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withdrawn from Scotland, and settled in the north of England, he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."

In one of these visits he called, disguised as an old travelling
soldier, at Drummond Castle, and desired the housekeeper to show him the
rooms of the mansion. She was humming the song of "the Duke of Perth's
Lament," and having learnt the name of the song he desired her to sing
it no more. When he got into his own apartment he cried out, "This is
the Duke's own room;" when, lifting his arm to lay hold of one of the
pictures, she observed he was in tears, and perceived better dress under
his disguise, which convinced her he was the Duke himself.[265]

For some time the Duke continued these wanderings, stopping now and then
to gaze upon his Castle, the sight of which affected him to tears. "It
was now," says the writer of the case of Thomas Drummond, "that for
obvious reasons, to elude discovery, the report of his death on
shipboard or otherwise, would be propagated by his friends and
encouraged by himself." It is stated upon the same evidence, that
instead of sailing to France, as it has been generally believed, the
Duke fled to England; that he was conveyed on board a ship and landed at
South Shields, a few miles only distant from Biddick, a small
sequestered village, chiefly inhabited at that time by banditti, who set
all authority at defiance. Biddick is situated near the river Wear, a
few miles from Sunderland; it was, at that time, both from situation and
from the character of its inhabitants, a likely place for one flying
from the power of the law to find a shelter; it was, indeed, a common
retreat for the unfortunate and the criminal. That the Duke of Perth
actually took refuge there for some time, is an assertion which has
gained credence from the following reasons:--

In the first place: "In the History, Directory, and Gazette of the
counties of Northumberland and Durham, and the town and counties of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, by William Parson and William White, two volumes,
1827-28, the following passage occurs relating to Biddick, in the parish
of Houghton-le-Spring:--

"It was here that the unfortunate James Drummond, commonly called Duke
of Per