As spring came on, a new set of stories began to pass current among the people of the town. The Pretender had failed, it was said, in his enterprise, and was falling back on the Highlands. But there was something anomalous in the stories; for it was affirmed that he was both running away and gaining all the battles. This they could not understand; and when, early in March, Lord Louden entered the town at the head of sixteen hundred men, in full retreat before the rebels, they began to ask whether it was customary for one flying army to pursue another. His Lordship dealt by them more hardly than even the marauders; for, after transporting his men across the ferry, he broke all their boats. “It’s a sair time for puir folk,” said an old fisherman when witnessing the destruction of his skiff; “gain King, gain Pretender, waes me, I’m the loser gain wha like.” [Sidenote: THE BATTLE OF CULLODEN.] Amid all the surmises and uncertainties of the town’s-people, matters were fast drawing to a crisis with the Highlanders. On the 15th of April a sloop from Lossiemouth entered the Firth, and brought intelligence that Duke William and his army had crossed the Spey, and were on the march for Inverness, then occupied by the rebels. On the following morning nearly all the males of the place, and not a few of the women, had climbed the neighbouring hill to watch the progress of their march. The weather was dull and unpleasant. There was a cold breeze from the east, accompanied by a thick drizzling rain, and the hills of Moray and Inverness were girdled with wreaths of mist. The lower grounds, which lie along the Firth, looked dim and blue through the haze, and the eye vainly commanded the whole tract of country which stretches between Inverness and Nairn. A little after noon, however, the weather began to clear up, and a sailor, who had brought with him the ship-glass, thought he could discover something unusual on the moor of Culloden. Every eye was turned in that direction. Suddenly there rose a little dense cloud of smoke, as if a volcano had burst out on the moor; then succeeded the booming of cannon and the rattle of musketry. “They are at it, God wi’ the right!” shouted out Donald Sandison; “look, Sandy Wright, is the smoke no going the way o’ Inverness?” “It’s but the easterly haar,” said Sandy; “auld as I am, Donald, I could wish to be near enough to gae ae stroke for the king!” The smoke continued to rise in clouds that went rolling towards the west, and the roar of cannon to rebound among the hills. At length they could hear only the smart pattering of musketry, and the tide of battle seemed evidently sweeping towards Inverness. The cloud passed from the moor; and when, at intervals, a fresh burst shot up through the haze, it seemed to rise from among the fields in the vicinity of the town. Anon all was silence; and the people, after lingering till near nightfall, returned to their homes to tell that Duke William had