A man was seldom so solitary but that eyes might be on him from cave, corry, wood, or den.
The Disarming Act had been obeyed in the usual style: old useless weapons were given up to the military.

But the spirit of the clans was not wholly broken.

Even the old wife of Donald Ban, when he was "sair hadden down by a Bodach" (ghost) asked the spirit to answer one question, "Will the Prince come again ?" The song expressed the feelings of the people:-- The wind has left me bare indeed, And blawn my bonnet off my heid, But something's hid in Hieland brae, The wind's no blawn my sword away! Traffickers came and went from Prince Charles to Cluny, from Charles in the Convent of St.Joseph to Cluny lurking on Ben Alder.

Kilt and tartan were worn at the risk of life or liberty, in short, the embers of the rising were not yet extinct.
At this time, in the summer of 1749, Sergeant Arthur Davies, of Guise's regiment, marched with eight privates from Aberdeen to Dubrach in Braemar, while a corporal's guard occupied the Spital of Glenshee, some eight miles away.

"A more waste tract of mountain and bog, rocks and ravines, without habitations of any kind till you reach Glenclunie, is scarce to be met with in Scotland," says Sir Walter.
The sergeant's business was the general surveillance of the country side.