TO GO OUT, or TO HAVE BEEN OUT,
in Scotland, was a conventional phrase similar to that of the
Irish respecting a man having been UP, both having reference to
an individual who had been engaged in insurrection. It was
accounted ill-breeding in Scotland, about forty years since, to
use the phrase rebellion or rebel, which might be interpreted by
some of the parties present as a personal insult. It was also
esteemed more polite even for stanch Whigs to denominate Charles
Edward the Chevalier, than to speak of him as the Pretender; and
this kind of accommodating courtesy was usually observed in
society where individuals of each party mixed on friendly terms.
Scott, Waverley, chapter XXXIX, note