He bade the Colonel take up his commission, and granted the protection he required.
It was issued just in time to save the house, corn, and cattle at Invernahyle from the troops, who were engaged in laying waste what it was the fashion to call 'the country of the enemy.' A small encampment of soldiers was formed on Invernahyle's property, which they spared while plundering the country around, and searching in every direction for the leaders of the insurrection, and for Stewart in particular.

He was much nearer them than they suspected; for, hidden in a cave (like the Baron of Bradwardine), he lay for many days so near the English sentinels that he could hear their muster-roll called.

His food was brought to him by one of his daughters, a child of eight years old, whom Mrs.Stewart was under the necessity of entrusting with this commission; for her own motions, and those of all her elder inmates, were closely watched.

With ingenuity beyond her years, the child used to stray about among the soldiers, who were rather kind to her, and thus seize the moment when she was unobserved and steal into the thicket, when she deposited whatever small store of provisions she had in charge at some marked spot, where her father might find it.

Invernahyle supported life for several weeks by means of these precarious supplies; and, as he had been wounded in the battle of Culloden, the hardships which he endured were aggravated by great bodily pain.