After the defeat of Culloden, Lord Pitsligo hid among the mountains, living on oatmeal, moistened with hot water. They had not even salt to their brose; for, as one of the Highlanders said, 'Salt is touchy,' meaning expensive. Yet these men, who could not even buy salt, never betrayed their Prince for the great reward of thirty thousand pounds, nor any of the other gentlemen in hiding. Possibly they did not believe that there was so much money in the world. Lord Pitsligo had made up his mind not to go abroad again, but to live or die among his own people. At one time he lay for days hidden in a damp hole under a little bridge, and at other times concealed himself in the mosses and moors. Here the lapwings, flitting and crying above him, were like to have drawn the English soldiers to his retreat. His wife gave him two great bags, like those which beggars carried; in these he would place the alms which were given to him, and in this disguise he had many narrow escapes. Once he saw some dragoons on the road behind him, but he was too old and too ill to run. He was obliged to sit down and cough, and one of the dragoons who were in search of him actually gave him some money as they passed by, and condoled with him on the severity of his cough.

Lord Pitsligo often hid in a cave on the coast of Buchan. Here was a spring of water welling through the rock, and he carved a little cistern for it, to pass the time. He was fed by a little girl, too young to be suspected, who carried his meals from a neighbouring farm. One day he was sitting in the kitchen of the farm, when some soldiers came in, and asked the goodwife to guide them to Lord Pitsligo's cave. She said, 'That travelling body will go with you,' and Lord Pitsligo conducted the soldiers to his hiding place, left them there, and walked back to the farm. But the following adventure was perhaps his narrowest escape.

In March 1756, and of course long after all apprehension of a search had ceased, information having been given to the then commanding officer at Fraserburgh, that Lord Pitsligo was at that moment in the house of Auchiries, it was acted upon with so much promptness and secrecy, that the search must have proved successful but for a very singular occurrence. Mrs. Sophia Donaldson, a lady who lived much with the family, repeatedly dreamt on that particular night that the house was surrounded by soldiers. Her mind became so haunted with the idea, that she got out of bed, and was walking through the room in hopes of giving a different current to her thoughts before she lay down again, when, day beginning to dawn, she accidentally looked out at the window as she passed it in traversing the room, and was astonished at actually observing the figures of soldiers among some trees near the house. So completely had all idea of a search been by that time laid asleep, that she supposed they had come to steal poultry; Jacobite poultry-yards affording a safe object of pillage for the English soldiers in those days. Under this impression Mrs. Sophia was proceeding to rouse the servants, when her sister having awaked, and inquiring what was the matter, and being told of soldiers near the house, exclaimed, in great alarm, that she feared they wanted something more than hens. She begged Mrs. Sophia to look out at a window on the other side of the house, when not only soldiers were seen in that direction, but also an officer giving instructions by signals, and frequently putting his fingers on his lips, as if enjoining silence. There was now no time to be lost in rousing the family, and all the haste that could be made was scarcely sufficient to hurry the venerable man from his bed, into a small recess behind the wainscot of an adjoining room, which was concealed by a bed, in which a lady, Miss Gordon of Towie, who was there on a visit, lay, before the soldiers obtained admission. A most minute search took place. The room in which Lord Pitsligo was concealed did not escape: Miss Gordon's bed was carefully examined, and she was obliged to suffer the rude scrutiny of one of the party, by feeling her chin, to ascertain that it was not a man in a lady's night-dress. Before the soldiers had finished their examination in this room, the confinement and anxiety increased Lord Pitsligo's asthma so much, and his breathing became so loud, that it obliged Miss Gordon, lying in bed, to counterfeit and continue a violent coughing, in order to prevent the high breathing behind the wainscot from being heard. It may easily be conceived what agony she would suffer, lest, by overdoing her part, she should increase suspicion, and in fact lead to a discovery. The ruse was fortunately successful. On the search through the house being given over, Lord Pitsligo was hastily taken from his confined situation, and again replaced in bed; and as soon as he was able to speak, his accustomed kindness of heart made him say to his servant, 'James, go and see that these poor fellows get some breakfast, and a drink of warm ale, for this is a cold morning; they are only doing their duty, and cannot bear me any ill-will.' When the family were felicitating each other on his escape, he pleasantly observed, 'A poor prize had they obtained it—an old dying man!' That the friends who lived in the house,—the hourly witnesses of his virtues, and the objects of his regard, who saw him escape all the dangers that surrounded him, should reckon him the peculiar care of Providence, is not to be wondered at; and that the dream which was so opportune, as the means of preventing his apprehension, and probably of saving his life, was supposed by some of them at last to be a special interposition of Heaven's protecting shield against his enemies, need not excite surprise. This was accordingly the belief of more than one to their dying hour.

After some fifteen years, the English Government ceased to think Lord Pitsligo dangerous. He was allowed to live unmolested at the house of his son, where he died in 1762, in his eighty-fifth year. 'He was never heard to speak an ill word of any man living,' says one who knew him well, and who himself spoke many ill words of others.[25] Lord Pitsligo left a little book of 'Thoughts on Sacred Things,' which reminds those who read it of the meditations of General Gordon. His character, as far as its virtues went, is copied in the Baron Bradwardine, in Sir Walter Scott's novel of 'Waverley.'[26]