heard to say, that in the houses of their grandfathers or ancestors, the Duke of Perth took refuge, until the vigilance of pursuit had abated. The obscurity into which this and other subjects connected with 1745 have fallen, may be accounted for by the apathy which, at the beginning of the present century existed concerning all subjects connected with the ill-starred enterprise of the Stuarts; and the loss of much interesting information, which the curiosity of modern times would endeavour in vain to resuscitate, has been the result. Tradition, however, often a sure guide, and seldom, at all events, wholly erroneous, has preserved some trace of the unfortunate wanderer's adventures after all was at an end. As it might be expected, and as common report in the neighbourhood of Drummond Castle states, the Duke returned to the protection of his own people. To them, and to his stately home, he was fondly attached, notwithstanding his foreign education. On first going from Perth to join the insurrection, as he lost sight of his Castle, he turned round, and as if anticipating all the consequences of that step, exclaimed, 'O! my bonny Drummond Castle, and my bonny lands!' The personal appearance of the Duke was well known over all the country, for he was universally beloved, and was in the practice of riding at the head of his tenantry and friends, called in that neighbourhood 'his guards,' to Michaelmas Market at Crieff, the greatest fair in those parts; where thousands assembled to buy and sell cattle and horses. He was therefore afterwards easily recognised, although in disguise. "Sometime after the battle of Culloden," as the same authority relates,[264] "the Duke returned to Drummond Castle, where his mother usually resided; and lived there very privately, skulking about the woods and in disguise; he was repeatedly seen in a female dress, barefooted, and bare-headed. Once a party came to search the castle unexpectedly; he instantly got into a wall press or closet, or recess of some sort, where a woman shut him in, and standing before it, remained motionless till they left that room, to carry on the search, when he got out at a window and gained the retreats in the woods. After he had withdrawn from Scotland, and settled in the north of England, he occasionally visited Strathearn."