heavy
creel of salmon or trout from the streams. His mother encouraged
him in these excursions, and also in the practice of arms. She
confined her lessons to the evening, and even after she settled on
her recovered farm of Kilgowrie, and obtained the services of a
tutor for him, she arranged that he should still be permitted to
pass the greater part of the day according to his own devices.

She herself was a cousin of the two brothers Keith; the one of
whom, then Lord Marischal, had proclaimed the Old Pretender king at
Edinburgh; and both of whom had attained very high rank abroad, the
younger Keith having served with great distinction in the Spanish
and Russian armies, and had then taken service under Frederick the
Great, from whom he had received the rank of field marshal, and was
the king's greatest counsellor and friend. His brother had joined
him there, and stood equally high in the king's favour. Although
both were devoted Jacobites, and had risked all, at the first
rising in favour of the Old Pretender, neither had taken part in
that of Charles Edward, seeing that it was doomed to failure. After
Culloden, James Keith, the field marshal, had written to his
cousin, Mrs. Drummond, as follows:

"Dear Cousin,

"I have heard with grief from Alexander Grahame, who has come over
here to escape the troubles, of the grievous loss that has befallen
you. He tells me that, when in hiding among the mountains, he
learned that you had, with your boy, taken refuge with Ian the
forester, whom I well remember when I was last staying with your
good husband, Sir John. He also said that your estates had been
confiscated, but that he was sure you would be well cared for by
your clansmen. Grahame told me that he stayed with you for a few
hours, while he was flying from Cumberland's bloodhounds; and that
you told him you intended to remain there, and to devote yourself
to the boy's education, until better times came.

"I doubt not that ere long, when the hot blood that has been
stirred up by this rising has cooled down somewhat, milder measures
will be used, and some mercy be shown; but it may be long, for the
Hanoverian has been badly frightened, and the Whigs throughout the
country greatly scared, and this for the second time. I am no lover
of the usurper, but I cannot agree with all that has been said
about the severity of the punishment that has been dealt out. I
have been fighting all over Europe, and I know of no country wher