exclaimed, "we are undone; my army is routed: what will become of poor
Scotland?" Unable to utter any more, he sank fainting on a bed near him.
Lord Lovat immediately summoned assistance, and by proper remedies the
Prince was restored to a consciousness of his misfortunes, and to the
recollection that Castle Downie, a spot upon which the vengeance of the
Government was sure to fall, could be no safe abiding place for him or
for his followers.[248]

Such was the commencement of those wanderings, to the interest and
romance of which no fiction can add. After this conference was ended,
Prince Charles went to Invergarie; Lord Lovat prepared for flight.

His first place of retreat was to a mountain, whence he could behold the
field of battle; he collected his officers and men around him, and they
gazed with mournful interest upon the plain of Culloden. Heaps of
wounded men were lying in their blood; others were still pursued by the
soldiers of an army whose orders were, from their royal General, _to
give no quarter_; fire and sword were everywhere; vengeance and fury
raged on the moor watered by the river Nairn. Here, too, the unhappy
Frasers and their chief might view Culloden House, a large fabric of
stone, graced with a noble avenue of great length leading to the house,
and surrounded by a park covered with heather. Here Charles Edward had
slept the night before the battle. The remembrance of many social hours,
of the hospitality of that old hall, might recur at this moment to the
mind of Lovat. But whatever might be his reflections, his fortitude
remained unbroken. He turned to the sorrowful clan around them, and
addressed them. He recurred to his former predictions: "I have
foretold," he said, still attempting to keep up his old influence over
the minds of his clans, "that our enemies would destroy us with the fire
and sword; they have begun with me, nor will they cease until they have
ravaged all the country." He still, however, exhorted his captains to
keep together their men, and to maintain a mountain war, so that at
least they might obtain better terms of peace. Having thus counselled
them, he was carried upon the shoulders of his followers to the still
farther mountains, from one of which he is said, by a singular stroke of
retributive justice, to have beheld Castle Downie, the scene of his
crime, to maintain the splendour of which he had sacrificed every
principle, and compassed every crime, burned by the infuria