The boatmen, justly judging what he was going about, made them now row for dear blood. They very soon saw the event of their conjectures, for a body of about fifteen men, full armed, marched straight from the village to the rock, where their centry was post’d, and if they had the presence of mind to launch out one of their boats (of which they had two close by them) we must have been inevitably taken. The prince by this time was sensible of his error in not allowing the men at parting from Uist to have any arms in the boat, which if they had had, were fully resolved to fight it out to the last man, notwithstanding the inequality of numbers. The enemy seeing it quite out of their power to execute their design in coming thither, as we got fairly out of their reach, took a walk along the shore, without giving the prince or crew any uneasiness, further than to gaze at them till they landed in Kilbride in Troterniss within a cannon shot of Sir Alexander McDonald’s house,[508] twelve miles from the place where we saw the enemy. In the neighbourhood of this place was another party of the Sky militia, who was post’d there to examine all boats that came from the isles, as they were pretty well assured that the prince was there at that time. Miss and Neil having kept the prince in the boat as well as they could, went to the house, leaving strict orders with the boatmen not to stir from it till they came back, or some word from them, and in case their curiosity led any body thither, who might perhaps take the liberty to ask who was the person kept in the boat, to answer Miss McDonald’s maid, and to curse her for a lazy jade, what was she good for, since she did not attend her Mrs. When they were come near the house, they were informed by a servant that Sir Alexander was gone for Fort Augustus some days before to wait upon Cumberland, and that there was no company with the lady but two gentlemen, to wit, McDonald of Kingsbourg,[509] and Lieutenant McLeod,[510] commander of the party before mentioned, and one Mrs. McDonald who came the day before from North Wist, and who was so strictly examined by the party upon the point of Waternish (taking her to be the prince in disguise), that she was at all the pains imaginable to keep off the soldiers’ hands from examining her person too closely, which must have been the Prince’s fate had he fallen into their hands. Miss Flora having met with one Miss McDonald, Lady Margarate’s gentlewoman, sent her to acquaint her lady that she wanted to speak to her, who came back and carried Miss Flora to the lady’s apartment, where she told all the circumstances of the prince’s escape from the isles, and that she must harbour him as he came now under her protection.