Chapter 29

Chapter 191 of 192 · 97 min read

Full well the conscious maiden guessed He probed the weakness of her breast; But with that consciousness there came A lightening of her fears for Graeme, And more she deemed the Monarch's ire Kindled 'gainst him who for her sire Rebellious broadsword boldly drew; And, to her generous feeling true, She craved the grace of Roderick Dhu. 'Forbear thy suit;—the King of kings Alone can stay life's parting wings. I know his heart, I know his hand, Have shared his cheer, and proved his brand; My fairest earldom would I give To bid Clan-Alpine's Chieftain live!— Hast thou no other boon to crave? No other captive friend to save?' Blushing, she turned her from the King, And to the Douglas gave the ring, As if she wished her sire to speak The suit that stained her glowing cheek. 'Nay, then, my pledge has lost its force, And stubborn justice holds her course. Malcolm, come forth!'—and, at the word, Down kneeled the Graeme to Scotland's Lord. 'For thee, rash youth, no suppliant sues, From thee may Vengeance claim her dues, Who, nurtured underneath our smile, Hast paid our care by treacherous wile, And sought amid thy faithful clan A refuge for an outlawed man, Dishonoring thus thy loyal name.— Fetters and warder for the Graeme!' His chain of gold the King unstrung, The links o'er Malcolm's neck he flung, Then gently drew the glittering band, And laid the clasp on Ellen's hand.

Harp of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark, On purple peaks a deeper shade descending; In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark, The deer, half seen, are to the covert wending. Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending, And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy; Thy numbers sweet with nature's vespers blending, With distant echo from the fold and lea, And herd-boy's evening pipe, and hum of housing bee.

Yet, once again, farewell, thou Minstrel Harp! Yet, once again, forgive my feeble sway, And little reck I of the censure sharp May idly cavil at an idle lay. Much have I owed thy strains on life's long way, Through secret woes the world has never known, When on the weary night dawned wearier day, And bitterer was the grief devoured alone.— That I o'erlive such woes, Enchantress! is thine own.

Hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire, Some Spirit of the Air has waked thy string! 'Tis now a seraph bold, with touch of fire, 'Tis now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing. Receding now, the dying numbers ring Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell; And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring A wandering witch-note of the distant spell— And now, 'tis silent all!—Enchantress, fare thee well!

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES.

Cf. (confer), compare. F.Q., Spenser's Faerie Queene. Fol., following. Id. (idem), the same. Lockhart, J. G. Lockhart's edition of Scott's poems (various issues). P.L., Milton's Paradise Lost. Taylor, R. W. Taylor's edition of The Lady of the Lake (London, 1875). Wb., Webster's Dictionary (revised quarto edition of 1879). Worc., Worcester's Dictionary (quarto edition). The abbreviations of the names of Shakespeare's plays will be readily understood. The line-numbers are those of the "Globe" edition.

The references to Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel are to canto and line; those to Marmion and other poems to canto and stanza.

NOTES.

Introduction.

The Lady of the Lake was first published in 1810, when Scott was thirty-nine, and it was dedicated to "the most noble John James, Marquis of Abercorn." Eight thousand copies were sold between June 2d and September 22d, 1810, and repeated editions were subsequently called for. In 1830, the following "Introduction" was prefixed to the poem by the author:—

After the success of Marmion, I felt inclined to exclaim with Ulysses in the Odyssey:

[Greek Letters] Odys. X. 5.

"One venturous game my hand has won to-day— Another, gallants, yet remains to play."

The ancient manners, the habits and customs of the aboriginal race by whom the Highlands of Scotland were inhabited, had always appeared to me peculiarly adapted to poetry. The change in their manners, too, had taken place almost within my own time, or at least I had learned many particulars concerning the ancient state of the Highlands from the old men of the last generation. I had always thought the old Scottish Gael highly adapted for poetical composition. The feuds and political dissensions which, half a century earlier, would have rendered the richer and wealthier part of the kingdom indisposed to countenance a poem, the scene of which was laid in the Highlands, were now sunk in the generous compassion which the English, more than any other nation, feel for the misfortunes of an honourable foe. The Poems of Ossian had by their popularity sufficiently shown that, if writings on Highland subjects were qualified to interest the reader, mere national prejudices were, in the present day, very unlikely to interfere with their success.

I had also read a great deal, seen much, and heard more, of that romantic country where I was in the habit of spending some time every autumn; and the scenery of Lock Katrine was connected with the recollection of many a dear friend and merry expedition of former days. This poem, the action of which lay among scenes so beautiful and so deeply imprinted on my recollections, was a labour of love, and it was no less so to recall the manners and incidents introduced. The frequent custom of James IV., and particularly of James V., to walk through their kingdom in disguise, afforded me the hint of an incident which never fails to be interesting if managed with the slightest address or dexterity.

I may now confess, however, that the employment, though attended with great pleasure, was not without its doubts and anxieties. A lady, to whom I was nearly related, and with whom I lived, during her whole life, on the most brotherly terms of affection, was residing with me at the time when the work was in progress, and used to ask me, what I could possibly do to rise so early in the morning (that happening to be the most convenient to me for composition). At last I told her the subject of my meditations; and I can never forget the anxiety and affection expressed in her reply. "Do not be so rash," she said, "my dearest cousin. You are already popular,—more so, perhaps, than you yourself will believe, or than even I, or other partial friends, can fairly allow to your merit. You stand high,—do not rashly attempt to climb higher, and incur the risk of a fall; for, depend upon it, a favourite will not be permitted even to stumble with impunity." I replied to this affectionate expostulation in the words of Montrose,—

"'He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch To gain or lose it all.'

"If I fail," I said, for the dialogue is strong in my recollection, "it is a sign that I ought never to have succeeded, and I will write prose for life: you shall see no change in my temper, nor will I eat a single meal the worse. But if I succeed,

'Up with the bonnie blue bonnet, The dirk, and the feather, and a'!'"

Afterwards I showed my affectionate and anxious critic the first canto of the poem, which reconciled her to my imprudence. Nevertheless, although I answered thus confidently, with the obstinacy often said to be proper to those who bear my surname, I acknowledge that my confidence was considerably shaken by the warning of her excellent taste and unbiased friendship. Nor was I much comforted by her retraction of the unfavourable judgment, when I recollected how likely a natural partiality was to effect that change of opinion. In such cases, affection rises like a light on the canvas, improves any favourable tints which it formerly exhibited, and throws its defects into the shade.

I remember that about the same time a friend started in to "heeze up my hope," like the "sportsman with his cutty gun," in the old song. He was bred a farmer, but a man of powerful understanding, natural good taste, and warm poetical feeling, perfectly competent to supply the wants of an imperfect or irregular education. He was a passionate admirer of field-sports, which we often pursued together.

As this friend happened to dine with me at Ashestiel one day, I took the opportunity of reading to him the first canto of The Lady of the Lake, in order to ascertain the effect the poem was likely to produce upon a person who was but too favourable a representative of readers at large. It is of course to be supposed that I determined rather to guide my opinion by what my friend might appear to feel, than by what he might think fit to say. His reception of my recitation, or prelection, was rather singular. He placed his hand across his brow, and listened with great attention through the whole account of the stag-hunt, till the dogs threw themselves into the lake to follow their master, who embarks with Ellen Douglas. He then started up with a sudden exclamation, struck his hand on the table, and declared, in a voice of censure calculated for the occasion, that the dogs must have been totally ruined by being permitted to take the water after such a severe chase. I own I was much encouraged by the species of revery which had possessed so zealous a follower of the sports of the ancient Nimrod, who had been completely surprised out of all doubts of the reality of the tale. Another of his remarks gave me less pleasure. He detected the identity of the King with the wandering knight, Fitz-James, when he winds his bugle to summon his attendants. He was probably thinking of the lively, but somewhat licentious, old ballad, in which the denouement of a royal intrigue takes place as follows:

"He took a bugle frae his side, He blew both loud and shrill, And four and twenty belted knights Came skipping over the hill; Then he took out a little knife, Let a' his duddies fa', And he was the brawest gentleman That was amang them a'. And we'll go no more a roving," etc.

This discovery, as Mr. Pepys says of the rent in his camlet cloak, was but a trifle, yet it troubled me; and I was at a good deal of pains to efface any marks by which I thought my secret could be traced before the conclusion, when I relied on it with the same hope of producing effect, with which the Irish post-boy is said to reserve a "trot for the avenue."

I took uncommon pains to verify the accuracy of the local circumstances of this story. I recollect, in particular, that to ascertain whether I was telling a probable tale, I went into Perthshire, to see whether King James could actually have ridden from the banks of Loch Vennachar to Stirling Castle within the time supposed in the poem, and had the pleasure to satisfy myself that it was quite practicable.

After a considerable delay, The Lady of the Lake appeared in June, 1810; and its success was certainly so extraordinary as to induce me for the moment to conclude that I had at last fixed a nail in the proverbially inconstant wheel of Fortune, whose stability in behalf of an individual who had so boldly courted her favours for three successive times had not as yet been shaken. I had attained, perhaps, that degree of reputation at which prudence, or certainly timidity, would have made a halt, and discontinued efforts by which I was far more likely to diminish my fame than to increase it. But, as the celebrated John Wilkes is said to have explained to his late Majesty, that he himself, amid his full tide of popularity, was never a Wilkite, so I can, with honest truth, exculpate myself from having been at any time a partisan of my own poetry, even when it was in the highest fashion with the million. It must not be supposed that I was either so ungrateful, or so superabundantly candid, as to despise or scorn the value of those whose voice had elevated me so much higher than my own opinion told me I deserved. I felt, on the contrary, the more grateful to the public, as receiving that from partiality to me, which I could not have claimed from merit; and I endeavoured to deserve the partiality, by continuing such exertions as I was capable of for their amusement.

It may be that I did not, in this continued course of scribbling, consult either the interest of the public or my own. But the former had effectual means of defending themselves, and could, by their coldness, sufficiently check any approach to intrusion; and for myself, I had now for several years dedicated my hours so much to literary labour that I should have felt difficulty in employing myself otherwise; and so, like Dogberry, I generously bestowed all my tediousness on the public, comforting myself with the reflection that, if posterity should think me undeserving of the favour with which I was regarded by my contemporaries, "they could not but say I had the crown," and had enjoyed for a time that popularity which is so much coveted.

I conceived, however, that I held the distinguished situation I had obtained, however unworthily, rather like the champion of pugilism, on the condition of being always ready to show proofs of my skill, than in the manner of the champion of chivalry, who performs his duties only on rare and solemn occasions. I was in any case conscious that I could not long hold a situation which the caprice, rather than the judgment, of the public, had bestowed upon me, and preferred being deprived of my precedence by some more worthy rival, to sinking into contempt for my indolence, and losing my reputation by what Scottish lawyers call the negative prescription. Accordingly, those who choose to look at the Introduction to Rokeby, will be able to trace the steps by which I declined as a poet to figure as a novelist; as the ballad says, Queen Eleanor sunk at Charing Cross to rise again at Queenhithe.

It only remains for me to say that, during my short pre-eminence of popularity, I faithfully observed the rules of moderation which I had resolved to follow before I began my course as a man of letters. If a man is determined to make a noise in the world, he is as sure to encounter abuse and ridicule, as he who gallops furiously through a village must reckon on being followed by the curs in full cry. Experienced persons know that in stretching to flog the latter, the rider is very apt to catch a bad fall; nor is an attempt to chastise a malignant critic attended with less danger to the author. On this principle, I let parody, burlesque, and squibs find their own level; and while the latter hissed most fiercely, I was cautious never to catch them up, as schoolboys do, to throw them back against the naughty boy who fired them off, wisely remembering that they are in such cases apt to explode in the handling. Let me add, that my reign (since Byron has so called it) was marked by some instances of good-nature as well as patience. I never refused a literary person of merit such services in smoothing his way to the public as were in my power; and I had the advantage, rather an uncommon one with our irritable race, to enjoy general favour without incurring permanent ill-will, so far as is known to me, among any of my contemporaries.

W.S. Abbotsford, April, 1830.

Our limits do not permit us to add any extended selections from the many critical notices of the poem. The verdict of Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, on its first appearance, has been generally endorsed:—

"Upon the whole, we are inclined to think more highly of The Lady of the Lake than of either of its author's former publications [the Lay and Marmion]. We are more sure, however, that it has fewer faults than that it has greater beauties; and as its beauties bear a strong resemblance to those with which the public has been already made familiar in these celebrated works, we should not be surprised if its popularity were less splendid and remarkable. For our own parts, however, we are of opinion that it will be oftener read hereafter than either of them; and that, if it had appeared first in the series, their reception would have been less favourable than that which it has experienced. It is more polished in its diction, and more regular in its versification; the story is constructed with infinitely more skill and address; there is a greater proportion of pleasing and tender passages, with much less antiquarian detail; and, upon the whole, a larger variety of characters, more artfully and judiciously contrasted. There is nothing so fine, perhaps, as the battle in Marmion, or so picturesque as some of the scattered sketches in the Lay; but there is a richness and a spirit in the whole piece which does not pervade either of those poems,—a profusion of incident and a shifting brilliancy of colouring that reminds us of the witchery of Ariosto, and a constant elasticity and occasional energy which seem to belong more peculiarly to the author now before us."

Canto First.

Each canto is introduced by one or more Spenserian stanzas, forming a kind of prelude to it. Those prefixed to the first canto serve as an introduction to the whole poem, which is "inspired by the spirit of the old Scottish minstrelsy."

2. Witch-elm. The broad-leaved or wych elm (Ulmus montana), indigenous to Scotland. Forked branches of the tree were used in the olden time as divining-rods, and riding switches from it were supposed to insure good luck on a journey. In the closing stanzas of the poem (vi. 846) it is called the "wizard elm." Tennyson (In Memoriam, 89) refers to

"Witch-elms that counterchange the floor Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright."

Saint Fillan was a Scotch abbot of the seventh century who became famous as a saint. He had two springs, which appear to be confounded by some editors of the poem. One was at the eastern end of Loch Earn, where the pretty modern village of St. Fillans now stands, under the shadow of Dun Fillan, or St. Fillan's Hills, six hundred feet high, on the top of which the saint used to say his prayers, as the marks of his knees in the rock still testify to the credulous. The other spring is at another village called St. Fillans, nearly thirty miles to the westward, just outside the limits of our map, on the road to Tyndrum. In this Holy Pool, as it is called, insane folk were dipped with certain ceremonies, and then left bound all night in the open air. If they were found loose the next morning, they were supposed to have been cured. This treatment was practised as late as 1790, according to Pennant, who adds that the patients were generally found in the morning relieved of their troubles—by death. Another writer, in 1843, says that the pool is still visited, not by people of the vicinity, who have no faith in its virtue, but by those from distant places. Scott alludes to this spring in Marmion, i. 29:

"Thence to Saint Fillan's blessed well, Whose springs can frenzied dreams dispel, And the crazed brain restore."

3. And down the fitful breeze, etc. The original MS. reads:

"And on the fitful breeze thy numbers flung, Till envious ivy, with her verdant ring, Mantled and muffled each melodious string,— O Wizard Harp, still must thine accents sleep?"

10. Caledon. Caledonia, the Roman name of Scotland.

14. Each according pause. That is, each pause in the singing. In Marmion, ii. 11, according is used of music that fills the intervals of other music:

"Soon as they neared his turrets strong, The maidens raised Saint Hilda's song, And with the sea-wave and the wind Their voices, sweetly shrill, combined, And made harmonious close; Then, answering from the sandy shore, Half-drowned amid the breakers' roar, According chorus rose."

The MS. reads here:

"At each according pause thou spokest aloud Thine ardent sympathy sublime and high."

28. The stag at eve had drunk his fill. The metre of the poem proper is iambic, that is, with the accent on the even syllables, and octosyllabic, or eight syllables to the line.

29. Monan's rill. St. Monan was a Scotch martyr of the fourth century. We can find no mention of any rill named for him.

31. Glenartney. A valley to the north-east of Callander, with Benvoirlich (which rises to the height of 3180 feet) on the north, and Uam-Var (see 53 below) on the south, separating it from the valley of the Teith. It takes its name from the Artney, the stream flowing through it.

32. His beacon red. The figure is an appropriate one in describing this region, where fires on the hill-tops were so often used as signals in the olden time. Cf. the Lay, iii. 379:

"And soon a score of fires, I ween, From height, and hill, and cliff, were seen, Each with warlike tidings fraught; Each from each the signal caught," etc.

34. Deep-mouthed. Cf. Shakespeare, 1 Hen. VI. ii. 4. 12: "Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;" and T. of S. ind. 1. 18: "the deep-mouthed brach" (that is, hound).

The MS. reads:

"The bloodhound's notes of heavy bass Resounded hoarsely up the pass."

35. Resounded... rocky. The poet often avails himself of "apt alliteration's artful aid," as here, and in the next two lines; most frequently in pairs of words.

38. As Chief, etc. Note here, as often, the simile put BEFORE that which it illustrates,—an effective rhetorical, though not the logical, arrangement.

45. Beamed frontlet. Antlered forehead.

46. Adown. An instance of a purely poetical word, not admissible in prose.

49. Chase. Here put for those engaged in the chase; as in 101 and 171, below. One of its regular meanings is the OBJECT of the chase, or the animal pursued.

53. Uam-Var. "Ua-Var, as the name is pronounced, or more properly Uaigh-mor, is a mountain to the north-east of the village of Callander, in Menteith, deriving its name, which signifies the great den, or cavern, from a sort of retreat among the rocks on the south side, said, by tradition, to have been the abode of a giant. In latter times, it was the refuge of robbers and banditti, who have been only extirpated within these forty or fifty years. Strictly speaking, this stronghold is not a cave, as the name would imply, but a sort of small enclosure, or recess, surrounded with large rocks and open above head. It may have been originally designed as a toil for deer, who might get in from the outside, but would find it difficult to return. This opinion prevails among the old sportsmen and deer-stalkers in the neighborhood" (Scott).

54. Yelled. Note the emphatic force of the inversion, as in 59 below. Cf. 38 above.

Opening. That is, barking on view or scent of the game; a hunting term. Cf. Shakespeare, M. W. iv. 2. 209: "If I bark out thus upon no trail never trust me when I open again."

The description of the echo which follows is very spirited.

66. Cairn. Literally, a heap of stones; here put poetically for the rocky point which the falcon takes as a look-out.

69. Hurricane. A metaphor for the wild rush of the hunt.

71. Linn. Literally, a deep pool; but often = cataract, as in Bracklinn, ii. 270 below (cf. vi. 488), and sometimes = precipice.

73. On the lone wood. Note the musical variation in the measure here; the 1st, 3d, and 4th syllables being accented instead of the 2d and 4th. It is occasionally introduced into iambic metre with admirable effect. Cf. 85 and 97 below.

76. The cavern, etc. See on 53 above.

80. Perforce. A poetical word. See on 46 above.

84. Shrewdly. Severely, keenly; a sense now obsolete. Shrewd originally meant evil, mischievous. Cf. Shakespeare, A. Y. L. v. 4. 179, where it is said that those

"That have endur'd shrewd days and nights with us Shall share the good of our returned fortune."

In Chaucer (Tale of Melibocus) we find, "The prophete saith: Flee shrewdnesse, and do goodnesse" (referring to Ps. xxxiv. 14).

89. Menteith. The district in the southwestern part of Perthshire, watered by the Teith.

91. Mountain and meadow, etc. See on 35 above. Moss is used in the North-of-England sense of a boggy or peaty district, like the famous Chat Moss between Liverpool and Manchester.

93. Lochard. Loch Ard is a beautiful lakelet, about five miles south of Loch Katrine. On its eastern side is the scene of Helen Macgregor's skirmish with the King's troops in Rob Roy; and near its head, on the northern side, is a waterfall, which is the original of Flora MacIvor's favorite retreat in Waverley. Aberfoyle is a village about a mile and a half to the east of the lake.

95. Loch Achray. A lake between Loch Katrine and Loch Vennachar, lying just beyond the pass of the Trosachs.

97. Benvenue. A mountain, 2386 feet in height, on the southern side of Loch Katrine.

98. With the hope. The MS. has "with the THOUGHT," and "flying HOOF" in the next line.

102. 'Twere. It would be. Cf. Shakespeare, Macb. ii. 2. 73: "To know my deed, 't were best not know myself."

103. Cambusmore. The estate of a family named Buchanan, whom Scott frequently visited in his younger days. It is about two miles from Callander, on the wooded banks of the Keltie, a tributary of the Teith.

105. Benledi. A mountain, 2882 feet high, northwest from Callander. The name is said to mean "Mountain of God."

106. Bochastle's heath. A moor between the east end of Loch Vennachar and Callander. See also on v. 298 below.

107. The flooded Teith. The Teith is formed by streams from Loch Voil and from Loch Katrine (by way of Loch Achray and Loch Vennachar), which unite at Callander. It joins the Forth near Stirling.

111. Vennachar. As the map shows, this "Lake of the Fair Valley" is the most eastern of the three lakes around which the scenery of the poem lies. It is about five miles long and a mile and a half wide.

112. The Brigg of Turk. This brig, or bridge (cf. Burns's poem of The Brigs of Ayr), is over a stream that comes down from Glenfinlas and flows into the one connecting Lochs Achray and Vennachar. According to Graham, it is "the scene of the death of a wild boar famous in Celtic tradition."

114. Unbated. Cf. Shakespeare, M. of V. ii. 6. 11:

"Where is the horse that doth untread again His tedious measures with the unbated fire That he did pace them first?"

115. Scourge and steel. Whip and spur. Steel is often used for the sword (as in v. 239 below: "foeman worthy of their steel"), the figure being of the same sort as here—"the material put for the thing made of it." Cf. v. 479 below.

117. Embossed. An old hunting term. George Turbervile, in his Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting (A.D. 1576), says: "When the hart is foamy at the mouth, we say, that he is emboss'd." Cf. Shakespeare, T. of S. ind. 1. 17: "Brach Merriman, the poor cur, is emboss'd;" and A. and C. iv. 13. 3:

"the boar of Thessaly Was never so emboss'd."

120. Saint Hubert's breed. Scott quotes Turbervile here: "The hounds which we call Saint Hubert's hounds are commonly all blacke, yet neuertheless, the race is so mingled at these days, that we find them of all colours. These are the hounds which the abbots of St. Hubert haue always kept some of their race or kind, in honour or remembrance of the saint, which was a hunter with S. Eustace. Whereupon we may conceiue that (by the grace of God) all good huntsmen shall follow them into paradise."

127. Quarry. The animal hunted; another technical term. Shakespeare uses it in the sense of a heap of slaughtered game; as in Cor. i. 1. 202:

"Would the nobility lay aside their ruth, And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry With thousands of these quarter'd slaves," etc.

Cf. Longfellow, Hiawatha:

"Seldom stoops the soaring vulture O'er his quarry in the desert."

130. Stock. Tree-stump. Cf. Job, xiv. 8.

133. Turn to bay. Like stand at bay, etc., a term used when the stag, driven to extremity, turns round and faces his pursuers. Cf. Shakespeare, 1. Hen. VI. iv. 2. 52, where it is used figuratively (as in vi. 525 below):

"Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel, And make the cowards stand aloof at bay;"

and T. of S. v. 2. 56: "'T is thought your deer does hold you at a bay," etc.

137. For the death-wound, etc. Scott has the following note here: "When the stag turned to bay, the ancient hunter had the perilous task of going in upon, and killing or disabling, the desperate animal. At certain times of the year this was held particularly dangerous, a wound received from a stag's horn being then deemed poisonous, and more dangerous than one from the tusks of a boar, as the old rhyme testifies:

'If thou be hurt with hart, it bring thee to thy bier, But barber's hand will boar's hurt heal, therefore thou need'st not fear.'

At all times, however, the task was dangerous, and to be adventured upon wisely and warily, either by getting behind the stag while he was gazing on the hounds, or by watching an opportunity to gallop roundly in upon him, and kill him with the sword. See many directions to this purpose in the Booke of Hunting, chap. 41. Wilson, the historian, has recorded a providential escape which befell him in the hazardous sport, while a youth, and follower of the Earl of Essex:

'Sir Peter Lee, of Lime, in Cheshire, invited my lord one summer to hunt the stagg. And having a great stagg in chase, and many gentlemen in the pursuit, the stag took soyle. And divers, whereof I was one, alighted, and stood with swords drawne, to have a cut at him, at his coming out of the water. The staggs there being wonderfully fierce and dangerous, made us youths more eager to be at him. But he escaped us all. And it was my misfortune to be hindered of my coming nere him, the way being sliperie, by a falle; which gave occasion to some, who did not know mee, to speak as if I had falne for feare. Which being told mee, I left the stagg, and followed the gentleman who [first] spake it. But I found him of that cold temper, that it seems his words made an escape from him; as by his denial and repentance it appeared. But this made mee more violent in the pursuit of the stagg, to recover my reputation. And I happened to be the only horseman in, when the dogs sett him up at bay; and approaching near him on horsebacke, he broke through the dogs, and run at mee, and tore my horse's side with his hornes, close by my thigh. Then I quitted my horse, and grew more cunning (for the dogs had sette him up againe), stealing behind him with my sword, and cut his hamstrings; and then got upon his back, and cut his throate; which, as I was doing, the company came in, and blamed my rashness for running such a hazard' (Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 464)."

138. Whinyard. A short stout sword or knife; the same as the whinger of the Lay of Last Minstrel, v. 7:

"And whingers, now in friendship bare The social meal to part and share, Had found a bloody sheath."

142. Turned him. In Elizabethan, and still more in earlier English, personal pronouns were often used reflexively; and this, like many other old constructions, is still used in poetry.

145. Trosachs. "The rough or bristled territory" (Graham); the wild district between Lochs Katrine and Vennachar. The name is now especially applied to the pass between Lochs Katrine and Achray.

147. Close couched. That is, as he lay close couched, or hidden. Such ellipses are common in poetry.

150. Amain. With main, or full force. We still say "with might and main."

151. Chiding. Not a mere figurative use of chide as we now understand it (cf. 287 below), but an example of the old sense of the word as applied to any oft-repeated noise. Shakespeare uses it of the barking of dogs in M. N. D. iv. 1. 120:

"never did I hear Such gallant chiding;"

of the wind, as in A. Y. L. ii. 1. 7: "And churlish chiding of the winter's wind;" and of the sea, as in 1 Hen. IV. iii. 1. 45:

"the sea That chides the banks of England;"

and Hen. VIII. iii. 2. 197: "the chiding flood."

163. The banks of Seine. James visited France in 1536, and sued for the hand of Magdalen, daughter of Francis I. He married her the following spring, but she died a few months later. He then married Mary of Guise, whom he had doubtless seen while in France.

166. Woe worth the chase. That is, woe be to it. This worth is from the A. S. weorthan, to become. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6. 32:

"Wo worth the man, That first did teach the cursed steele to bight In his owne flesh, and make way to the living spright!"

See also iv. 278 and 298 below.

409. Middle age. As James died at the age of thirty (in 1542), this is not strictly true, but the portrait in other respects is quite accurate. He was fond of going about disguised, and some of his freaks of this kind are pleasantly related in Scott's Tales of a Grandfather. See on vi. 740 below.

425. Slighting, etc. "Treating lightly his need of food and shelter."

432. At length. The 1st ed. has "at last."

433. That Highland halls were, etc. The MS. has "Her father's hall was," etc.

434. Wildered. See on 274 above.

438. A couch. That is, the heather for it. Cf. 666 below.

441. Mere. Lake; as in Windermere, etc.

443. Rood. Cross, or crucifix. By the rood was a common oath; so by the holy rood, as in Shakespeare, Rich. III. iii. 2. 77, iv. 4. 165. Cf. the name of Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. See ii. 221 below.

451. Romantic. The MS. has "enchanting."

457. Yesternight. We have lost this word, though we retain yesterday. Cf. yester-morn in v. 104 below. As far = as far back as.

460. Was on, etc. The MS. reads: "Is often on the future bent." If force of evidence could authorize us to believe facts inconsistent with the general laws of nature, enough might be produced in favor of the existence of the second-sight. It is called in Gaelic Taishitaraugh, from Taish, an unreal or shadowy appearance; and those possessed of the faculty are called Taishatrin, which may be aptly translated visionaries. Martin, a steady believer in the second-sight, gives the following account of it:—

'The second-sight is a singular faculty of seeing an otherwise invisible object without any previous means used by the person that uses if for that end: the vision makes such a lively impression upon the seers, that they neither see nor think of any thing else, except the vision, as long as it continues; and then they appear pensive or jovial, according to the object that was represented to them.

'At the sight of a vision, the eyelids of the person are erected, and the eyes continue staring until the object vanish. This is obvious to others who are by when the persons happen to see a vision, and occurred more than once to my own observation, and to others that were with me....

'If a woman is seen standing at a man's left hand, it is a presage that she will be his wife, whether they be married to others, or unmarried at the time of the apparition.

'To see a spark of fire fall upon one's arm or breast is a forerunner of a dead child to be seen in the arms of those persons; of which there are several fresh instances....

'To see a seat empty at the time of one's sitting in it, is a presage of that person's death soon after' (Martin's Description of the Western Islands, 1716, 8vo, p. 300, et seq.).

"To these particulars innumerable examples might be added, all attested by grave and credible authors. But, in despite of evidence which neither Bacon, Boyle, nor Johnson were able to resist, the Taish, with all its visionary properties, seems to be now universally abandoned to the use of poetry. The exquisitely beautiful poem of Lochiel will at once occur to the recollection of every reader" (Scott).

462. Birchen. Shaded by birches. Cf. Milton's "cedarn alleys" in Comus, 990.

464. Lincoln green. A cloth made in Lincoln, much worn by hunters.

467. Heron. The early eds. have "heron's."

475. Errant-knight. Knight-errant.

476. Sooth. True. We find soothest in Milton, Comus, 823. The noun sooth (truth) is more common, and still survives in soothsayer (teller of hidden truth). Cf. v. 64 below.

478. Emprise. Enterprise. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 7. 39: "But give me leave to follow my emprise," etc.

485. His noble hand. The MS. has "This gentle hand;" and in the next line, "the oars he drew."

490. Frequent. Often; one of the many instances of the adjective used adverbially in the poem.

492. The rocky isle. It is still known as Ellen's Isle. "It is rather high, and irregularly pyramidal. It is mostly composed of dark-gray rocks, mottled with pale and gray lichens, peeping out here and there amid trees that mantle them,—chiefly light, graceful birches, intermingled with red-berried mountain ashes and a few dark-green, spiry pines. The landing is beneath an aged oak; and, as did the Lady and the Knight, the traveller now ascends 'a clambering unsuspected road,' by rude steps, to the small irregular summit of the island. A more poetic, romantic retreat could hardly be imagined: it is unique. It is completely hidden, not only by the trees, but also by an undergrowth of beautiful and abundant ferns and the loveliest of heather" (Hunnewell's Lands of Scott).

500. Winded. Wound; used for the sake of the measure, as in v. 22 below. We find the participle winded in Much Ado, i. 1. 243; but it is = blown. The verb in that sense is derived from the noun wind (air in motion), and has no connection with wind, to turn. Cf. Wb.

504. Here for retreat, etc. Scott has the following note here: "The Celtic chieftains, whose lives were continually exposed to peril, had usually, in the most retired spot of their domains, some place of retreat for the hour of necessity, which, as circumstances would admit, was a tower, a cavern, or a rustic hut, in a strong and secluded situation. One of these last gave refuge to the unfortunate Charles Edward, in his perilous wanderings after the battle of Culloden.

"It was situated in the face of a very rough, high, and rocky mountain, called Letternilichk, still a part of Benalder, full of great stones and crevices, and some scattered wood interspersed. The habitation called the Cage, in the face of that mountain, was within a small thick bush of wood. There were first some rows of trees laid down, in order to level the floor for a habitation; and as the place was steep, this raised the lower side to an equal height with the other: and these trees, in the way of joists or planks, were levelled with earth and gravel. There were betwixt the trees, growing naturally on their own roots, some stakes fixed in the earth, which, with the trees, were interwoven with ropes, made of heath and birch twigs, up to the top of the Cage, it being of a round or rather oval shape; and the whole thatched and covered over with fog. The whole fabric hung, as it were, by a large tree, which reclined from the one end, all along the roof, to the other, and which gave it the name of the Cage; and by chance there happened to be two stones at a small distance from one another, in the side next the precipice, resembling the pillars of a chimney, where the fire was placed. The smoke had its vent out here, all along the fall of the rock, which was so much of the same color, that one could discover no difference in the clearest day' (Home's History of the Rebellion, Lond. 1802, 4to, p. 381)."

525. Idoean vine. Some have taken this to refer to the "red whortleberry," the botanical name of which is Vaccinium vitis Idoea; but as that is not a climber, it is more probably that the common vine is here meant. Idoean is from Ida, a mountain near ancient Troy (there was another in Crete), famous for its vines.

526. Clematis. The Climatis vitalba, one of the popular English names of which is virgin-bower.

528. And every favored plant could bear. That is, which could endure. This ellipsis of the relative was very common in Elizabethan English. Cf. Shakespeare, M. for M. ii. 2. 23: "I have a brother is condemned to die;" Rich. II. ii. 2. 128: "The hate of those love not the king," etc. See also John, iii. 11, etc.

532. On heaven and on thy lady call. This is said gayly, or sportively, as keeping up the idea of a knight-errant. Cf. 475 above.

542. Careless. See on 490 above.

546. Target. Buckler; the targe of iii. 445, etc. See Scott's note on v. 380 below.

548. Store. Stored, laid up; an obsolete adjective. Cf. iii. 3 below, and see also on vi. 124.

551. And there the wild-cat's, etc. The MS. reads:

"There hung the wild-cat's brindled hide, Above the elk's branched brow and skull, And frontlet of the forest bull."

559. Garnish forth. Cf. furnish forth in 442 above.

566. Brook. Bear, endure; now seldom used except with reference to what is endured against one's will or inclination. It seems to be a favorite word with Scott.

573. Ferragus or Ascabart. "These two sons of Anak flourished in romantic fable. The first is well known to the admirers of Ariosto by the name of Ferrau. He was an antagonist of Orlando, and was at length slain by him in single combat.... Ascapart, or Ascabart, makes a very material figure in the History of Bevis of Hampton, by whom he was conquered. His effigies may be seen guarding one side of the gate at Southampton, while the other is occupied by Bevis himself" (Scott).

580. To whom, though more than kindred knew. The MS. reads:

"To whom, though more remote her claim, Young Ellen gave a mother's name."

She was the maternal aunt of Ellen, but was loved as a mother by her, or more than (such) kindred (usually) knew (in way of affection).

585. Though all unasked, etc. "The Highlanders, who carried hospitality to a punctilious excess, are said to have considered it as churlish to ask a stranger his name or lineage before he had taken refreshment. Feuds were so frequent among them, that a contrary rule would in many cases have produced the discovery of some circumstance which might have excluded the guest from the benefit of the assistance he stood in need of" (Scott).

591. Snowdoun. An old name of Stirling Castle. See vi. 789 below.

592. Lord of a barren heritage. "By the misfortunes of the earlier Jameses, and the internal feuds of the Scottish chiefs, the kingly power had become little more than a name. Each chief was a petty king in his own district, and gave just so much obedience to the king's authority as suited his convenience" (Taylor).

596. Wot. Knows; the present of the obsolete wit (the infinitive to wit is still use in legal forms), not of weet, as generally stated. See Matzner, Eng. Gram. i. 382. Cf. Shakespeare, Rich. III. ii. 3. 18: "No, no, good friends, God wot." He also uses wots (as in Hen. V. iv. 1. 299) and a participle wotting (in W. T. iii. 2. 77).

602. Require. Request, ask; as in Elizanethan English. Cf. Shakespeare, Hen. VIII. ii. 4. 144: "In humblest manner I require your highness," etc.

603. The elder lady's mien. The MS. has "the mother's easy mien."

606. Ellen, though more, etc. The MS. reads:

"Ellen, though more her looks betrayed The simple heart of mountain maid, In speech and gesture, form and grace, Showed she was come of gentle race; 'T was strange, in birth so rude, to find Such face, such manners, and such mind. Each anxious hint the stranger gave, The mother heard with silence grave."

616. Weird women we, etc. See on 35 above. Weird here = skilled in witchcraft; like the "weird sisters" of Macbeth. Down = hill (the Gaelic dun).

622. A harp unseen. Scott has the following note here: "'"They [the Highlanders] delight much in musicke, but chiefly in harps and clairschoes of their own fashion. The strings of the clairschoes are made of brasse wire, and the strings of the harps of sinews; which strings they strike either with their nayles, growing long, or else with an instrument appointed for that use. They take great pleasure to decke their harps and clairschoes with silver and precious stones; the poore ones that cannot attayne hereunto, decke them with christall. They sing verses prettily compound, contayning (for the most part) prayses of valiant men. There is not almost any other argument, whereof their rhymes intreat. They speak the ancient French language, altered a little."

"The harp and chairschoes are now only heard of in the Highlands in ancient song. At what period these instruments ceased to be used, is not on record; and tradition is silent on this head. But, as Irish harpers occasionally visited the Highlands and Western Isles till lately, the harp might have been extant so late as the middle of the present century. Thus far we know, that from remote times down to the present, harpers were received as welcome guests, particularly in the Highlands of Scotland; and so late as the latter end of the sixteenth century, as appears by the above quotations, the harp was in common use among the natives of the Western Isles. How it happened that the noisy and inharmonious bagpipe banished the soft and expressive harp, we cannot say; but certain it is, that the bagpipe is now the only instrument that obtains universally in the Highland districts' (Campbell's Journey through North Britain. London, 1808, 4to, i. 175).

"Mr. Gunn, of Edinburgh, has lately published a curious Essay upon the Harp and Harp Music of the Highlands of Scotland. That the instrument was once in common use there, is most certain. Cleland numbers an acquaintance with it among the few accomplishments which his satire allows to the Highlanders:—

'In nothing they're accounted sharp, Except in bagpipe or in harm.'"

624. Soldier, rest! etc. The metre of this song is trochaic; that is, the accents fall regularly on the odd syllables.

631. In slumber dewing. That is, bedewing. For the metaphor, cf. Shakespeare, Rich. III. iv. 1. 84: "the golden dew of sleep;" and J. C. ii. 1. 230: "the honey-heavy dew of slumber."

635. Morn of toil, etc. The MS. has "noon of hunger, night of waking;" and in the next line, "rouse" for reach.

638. Pibroch. "A Highland air, suited to the particular passion which the musician would either excite or assuage; generally applied to those airs that are played on the bagpipe before the Highlanders when they go out to battle" (Jamieson). Here it is put for the bagpipe itself. See also on ii. 363 below.

642. And the bittern sound his drum. Goldsmith (D. V. 44) calls the bird "the hollow-sounding bittern;" and in his Animated Nature, he says that of all the notes of waterfowl "there is none so dismally hollow as the booming of the bittern."

648. She paused, etc. The MS. has "She paused—but waked again the lay."

655. The MS. reads: "Slumber sweet our spells shall deal ye;" and in 657:

"Let our slumbrous spells avail ye beguile ye."

657. Reveille. The call to rouse troops or huntsmen in the morning.

669. Forest sports. The MS. has "mountain chase."

672. Not Ellens' spell. That is, not even Ellen's spell. On the passage, cf. Rokeby, i. 2:

"Sleep came at length, but with a train Of feelings true and fancies vain, Mingling, in wild disorder cast, The expected future with the past."

693. Or is it all a vision now? Lockhart quotes here Thomson's Castle of Indolence:

"Ye guardian spirits, to whom man is dear, From these foul demons shield the midnight gloom: Angels of fancy and love, be near. And o'er the blank of sleep diffuse a bloom: Evoke the sacred shades of Greece and Rome, And let them virtue with a look impart; But chief, awhile, O! lend us from the tomb Those long-lost friends for whom in love we smart, and fill with pious awe and joy-mixt woe the heart.

"Or are you sportive?—bid the morn of youth Rise to new light, and beam afresh the days Of innocence, simplicity, and truth; To cares estranged, and manhood's thorny ways. What transport, to retrace our boyish plays, Our easy bliss, when each thing joy supplied; The woods, the mountains, and the warbling maze Of the wild books!"

The Critical Review says of the following stanza (xxxiv): "Such a strange and romantic dream as may be naturally expected to flow from the extraordinary events of the day. It might, perhaps, be quoted as one of Mr. Scott's most successful efforts in descriptive poetry. Some few lines of it are indeed unrivalled for delicacy and melancholy tenderness."

704. Grisly. Grim, horrible; an obsolete word, much used in old poetry. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. i. 5. 30: "her darke griesly looke;" Shakespeare, 1 Hen. VI. i. 4. 47: "My grisly countenance made others fly," etc. See also iv. 322, etc. below.

723. Played, etc. The MS. reads:

"Played on/ the bosoms of the lake, / Lock Katrine's still expanse; The birch, the wild rose, and the broom Wasted around their rich perfume... The birch-trees wept in balmy dew; The aspen slept on Benvenue; Wild were the heart whose passions' power Defied the influence of the hour."

724. Passion's. The reading of the 1st ed. and that of 1821; some recent eds. have "passions'."

738. Orisons. The 1st ed. has "orison" both here and in 740 (the ed. of 1821 only in the latter); but the word is almost invariably plural, both in poetry and prose—always in Shakespeare and Milton.

Canto Second.

7. A minstrel gray. "That Highland chieftains, to a late period, retained in their service the bard, as a family officer, admits of very easy proof. The author of the Letters from the North of Scotland, an officer of engineers, quartered at Inverness about 1720, who certainly cannot be deemed a favorable witness, gives the following account of the office, and of a bard, whom he heard exercise his talent of recitation:—'The bard is killed in the genealogy of all the Highland families, sometimes preceptor to the young laird, celebrates in Irish verse the original of the tribe, the famous warlike actions of the successive heads, and sings his own lyricks as an opiate to the chief, when indisposed for sleep; but poets are not equally esteemed and honored in all countries. I happened to be a witness of the dishonour done to the muse, at the house of one of the chiefs, where two of these bards were set at a good distance, at the lower end of a long table, with a parcel of Highlanders of no extraordinary appearance, over a cup of ale. Poor inspiration! They were not asked to drink a glass of wine at our table, though the whole company consisted only of the great man, one of his near relations, and myself. After some little time, the chief ordered one of them to sing me a Highland song. The bard readily obeyed, and with a hoarse voice, and in a tune of few various notes, began, as I was told, one of his own lyricks; and when he had proceeded to the fourth of fifth stanza, I perceived, by the names of several persons, glens, and mountains, which I had known or heard of before, that it was an account of some clan battle. But in his going on, the chief (who piques himself upon his school-learning) at some particular passage, bid him cease, and cryed out, "There's nothing like that in Virgil or Homer." I bowed, and told him I believed so. This you may believe was very edifying and delightful'" (Scott).

15. Than men, etc. "It is evident that the old bard, with his second-sight, has a glimmering notion who the stranger is. He speaks below {311} of 'courtly spy,' and James's speech had betrayed a knowledge of the Douglas" (Taylor).

20. Battled. The reading of the 1st ed. and that of 1821; "battle" in most others. Cf. i. 626 above.

22. Where beauty, etc. The MS. has "At tourneys where the brave resort." The reference is to the tournaments, "Where," as Milton says (L'Allegro, 119),

"throngs of knights and barons bold. In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold, With store of ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit or arms, while both contend To win her grace whom all commend."

Cf. 87 below.

26. Love's. The reading of the 1st ed. and that of 1821; most eds. have "love."

29. Plaided. The plaid was properly the dress of a Highlander, though it was worn also in the Lowlands.

51. The Harper on the islet beach. "This picture is touched with the hand of the true poet" (Jeffrey).

56. As from. As if from. Cf. 64 and 83 below. This ellipsis was common in Elizabethan English. Cf. Shakespeare, Macb. ii. 2. 28:

"One cried 'God bless us!' and 'Amen' the other, As they had seen me with these hangman's hands."

65. In the last sound. For the measure, see on i. 73 above.

69. His fleet. That is, of ducks. Cf. i. 239 above.

80. Would scorn. Who would scorn. See on i. 528 above.

84. Turned him. See on i. 142 above, and cf. 106 below.

86. After. Afterwards; as in Shakespeare, Temp. ii. 2. 10: "And after bite me," etc. The word is not now used adverbially of time, though we may say "he followed after," etc. The 1st ed. reads "that knight."

94. Parts. Departs; as often in poetry and earlier English. Cf. Goldsmith, D. V. 171: "Beside the bed where parting life was laid;" Gray, Elegy, 1: "the knell of parting day," etc. On the other hand, depart was used in the sense of part. In the Marriage Service "till death us do part" is a corruption of "till death us depart." Wiclif's Bible, in Matt. xix. 6, has "therfor a man departe not that thing that God hath ioyned."

103. Another step, etc. The MS. has "The loveliest Lowland fair to spy;" and the 1st ed. reads "The step of parting fair to spy."

109. The Graeme. Scott has the following note here: "The ancient and powerful family of Graham (which, for metrical reasons, is here smelled after the Scottish pronunciation) held extensive possessions in the counties of Dumbarton and Stirling. Few families can boast of more historical renown, having claim to three of the most remarkable characters in the Scottish annals. Sir John the Graeme, the faithful and undaunted partaker of the labors and patriotic warfare of Wallace, fell in the unfortunate field of Falkirk, in 1298. The celebrated Marquis of Montrose, in whom De Retz saw realized his abstract idea of the heroes of antiquity, was the second of these worthies. And, not withstanding the severity of his temper, and the rigor with which he executed the oppressive mandates of the princes whom he served, I do not hesitate to name as the third, John Graeme, of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, whose heroic death, in the arms of victory, may be allowed to cancel the memory of his cruelty to the non-conformists, during the reigns of Charles II. and James II."

112. Bower. The word meant a chamber (see on i. 217 above), and was often used of the ladies' apartments in a house. In hall and bower = among men and women. The words are often thus associated. Cf. Spenser, Astrophel, 28: "Merily masking both in bowre and hall," etc.

115. Arose. The 1st ed. misprints "Across;" not noted in the Errata.

126. And the proud march. See on i. 73 above.

131. Saint Modan. A Scotch abbot of the 7th century. Scott says here: "I am not prepared to show that Saint Modan was a performer on the harp. It was, however, no unsaintly accomplishment; for Saint Dunstan certainly did play upon that instrument, which retaining, as was natural, a portion of the sanctity attached to its master's character, announced future events by its spontaneous sound. 'But labouring once in these mechanic arts for a devout matrone that had sett him on work, his violl, that hung by him on the wall, of its own accord, without anie man's helpe, distinctly sounded this anthime: Gaudent in coelis animae sanctorum qui Christi vestigia sunt secuti; et quia pro eius amore sanguinem suum fuderunt, ideo cum Christo gaudent aeternum. Whereat all the companie being much astonished, turned their eyes from beholding him working, to looke on that strange accident.... Not long after, manie of the court that hitherunto had born a kind of fayned friendship towards him, began now greatly to envie at his progresse and rising in goodness, using manie crooked, backbiting meanes to diffame his vertues with the black markes of hypocrisie. And the better to authorise their calumnie, they brought in this that happened in the violl, affirming it to have been done by art magick. What more? this wicked rumour encreased, dayly, till the king and others of the nobilitie taking hould thereof, Dunstan grew odious in their sight. Therefore he resolued to leaue the court, and goe to Elphegus, surnamed the Bauld, then bishop of Winchester, who was his cozen. Which his enemies understanding, they layd wayte for him in the way, and hauing throwne him off his horse, beate him, and dragged him in the durt in the most miserable manner, meaning to have slaine him, had not a companie of mastiue dogges, that came unlookt uppon them, defended and redeemed him from their crueltie. When with sorrow he was ashamed to see dogges more humane than they. And giuing thankes to Almightie God, he sensibly againe perceaued that the tunes of his violl had giuen him a warning of future accidents' (Flower of the Lives of the most renowned Sainets of England, Scotland, and Ireland, by the R. Father Hierome Porter. Doway, 1632 4to. tome i. p. 438).

"The same supernatural circumstance is alluded to by the anonymous author of Grim, the Collier of Croydon:

'—[Dunstant's harp sounds on the wall.] 'Forrest. Hark, hark, my lord, the holy abbot's harp Sounds by itself so hanging on the wall! 'Dunstan. Unhallow'd man, that scorn'st the sacred rede, Hark, how the testimony of my truth Sounds heavenly music with an angel's hand, To testify Dunstan's integrity, And prove thy active boast of no effect.'"

141. Bothwell's bannered hall. The picturesque ruins of Bothwell Castle stand on the banks of the Clyde, about nine miles above Glasgow. Some parts of the walls are 14 feet thick, and 60 feet in height. They are covered with ivy, wild roses, and wall-flowers.

"The tufted grass lines Bothwell's ancient hall, The fox peeps cautious from the creviced wall, Where once proud Murray, Clydesdale's ancient lord, A mimic sovereign, held the festal board."

142. Ere Douglases, to ruin driven. Scott says: "The downfall of the Douglases of the house of Angus, during the reign of James V., is the event alluded to in the text. The Earl of Angus, it will be remembered, had married the queen dowager, and availed himself of the right which he thus acquired, as well as of his extensive power, to retain the king in a sort of tutelage, which approached very near to captivity. Several open attempts were made to rescue James from this thraldom, with which he was well known to be deeply disgusted; but the valor of the Douglases, and their allies, gave them the victory in every conflict. At length, the king, while residing at Falkland, contrived to escape by night out of his own court and palace, and rode full speed to Stirling Castle, where the governor, who was of the opposite faction, joyfully received him. Being thus at liberty, James speedily summoned around him such peers as he knew to be most inimical to the domination of Angus, and laid his complaint before them, says Pitscottie, 'with great lamentations: showing to them how he was holding in subjection, thir years bygone, by the Earl of Angus, and his kin and friends, who oppressed the whole country, and spoiled it, under the pretence of justice and his authority; and had slain many of his lieges, kinsmen, and friends, because they would have had it mended at their hands, and put him at liberty, as he ought to have been, at the counsel of his whole lords, and not have been subjected and corrected with no particular men, by the rest of his nobles: Therefore, said he, I desire, my lords, that I may be satisfied of the said earl, his kin, and friends; for I avow, that Scotland shall not hold us both, while [i.e. till] I be revenged on him and his.

'The lords hearing the king's complaint and lamentation, and also the great rage, fury, and malice, that he bure toward the Earl of Angus, his kin and friends, they concluded all and thought it best, that he should be summoned to underly the law; if he fand not caution, nor yet compear himself, that he should be put to the horn, with all his kin and friends, so many as were contained in the letters. And further, the lords ordained, by advice of his majesty, that his brother and friends should be summoned to find caution to underly the law within a certain day, or else be put to the horn. But the earl appeared not, nor none for him; and so he was put to the horn, with all his kin and friends: so many as were contained in the summons, that compeared not, were banished, and holden traitors to the king.'"

159. From Tweed to Spey. From the Tweed, the southern boundary of Scotland, to the Spey, a river far to the north in Invernessshire; that is, from one end of the land to the other.

170. Reave. Tear away. The participle reft is still used, at least in poetry. Cf. Shakespeare, V. and A. 766: "Or butcher-sire that reaves his son of life" (that is, bereaves); Spenser, F. Q. i. 3. 36: "He to him lept, in minde to reave his life;" Id. ii. 8. 15: "I will him reave of arms," etc.

178. It drinks, etc. The MS. has "No blither dewdrop cheers the rose."

195, 196. To see... dance. This couplet is not in the MS.

200. The Lady of the Bleeding Heart. The bleeding heart was the cognizance of the Douglas family. Robert Bruce, on his death-bed, bequeathed his heart to his friend, the good Lord James, to be borne in war against the Saracens. "He joined Alphonso, King of Leon and Castile, then at war with the Moorish chief Osurga, of Granada, and in a keen contest with the Moslems he flung before him the casket containing the precious relic, crying out, 'Onward as thou wert wont, thou noble heart, Douglas will follow thee.' Douglas was slain, but his body was recovered, and also the precious casket, and in the end Douglas was laid with his ancestors, and the heart of Bruce deposited in the church of Melrose Abbey" (Burton's Hist. of Scotland).

201. Fair. The 1st ed. (and probably the MS., though not noted by Lockhart) has "Gay."

203. Yet is this, etc. The MS. and 1st ed. read:

"This mossy rock, my friend, to me Is worth gay chair and canopy."

205. Footstep. The reading of the 1st and other early eds.; "footsteps" in recent ones.

206. Strathspey. A Highland dance, which takes its name from the strath, or broad valley, of the Spey (159 above).

213. Clan-Alpine's pride. "The Siol Alpine, or race of Alpine, includes several clans who claimed descent from Kenneth McAlpine, an ancient king. These are the Macgregors, the Grants, the Mackies, the Mackinnans, the MacNabs, the MacQuarries, and the Macaulays. Their common emblem was the pine, which is now confined to the Macgregors" (Taylor).

214. Loch Lomond. This beautiful lake, "the pride of Scottish lakes," is about 23 miles in length and 5 miles in its greatest breadth. At the southern end are many islands, one of which, Inch-Cailliach (the Island of Women, so called from a nunnery that was once upon it), was the burial-place of Clan-Alpine. See iii. 191 below.

216. A Lennox foray. That is, a raid in the lands of the Lennox family, bordering on the southern end of Loch Lomond. On the island of Inch-Murrin, the ruins of Lennox Castle, formerly a residence of the Earls of Lennox, are still to be seen. There was another of their strongholds on the shore of the lake near Balloch, where the modern Balloch Castle now stands.

217. Her glee. The 1st ed. misprints "his glee;" not noted in the Errata.

220. Black Sir Roderick. Roderick Dhu, or the Black, as he was called.

221. In Holy-Rood a knight he slew. That is, in Holyrood Palace. "This was by no means an uncommon occurrence in the Court of Scotland; nay, the presence of the sovereign himself scarcely restrained the ferocious and inveterate feuds which were the perpetual source of bloodshed among the Scottish nobility" (Scott).

223. Courtiers give place, etc. The MS. reads:

"Courtiers give place with heartless stride Of the retiring homicide."

227. Who else, etc. The MS. has the following couplet before this line:

"Who else dared own the kindred claim That bound him to thy mother's name?"

229. The Douglas, etc. Scott says here: "The exiled state of this powerful race is not exaggerated in this and subsequent passages. The hatred of James against the race of Douglas was so inveterate, that numerous as their allies were, and disregarded as the regal authority had usually been in similar cases, their nearest friends, even in the most remote part of Scotland, durst not entertain them, unless under the strictest and closest disguise. James Douglas, son of the banished Earl of Angus, afterwards well known by the title of Earl of Morton, lurked, during the exile of his family, in the north of Scotland, under the assumed name of James Innes, otherwise James the Grieve (i.e. reve or bailiff). 'And as he bore the name,' says Godscroft, 'so did he also execute the office of a grieve or overseer of the lands and rents, the corn and cattle of him with whom he lived.' From the habits of frugality and observation which he acquired in his humble situation, the historian traces that intimate acquaintance with popular character which enabled him to rise so high in the state, and that honorable economy by which he repaired and established the shattered estates of Angus and Morton (History of the House of Douglas, Edinburgh, 1743, vol. ii. p. 160)."

235. Guerdon. Reward; now rarely used except in poetry. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. i. 10. 59: "That glory does to them for guerdon graunt," etc.

236. Dispensation. As Roderick and Ellen were cousins, they could not marry without a dispensation from the Pope.

251. Orphan. Referring to child, not to she, as its position indicates.

254. Shrouds. Shields, protects. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 6: "And this faire couple eke to shroud themselves were fain" (that is, from the rain). So the noun = shelter, protection; as in Shakespeare, A. and C. iii. 13. 71: "put yourself under his shroud," etc. See also on 757 below.

260. Maronnan's cell. "The parish of Kilmaronock, at the eastern extremity of Loch Lomond, derives its name from a cell, or chapel, dedicated to Saint Maronock, or Marnock, or Maronnan, about whose sanctity very little is now remembered" (Scott). Kill = cell; as in Colmekill (Macb. ii. 4. 33), "the cell of Columba," now known as Icolmkill, or Iona.

270. Bracklinn's thundering wave. This beautiful cascade is on the Keltie, a mile from Callander. The height of the fall is about fifty feet. "A few years ago a marriage party of Lowland peasants met with a tragic end here, two of them having tumbled into the broken, angry waters, where they had no more chance of life than if they had dropped into the crater of Hecla" (Black).

271. Save. Unless; here followed by the subjunctive.

274. Claymore. The word means "a large sword" (Gaelic claidheamh, sword, and more, great).

294. Shadowy plaid and sable plume. Appropriate to Roderick Dhu. See on 220 above.

303. Woe the while. Woe be to the time, alas the time! Cf. Shakespeare, J. C. i. 3. 82: "But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead," etc. See also on i. 166 above.

306. Tine-man. "Archibald, the third Earl of Douglas, was so unfortunate in all his enterprises, that he acquired the epithet of 'tine-man,' because he tined, or lost, his followers in every battle which he fought. He was vanquished, as every reader must remember, in the bloody battle of Homildon-hill, near Wooler, where he himself lost an eye, and was made prisoner by Hotspur. He was no less unfortunate when allied with Percy, being wounded and taken at the battle of Shrewsbury. He was so unsuccessful in an attempt to beseige Roxburgh Castle, that it was called the 'Foul Raid,' or disgraceful expedition. His ill fortune left him indeed at the battle of Beauge, in France; but it was only to return with double emphasis at the subsequent action of Vernoil, the last and most unlucky of his encounters, in which he fell, with the flower of the Scottish chivalry, then serving as auxiliaries in France, and about two thousand common soldiers, A.D. 1424" (Scott).

307. What time, etc. That is, at the time when Douglas allied himself with Percy in the rebellion against Henry IV. of England. See Shakespeare, 1 Hen. IV.

309. Did, self unscabbarded, etc. Scott says here: "The ancient warriors, whose hope and confidence rested chiefly in their blades, were accustomed to deduce omens from them, especially from such as were supposed to have been fabricated by enchanted skill, of which we have various instances in the romances and legends of the time. The wonderful sword Skofnung, wielded by the celebrated Hrolf Kraka, was of this description. It was deposited in the tomb of the monarch at his death, and taken from thence by Skeggo, a celebrated pirate, who bestowed it upon his son-in-law, Kormak, with the following curious directions: '"The manner of using it will appear strange to you. A small bag is attached to it, which take heed not to violate. Let not the rays of the sun touch the upper part of the handle, nor unsheathe it, unless thou art ready for battle. But when thou comest to the place of fight, go aside from the rest, grasp and extend the sword, and breathe upon it. Then a small worm will creep out of the handle; lower the handle, that he may more easily return into it." Kormak, after having received the sword, returned home to his mother. He showed the sword, and attempted to draw it, as unnecessarily as ineffectually, for he could not pluck it out of the sheath. His mother, Dalla, exclaimed, "Do not despise the counsel given to thee, my son." Kormak, however, repeating his efforts, pressed down the handle with his feet, and tore off the bag, when Skofung emitted a hollow groan; but still he could not unsheathe the sword. Kormak then went out with Bessus, whom he had challenged to fight with him, and drew apart at the place of combat. He sat down upon the ground, and ungirding the sword, which he bore above his vestments, did not remember to shield the hilt from the rays of the sun. In vain he endeavored to draw it, till he placed his foot against the hilt; then the worm issued from it. But Kormak did not rightly handle the weapon, in consequence whereof good fortune deserted it. As he unsheathed Skofnung, it emitted a hollow murmur' (Bartholini de Causis Contemptae a Danis adhuc Gentilibus Mortis, Libri Tres. Hafniae, 1689, 4to, p. 574).

"To the history of this sentient and prescient weapon, I beg leave to add, from memory, the following legend, for which I cannot produce any better authority. A young nobleman, of high hopes and fortune, chanced to lose his way in the town which he inhabited, the capital, if I mistake not, of a German province. He had accidentally involved himself among the narrow and winding streets of a suburb, inhabited by the lowest order of the people, and an approaching thunder-shower determined him to ask a short refuge in the most decent habitation that was near him. He knocked at the door, which was opened by a tall man, of a grisly and ferocious aspect, and sordid dress. The stranger was readily ushered to a chamber, where swords, scourges, and machines, which seemed to be implements of torture, were suspended on the wall. One of these swords dropped from its scabbard, as the nobleman, after a moment's hesitation, crossed the threshold. His host immediately stared at him with such a marked expression, that the young man could not help demanding his name and business, and the meaning of his looking at him so fixedly. 'I am,' answered the man, 'the public executioner of this city; and the incident you have observed is a sure augury that I shall, in discharge of my duty, one day cut off your head with the weapon which has just now spontaneously unsheathed itself.' The nobleman lost no time in leaving his place of refuge; but, engaging in some of the plots of the period, was shortly after decapitated by that very man and instrument.

"Lord Lovat is said, by the author of the Letters from Scotland (vol. ii. p. 214), to have affirmed that a number of swords that hung up in the hall of the mansion-house, leaped of themselves out of the scabbard at the instant he was born. The story passed current among his clan, but, like that of the story I have just quoted, proved an unfortunate omen."

311. If courtly spy hath, etc. The 1st ed. has "If courtly spy, and harbored," etc. The ed. of 1821 reads "had harbored."

319. Beltane. The first of May, when there was a Celtic festival in honor of the sun. Beltane = Beal-tein, or the fire of Beal, a Gaelic name for the sun. It was celebrated by kindling fires on the hill-tops at night, and other ceremonies, followed by dances, and merry-making. Cf. 410 below. See also The Lord of the Isles, i. 8: "The shepherd lights his belane-fire;" and Glenfinlas:

"But o'er his hills, in festal day, How blazed Lord Ronald's beltane-tree!"

323. But hark! etc. "The moving picture—the effect of the sounds—and the wild character and strong peculiar nationality of the whole procession, are given with inimitable spirit and power of expression" (Jeffrey).

327. The canna's hoary beard. The down of the canna, or cotton-grass.

335. Glengyle. A valley at the northern end of Lock Katrine.

337. Brianchoil. A promontory on the northern shore of the lake.

342. Spears, pikes, and axes. The 1st ed. and that of 1821 have Spears, but all the recent ones misprint "Spear." The "Globe" ed. has "Spear, spikes," etc.

343. Tartans. The checkered woollen cloth so much worn in Scotland. Curiously enough, the name is not Gaelic but French. See Jamieson or Wb.

Brave. Fine, beautiful; the same word as the Scottish braw. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonn. 12. 2: "And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;" Ham. ii. 2. 312: "This brave o'erhanging firmament," etc. It is often used of dress, as also is bravery (= finery); as in T. of S. iv. 3. 57: "With scarfs and fans and double change of bravery." See also Spenser, Mother Hubberds Tale, 858: "Which oft maintain'd his masters braverie" (that is, dressed as well as his master).

351. Chanters. The pipes of the bagpipes, to which long ribbons were attached.

357. The sounds. Misprinted "the sound" in the ed. of 1821, and all the more recent eds. that we have seen. Cf. 363 below.

363. Those thrilling sounds, etc. Scott says here: "The connoisseurs in pipe-music affect to discover in a well-composed pibroch, the imitative sounds of march, conflict, flight, pursuit, and all the 'current of a heady fight.' To this opinion Dr. Beattie has given his suffrage, in that following elegant passage:—'A pibroch is a species of tune, peculiar, I think, to the Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland. It is performed on a bagpipe, and differs totally from all other music. Its rhythm is so irregular, and its notes, especially in the quick movement, so mixed and huddled together, that a stranger finds it impossible to reconcile his ear to it, so as to perceive its modulation. Some of these pibrochs, being intended to represent a battle, begin with a grave motion, resembling a march; then gradually quicken into the onset; run off with noisy confusion, and turbulent rapidity, to imitate the conflict and pursuit; then swell into a few flourishes of triumphant joy; and perhaps close with the wild and slow wailings of a funeral procession' (Essay on Laughter and Ludicrious Composition, chap. iii. note)."

367. Hurrying. Referring to their, or rather to the them implied in that word.

392. The burden bore. That is, sustained the burden, or chorus, of the song. Cf. Shakespeare, Temp. i. 2. 381: "And, sweet sprites, the burden bear."

399. Hail to the Chief, etc. The metre of the song is dactylic; the accents being on the 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th syllables. It is little used in English. Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade and Longfellow's Skeleton in Armor are familiar examples of it.

405. Bourgeon. Bud. Cf. Fairfax, Tasso, vii. 76: When first on trees bourgeon the blossoms soft;" and Tennyson, In Memoriam, 115:

"Now burgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares," etc.

408. Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu. "Besides his ordinary name and surname, which were chiefly used in the intercourse with the Lowlands, every Highland chief had an epithet expressive of his patriarchal dignity as head of the clan, and which was common to all his predecessors and successors, as Pharaoh to the kings of Egypt, or Arsaces to those of Parthia. This name was usually a patronymic, expressive of his descent from the founder of the family. Thus the Duke of Argyll is called MacCallum More, or the son of Colin the Great. Sometimes, however, it is derived from armorial distinctions, or the memory of some great feat; thus Lord Seaforth, as chief of the Mackenzies, or Clan-Kennet, bears the epithet of Caber-fae, or Buck's Head, as representative of Colin Fitzgerald, founder of the family, who saved the Scottish king, when endangered by a stag. But besides this title, which belonged to his office and dignity, the chieftain had usually another peculiar to himself, which distinguished him from the chieftains of the same race. This was sometimes derived from complexion, as dhu or roy; sometimes from size, as beg or more; at other times, from some peculiar exploit, or from some peculiarity of habit or appearance. The line of the text therefore signifies,

Black Roderick, the descendant of Alpine.

"The song itself is intended as an imitation of the jorrams, or boat songs, of the Highlanders, which were usually composed in honor of a favorite chief. They are so adapted as to keep time with the sweep of the oars, and it is easy to distinguish between those intended to be sung to the oars of a galley, where the stroke is lengthened and doubled, as it were, and those which were timed to the rowers of an ordinary boat" (Scott).

410. Beltane. See on 319 above.

415. Roots him. See on i. 142 above.

416. Breadalbane. The district north of Loch Lomond and around Loch Tay. The seat of the Earl of Breadalbane is Taymouth Castle, near the northern end of Loch Tay.

For Menteith, see on i. 89 above.

419. Glen Fruin. A valley to the southwest of Loch Lomond. The ruins of the castle of Benuchara, or Bannochar (see on 422 just below), still overhang the entrance to the glen.

Glen Luss is another valley draining into the lake, a few miles from Glen Fruin, and Ross-dhu is on the shore of the lake, midway between the two. Here stands a tower, the only remnant of the ancient castle of the family of Luss, which became merged in that of Colquhoun.

422. The best of Loch Lomond, etc. Scott has the following note here:

"The Lennox, as the district is called which encircles the lower extremity of Loch Lomond, was peculiarly exposed to the incursions of the mountaineers, who inhabited the inaccessible fastnesses at the upper end of the lake, and the neighboring district of Loch Katrine. These were often marked by circumstances of great ferocity, of which the noted conflict of Glen Fruin is a celebrated instance. This was a clan-battle, in which the Macgregors, headed by Allaster Macgregor, chief of the clan, encountered the sept of Colquhouns, commanded by Sir Humphry Colquhoun of Luss. It is on all hands allowed that the action was desperately fought, and that the Colquhouns were defeated with slaughter, leaving two hundred of their name dead upon the field. But popular tradition has added other horrors to the tale. It is said that Sir Humphry Colquhoun, who was on horseback, escaped to the Castle of Benechra, or Bannochar, and was next day dragged out and murdered by the victorious Macgregors in cold blood. Buchanan of Auchmar, however, speaks of his slaughter as a subsequent event, and as perpetrated by the Macfarlanes. Again, it is reported that the Macgregors murdered a number of youths, whom report of the intended battle had brought to be spectators, and whom the Colquhouns, anxious for their safety, had shut up in a barn to be out of danger. One account of the Macgregors denies this circumstance entirely; another ascribes it to the savage and bloodthirsty disposition of a single individual, the bastard brother of the Laird of Macgregor, who amused himself with this second massacre of the innocents, in express disobedience to the chief, by whom he was left their guardian during the pursuit of the Colquhouns. It is added that Macgregor bitterly lamented this atrocious action, and prophesied the ruin which it must bring upon their ancient clan. ...

"The consequences of the battle of Glen Fruin were very calamitous to the family of Macgregor, who had already been considered as an unruly clan. The widows of the slain Colquhouns, sixty, it is said, in number, appeared in doleful procession before the king at Stirling, each riding upon a white palfrey, and bearing in her hand the bloody shirt of her husband displayed upon a pike. James VI. was so much moved by the complaints of this 'choir of mourning dames,' that he let loose his vengeance against the Macgregors without either bounds or moderation. The very name of the clan was proscribed, and those by whom it had been borne were given up to sword and fire, and absolutely hunted down by bloodhounds like wild beasts. Argyll and the Campbells, on the one hand, Montrose, with the Grahames and Buchanans, on the other, are said to have been the chief instruments in suppressing this devoted clan. The Laird of Macgregor surrendered to the former, on condition that he would take him out of Scottish ground. But, to use Birrel's expression, he kept 'a Highlandman's promise;' and, although he fulfilled his word to the letter, by carrying him as far as Berwick, he afterwards brought him back to Edinburgh, where he was executed with eighteen of his clan (Birrel's Diary, 2d Oct. 1903). The clan Gregor being thus driven to utter despair, seem to have renounced the laws from the benefit of which they were excluded, and their depredations produced new acts of council, confirming the severity of their proscription, which had only the effect of rendering them still more united and desperate. It is a most extraordinary proof of the ardent and invincible spirit of clanship, that notwithstanding the repeated proscriptions providently ordained by the legislature, 'for the timeous preventing the disorders and oppression that may fall out by the said name and clan of Macgregors, and their followers,' they were, in 1715 and 1745, a potent clan, and continue to subsist as a distinct and numerous race."

426. Leven-glen. The valley of the Leven, which connects Loch Lomond with the Clyde.

431. The rosebud. That is, Ellen. "Note how this song connects Allan's forebodings with Roderick's subsequent offer" (Taylor).

444. And chorus wild, etc. The MS. has "The chorus to the chieftain's fame."

476. Weeped. The form is used for the rhyme. Cf. note on i. 500 above.

477. Nor while, etc. The MS. reads:

"Nor while on Ellen's faltering tongue Her filial greetings eager hung, Marked not that awe (affection's proof) Still held yon gentle youth aloof; No! not till Douglas named his name, Although the youth was Malcolm Graeme. Then with flushed cheek and downcast eye, Their greeting was confused and shy."

495. Bothwell. See on 141 above.

497. Percy's Norman pennon. Taken in the raid which led to the battle of Otterburn, in Northumberland, in the year 1388, and which forms the theme of the ballads of Chevy Chase.

501. My pomp. My triumphal procession; the original meaning of pomp.

504. Crescent. The badge of the Buccleuch family (Miss Yonge).

506. Blantyre. A priory, the ruins of which are still to be seen on a height above the Clyde, opposite Bothwell Castle.

521. The dogs, etc. The MS. has "The dogs with whimpering notes repaid."

525. Unhooded. The falcon was carried on the wrist, with its head covered, or hooded, until the prey was seen, when it was unhooded for flight. Cf. vi. 665 below.

526. Trust. Believe me.

527. Like fabled Goddess. The MS. has "Like fabled huntress;" referring of course to Diana.

534. Stature fair. The reading of the 1st ed. and that of 1821; "stature tall" in most of the other eds.

541. The ptarmigan. A white bird.

543. Menteith. See on i. 89 above.

548. Ben Lomond. This is much the highest (3192 feet) of the mountains on the shores of Loch Lomond. The following lines on the ascent were scratched upon the window-pane of the old inn at Tarbet a hundred years or more ago:

"Trust not at first a quick adventurous pace; Six miles its top points gradual from its base; Up the high rise with panting haste I past, And gained the long laborious steep at last; More prudent thou—when once you pass the deep, With cautious steps and slow ascend the steep."

549. Not a sob. That is, without panting, or getting out of breath, like the degenerate modern tourist.

574. Glenfinlas. A wooded valley between Ben-an and Benledi, the entrance to which is between Lochs Achray and Vennachar. It is the scene of Scott's ballad, Glenfinlas, or Lord Ronald's Coronach. A mile from the entrance are the falls of the Hero's Targe. See iv. 84 below.

577. Still a royal ward. Still under age, with the king for guardian.

583. Strath-Endrick. A valley to the southeast of Loch Lomond, drained by Endrick Water.

584. Peril aught. Incur any peril. Milton uses the verb intransitively in Reason of Church Government, ii. 3: "it may peril to stain itself."

587. Not in action. The 1st ed. has "nor in action."

594. News. Now generally used as a singular; but in old writers both as singular and as plural. Cf. Shakespeare, K. John, iii. 4. 164: "at that news he dies;" and Id. v. 7. 65: "these dead news," etc.

601. As. As if. See on 56 above.

606. Glozing. That glosses over the truth, not plain and outspoken. Sometimes it means to flatter, or deceive with smooth words; as in Spenser, F. Q. iii. 8. 14:

"For he could well his glozing speeches frame To such vaine uses that him best became;"

Smith, Sermons (A. D. 1609): "Every smooth tale is not to be believed; and every glosing tongue is not to be trusted;" Milton, P. L. iii. 93: "his glozing lies;" Id. ix. 549: "So glozed the Tempter;" Comus, 161: "well-placed words of glozing courtesy," etc.

615. The King's vindictive pride, etc. Scott says here: "In 1529, James made a convention at Edinburgh, for the purpose of considering the best mode of quelling the Border robbers, who, during the license of his minority, and the troubles which followed, had committed many exorbitances. Accordingly he assembled a flying army of ten thousand men, consisting of his principal nobility and their followers, who were directed to bring their hawks and dogs with them, that the monarch might refresh himself with sport during the intervals of military execution. With this array he swept through Ettrick Forest, where he hanged over the gate of his own castle Piers Cockburn of Henderland, who had prepared, according to tradition, a feast for his reception. He caused Adam Scott of Tushiclaw also to be executed, who was distinguished by the title of King of the Border. But the most noted victim of justice during that expedition was John Armstrong of Gilnockie, famous in Scottish song, who, confiding in his own supposed innocence, met the King, with a retinue of thirty-six persons, all of whom were hanged at Carlenrig, near the source of the Teviot. The effect of this severity was such, that, as the vulgar expressed it, 'the rush-bush kept the cow,' and 'thereafter was great peace and rest a long time, wherethrough the King had great profit; for he had ten thousand sheep going in the Ettrick Forest in keeping by Andrew Bell, who made the king as good count of them as they had gone in the bounds of Fife' (Pitscottie's History, p. 153)."

623. Meggat's mead. The Meggat, or Megget, is a mountain stream flowing into the Yarrow, a branch of the Etrrick, which is itself a branch of the Tweed. The Teviot is also a branch of the Tweed.

627. The dales, etc. The MS. has "The dales where clans were wont to bide."

634. By fate of Border chivalry. Scott says: "James was, in fact, equally attentive to restrain rapine and feudal oppression in every part of his dominions. 'The King past to the isles, and there held justice courts, and punished both thief and traitor according to their demerit. And also he caused great men to show their holdings, wherethrough he found many of the said lands in non-entry; the which he confiscate and brought home to his own use, and afterwards annexed them to the crown, as ye shall hear. Syne brought many of the great men of the isles captive with him, such as Mudyart, M'Connel, M'Loyd of the Lewes, M'Neil, M'Lane, M'Intosh, John Mudyart, M'Kay, M'Kenzie, with many other that I cannot rehearse at this time. Some of them he put in ward and some in court, and some he took pledges for good rule in time coming. So he brought the isles, both north and south, in good rule and peace; wherefore he had great profit, service, and obedience of people a long time hereafter; and as long as he had the heads of the country in subjection, they lived in great peace and rest, and there was great riches and policy by the King's justice' (Pitscottie, p. 152)."

638. Your counsel. That is, give me your counsel. Streight = strait.

659. The Bleeding Heart. See on 200 above.

662. Quarry. See on i. 127 above.

672. To wife. For wife. Cf. Shakespeare, Temp. ii. 1. 75: "such a paragon to their queen;" Rich. II. iv. 1. 306: "I have a king here to my flatterer," etc. See also Matt. iii. 9, Luke, iii. 8, etc.

674. Enow. The old plural of enough; as in Shakespeare, Hen. V. iv. 1. 240: "we have French quarrels enow," etc.

678. The Links of Forth. The windings of the Forth between Stirling and Alloa.

679. Stirling's porch. The gate of Stirling Castle.

683. Blench. Start, shrink.

685. Heat. Misprinted "heart" in many eds.

690. From pathless glen. The MS. has "from hill and glen."

692. There are who have. For the ellipsis, cf. Shakespeare, Temp. ii. 1. 262: "There be that can rule Naples," etc. See also iii. 10 below.

694. That beetled o'er. Cf. Hamlet, i. 4. 71:

"the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base into the sea."

696. Their dangerous dream. The MS. has "their desperate dream."

702. Battled. Battlemented; as in vi. 7 below.

703. It waved. That it waved; an ellipsis very common in Elizabethan and earlier English. Cf. 789 below.

708. Astound. Astounded. This contraction of the participle (here used for the sake of the rhyme) was formerly not uncommon in verbs ending in d and t. Thus in Shakespeare we find the participles bloat (Ham. iii. 4. 182), enshield (M. for M. ii. 4. 80), taint (1 Hen. VI. v. 3. 183), etc.

710. Crossing. Conflicting.

716. Ere. The 1st ed. misprints "e'er."

731. Level. Aim; formerly a technical term. Cf. 2 Hen. IV. iii. 2. 286: "The foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife," etc.

747. Nighted. Benighted. It is to be regarded as a contraction of that word; like lated for belated in Macbeth, iii. 3. 6, etc. Nighted (= dark, black) in Hamlet, i. 2. 68 ("thy nighted colour") is an adjective formed from the noun night.

757. Checkered shroud. Tartain plaid. The original meaning of shroud (see Wb.) was garment.

763. Parting. Departing. See on 94 above.

768. So deep, etc. According to Lockhart, the MS. reads:

"The deep-toned anguish of despair Flushed, in fierce jealousy, to air;"

but we suspect that "Flushed" should be "Flashed."

774. So lately. At the "Beltane game" (319 above).

781. Thus as they strove, etc. The MS. reads:

"Thus, as they strove, each better hand Grasped for the dagger or the brand."

786. I hold, etc. Scott has the following note on the last page of the 1st ed.: "The author has to apologize for the inadvertent appropriation of a whole line from the tragedy of Douglas: 'I hold the first who strikes my foe.'"

789. His daughter's hand, etc. For the ellipsis of that, see on 703 above. Deemed is often misprinted "doomed."

791. Sullen and slowly, etc. The MS. reads:

"Sullen and slow the rivals bold Loosed at his hest their desperate hold, But either still on other glared," etc.

795. Brands. A pet word with Scott. Note how often it has been used already in the poem.

798. As faltered. See on 601 above.

801. Pity 't were, etc. Scott says here: "Hardihood was in every respect so essential to the character of a Highlander, that the reproach of effeminacy was the most bitter which could be thrown upon him. Yet it was sometimes hazarded on what we might presume to think slight grounds. It is reported of old Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, when upwards of seventy, that he was surprised by night on a hunting or military expedition. He wrapped him in his plaid, and lay contentedly down upon the snow, with which the ground happened to be covered. Among his attendants, who were preparing to take their rest in the same manner, he observed that one of his grandsons, for his better accommodation, had rolled a large snow-ball, and placed it below his head. The wrath of the ancient chief was awakened by a symptom of what he conceived to be degenerate luxury. 'Out upon thee,' said he, kicking the frozen bolster from the head which it supported, 'art thou so effeminate as to need a pillow?' The officer of engineers, whose curious Letters from the Highlands have been more than once quoted, tells a similar story of Macdonald of Keppoch, and subjoins the following remarks: 'This and many other stories are romantick; but there is one thing, that at first thought might seem very romantick, of which I have been credibly assured, that when the Highlanders are constrained to lie among the hills, in cold dry weather, they sometimes soak the plaid in some river or burn (i.e. brook), and then holding up a corner of it a little above their heads, they turn themselves round and round, till they are enveloped by the whole mantle. They then lay themselves down on the heath, upon the leeward side of some hill, where the wet and the warmth of their bodies make a steam, like that of a boiling kettle. The wet, they say, keeps them warm by thickening the stuff, and keeping the wind from penetrating. I must confess I should have been apt to question this fact, had I not frequently seen them wet from morning to night, and, even at the beginning of the rain, not so much as stir a few yards to shelter, but continue in it without necessity, till they were, as we say, wet through and through. And that is soon effected by the looseness and spunginess of the plaiding; but the bonnet is frequently taken off, and wrung like a dishclout, and then put on again. They have been accustomed from their infancy to be often wet, and to take the water like spaniels, and this is become a second nature, and can scarcely be called a hardship to them, insomuch that I used to say, they seemed to be of the duck kind, and to love water as well. Though I never saw this preparation for sleep in windy weather, yet, setting out early in a morning from one of the huts, I have seen the marks of their lodging, where the ground has been free from rime or snow, which remained all round the spot where they had lain' (Letters from Scotland, Lond. 1754, 8vo, ii. p. 108)."

809. His henchman. Scott quotes again the Letters from Scotland (ii. 159): "This officer is a sort of secretary, and is to be ready, upon all occasions, to venture his life in defence of his master; and at drinking-bouts he stands behind his seat, at his haunch, from whence his title is derived, and watches the conversation, to see if any one offends his patron. An English officer being in company with a certain chieftain, and several other Highland gentlemen, near Killichumen, had an argument with the great man; and both being well warmed with usky [whisky], at last the dispute grew very hot. A youth who was henchman, not understanding one word of English, imagined his chief was insulted, and thereupon drew his pistol from his side, and snapped it at the officer's head; but the pistol missed fire, otherwise it is more than probable he might have suffered death from the hand of that little vermin. But it is very disagreeable to an Englishman over a bottle with the Highlanders, to see every one of them have his gilly, that is, his servant, standing behind him all the while, let what will be the subject of conversation."

829. On the morn. Modifying should circle, not the nearer verb had sworn.

831. The Fiery Cross. See on iii. 18 below.

846. Point. Point out, appoint. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonn. 14. 6:

"Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell, Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind."

The word in this and similar passages is generally printed "'point" by modern editors, but it is not a contraction of appoint.

860. Then plunged, etc. The MS. has "He spoke, and plunged into the tide."

862. Steered him. See on i. 142 above.

865, 866. Darkening... gave. In the 1st ed. these lines are joined to what precedes, as they evidently should be; in all the more recent eds. they are joined to what follows.

Canto Third.

3. Store. See on i. 548 above.

5. That be. in old English, besides the present tense am, etc., there was also this form be, from the Anglo-Saxon beon. The 2d person singular was beest. The 1st and 3d person plural be is often found in Shakespeare and the Bible.

10. Yet live there still, etc. See on ii. 692 above.

15. What time. Cf. ii. 307 above.

17. The gathering sound. The sound, or signal, for the gathering. The phrase illustrates the difference between the participle and the verbal noun (or whatever it may be called) in -ing. Cf. "a laboring man" and "a laboring day" (Julius Caesar, i. 1. 4); and see our ed. of J. C. p. 126.

18. The Fiery Cross. Scott says here: "When a chieftain designed to summon his clan, upon any sudden or important emergency, he slew a goat, and making a cross of any light wood, seared its extremities in the fire, and extinguished them in the blood of the animal. This was called the Fiery Cross, also Crean Tarigh, or the Cross of Shame, because disobedience to what the symbol implied, inferred infamy. It was delivered to a swift and trusty messenger, who ran full speed with it to the next hamlet, where he presented it to the principal person, with a single word, implying the place of rendezvous. He who received the symbol was bound to send it forward, with equal despatch, to the next village; and thus it passed with incredible celerity through all the district which owed allegiance to the chief, and also among his allies and neighbours, if the danger was common to them. At sight of the Fiery Cross, every man, from sixteen years old to sixty, capable of bearing arms, was obliged instantly to repair, in his best arms and accoutrements, to the place of rendezvous. He who failed to appear suffered the extremities of fire and sword, which were emblematically denounced to the disobedient by the bloody and burnt marks upon this warlike signal. During the civil war of 1745-6, the Fiery Cross often made its circuit; and upon one occasion it passed through the whole district of Breadalbane, a tract of thirty-two miles, in three hours. The late Alexander Stewart, Esq., of Invernahyle, described to me his having sent round the Fiery Cross through the district of Appine, during the same commotion. The coast was threatened by a descent from two English trigates, and the flower of the young men were with the army of Prince Charles Edward, then in England; yet the summons was so effectual that even old age and childhood obeyed it; and a force was collected in a few hours, so numerous and so enthusiastic, that all attempt at the intended diversion upon the country of the absent warriors was in prudence abandoned, as desperate."

19. The Summer dawn's reflected hue, etc. Mr. Ruskin says (Modern Painters, iii. 278): "And thus Nature becomes dear to Scott in a threefold way: dear to him, first, as containing those remains or memories of the past, which he cannot find in cities, and giving hope of Praetorian mound or knight's grave in every green slope and shade of its desolate places; dear, secondly, in its moorland liberty, which has for him just as high a charm as the fenced garden had for the mediaeval;... and dear to him, finally, in that perfect beauty, denied alike in cities and in men, for which every modern heart had begun at last to thirst, and Scott's, in its freshness and power, of all men's most earnestly.

"And in this love of beauty, observe that the love of colour is a leading element, his healthy mind being incapable of losing, under any modern false teaching, its joy in brilliancy of hue. ... In general, if he does not mean to say much about things, the one character which he will give is colour, using it with the most perfect mastery and faithfulness."

After giving many illustrations of Scott's use of colour in his poetry, Ruskin quotes the present passage, which he says is "still more interesting, because it has no form in it at all except in one word (chalice), but wholly composes its imagery either of colour, or of that delicate half-believed life which we have seen to be so important an element in modern landscape."

"Two more considerations," he adds, "are, however, suggested by the above passage. The first, that the love of natural history, excited by the continual attention now given to all wild landscape, heightens reciprocally the interest of that landscape, and becomes an important element in Scott's description, leading him to finish, down to the minutest speckling of breast, and slightest shade of attributed emotion, the portraiture of birds and animals; in strange opposition to Homer's slightly named 'sea-crows, who have care of the works of the sea,' and Dante's singing-birds, of undefined species. Compare carefully the 2d and 3d stanzas of Rokeby.

"The second point I have to note is Scott's habit of drawing a slight moral from every scene,... and that this slight moral is almost always melancholy. Here he has stopped short without entirely expressing it:

"The mountain-shadows.. ..................... lie Like future joys to Fancy's eye.'

His completed thought would be, that these future joys, like the mountain-shadows, were never to be attained. It occurs fully uttered in many other places. He seems to have been constantly rebuking his own worldly pride and vanity, but never purposefully:

'The foam-globes on her eddies ride, Thick as the schemes of human pride That down life's current drive amain, As frail, as frothy, and as vain.'"

Ruskin adds, among other illustrations, the reference to "foxglove and nightshade" in i. 218, 219 above.

28. Like future joys, etc. This passage, quoted by Ruskin above, also illustrates what is comparatively rare in figurative language—taking the immaterial to exemplify the material. The latter is constantly used to symbolize or elucidate the former; but one would have to search long in our modern poetry to find a dozen instances where, as here, the relation is reversed. Cf. 639 below. We have another example in the second passage quoted by Ruskin. Cf. also Tennyson's

"thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, That like a broken purpose waste in air;"

and Shelly's

"Our boat is asleep on Serchio's stream; Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream."

30. Reared. The 1st ed. has "oped."

32. After this line the MS. has the couplet,

"Invisible in fleecy cloud, The lark sent down her matins loud,"

which reappears in altered form below.

33. Gray mist. The MS. has "light mist."

38. Good-morrow gave, etc. Cf. Byron, Childe Harold:

"and the bills Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass."

39. Cushat dove. Ring-dove.

46. His impatient blade. Note the "transferred epithet." It is not the blade that is impatient.

47. Beneath a rock, etc. The MS. reads:

"Hard by, his vassals' early care The mystic ritual prepare."

50. Antiquity. The men of old; "the abstract for the concrete."

59. With her broad shadow, etc. Cf. Longfellow, Maidenhood:

"Seest thou shadows sailing by, As the dove, with startled eye, Sees the falcon's shadow fly?"

62. Rowan. The mountain-ash.

71. That monk, of savage form and face. Scott says here: "The state of religion in the middle ages afforded considerable facilities for those whose mode of life excluded them from regular worship, to secure, nevertheless, the ghostly assistance of confessors, perfectly willing to adapt the nature of their doctrine to the necessities and peculiar circumstances of their flock. Robin Hood, it is well known, had his celebrated domestic chaplain Friar Tuck. And that same curtal friar was probably matched in manners and appearance by the ghostly fathers of the Tynedale robbers, who are thus described in an excommunication fulminated against their patrons by Richard Fox, Bishop of Durham, tempore Henrici VIII.: 'We have further understood, that there are many chaplains in the said territories of Tynedale and Redesdale, who are public and open maintainers of concubinage, irregular, suspended, excommunicated, and interdicted persons, and withal so utterly ignorant of letters, that it has been found by those who objected this to them, that there were some who, having celebrated mass for ten years, were still unable to read the sacramental service. We have also understood there are persons among them who, although not ordained, do take upon them the offices of priesthood, and, in contempt of God, celebrate the divine and sacred rites, and administer the sacraments, not only in sacred and dedicated places, but in those which are prophane and interdicted, and most wretchedly ruinous, they themselves being attired in ragged, torn, and most filthy vestments, altogether unfit to be used in divine, or even in temporal offices. The which said chaplains do administer sacraments and sacramental rites to the aforesaid manifest and infamous thieves, robbers, depredators, receivers of stolen goods, and plunderers, and that without restitution, or intention to restore, as evinced by the act; and do also openly admit them to the rites of ecclesiastical sepulchre, without exacting security for restitution, although they are prohibited from doing so by the sacred canons, as well as by the institutes of the saints and fathers. All which infers the heavy peril of their own souls, and is a pernicious example to the other believers in Christ, as well as no slight, but an aggravated injury, to the numbers despoiled and plundered of their goods, gear, herds, and chattels.'"

74. Benharrow. A mountain near the head of Loch Lomond.

77. Brook. See on i. 566 above.

81. The hallowed creed. The Christian creed, as distinguished from heathen lore. The MS. has "While the blest creed," etc.

85. Bound. That is, of his haunts.

87. Glen or strath. A glen is the deep and narrow valley of a small stream, a strath the broader one of a river.

89. He prayed, etc. The MS. reads:

"He prayed, with many a cross between, And terror took devotion's mien."

91. Of Brian's birth, etc. Scott says that the legend which follows is not of his invention, and goes on to show that it is taken with slight variation from "the geographical collections made by the Laird of Macfarlane."

102. Bucklered. Served as a buckler to, shielded.

114. Snood. Cf. i. 363 above. Scott has the following note here: "The snood, or riband, with which as Scottish lass braided her hair, had an emblematical signification, and applied to her maiden character. It was exchanged for the curch, toy, or coif, when she passed, by marriage, into the matron state. But if the damsel was so unfortunate as to lose pretensions to the name of maiden, without gaining a right to that of matron, she was neither permitted to use the snood, nor advanced to the graver dignity of the curch. In old Scottish songs there occur many sly allusions to such misfortune; as in the old words to the popular tune of 'Ower the muir amang the heather:'

'Down amang the broom, the broom, Down amang the broom, my dearie, The lassie lost her silken snood, That gard her greet till she was wearie.'"

120. Or... or. For either... or, as often in poetry.

131. Till, frantic, etc. The MS. reads:

"Till, driven to frenzy, he believed The legend of his birth received."

136. The cloister. Here personified as feminine.

138. Sable-lettered. "Black-letter;" the technical term for the "old English" form of letter, used in the earliest English manuscripts and books.

142. Cabala. Mysteries. For the original meaning of the word, see Wb.

144. Curious. Inquisitive, prying into hidden things.

148. Hid him. See on i. 142 above.

149. The desert gave him, etc. Scott says here: "In adopting the legend concerning the birth of the Founder of the Church of Kilmallie, the author has endeavored to trace the effects which such a belief was likely to produce, in a barbarous age, on the person to whom it related. It seems likely that he must have become a fanatic or an impostor, or that mixture of both which forms a more frequent character than either of them, as existing separately. In truth, mad persons are frequently more anxious to impress upon others a faith in their visions, than they are themselves confirmed in their reality; as, on the other hand, it is difficult for the most cool-headed impostor long to personate an enthusiast, without in some degree believing what he is so eager to have believed. It was a natural attribute of such a character as the supposed hermit, that he should credit the numerous superstitions with which the minds of ordinary Highlanders are almost always imbued. A few of these are slightly alluded to in this stanza. The River Demon, or River-horse, for it is that form which he commonly assumes, is the Kelpy of the Lowlands, an evil and malicious spirit, delighting to forebode and to witness calamity. He frequents most Highland lakes and rivers; and one of his most memorable exploits was performed upon the banks of Loch Vennachar, in the very district which forms the scene of our action: it consisted in the destruction of a funeral procession, with all its attendants. The 'noontide hag,' called in Gaelic Glas-lich, a tall, emaciated, gigantic female figure, is supposed in particular to haunt the district of Knoidart. A goblin dressed in antique armor, and having one hand covered with blood, called, from that circumstance, Lham-dearg, or Red-hand, is a tenant of the forests of Glenmore and Rothiemurcus. Other spirits of the desert, all frightful in shape and malignant in disposition, are believed to frequent different mountains and glens of the Highlands, where any unusual appearance, produced by mist, or the strange lights that are sometimes thrown upon particular objects, never fails to present an apparition to the imagination of the solitary and melancholy mountaineer."

161. Mankind. Accented on the first syllable; as it is almost invariably in Shakespeare, except in Timon of Athens, where the modern accent prevails. Milton uses either accent, as suits the measure. We find both in P. L. viii. 358: "Above mankind, or aught than mankind higher."

166. Alpine's. Some eds. misprint "Alpine;" also "horsemen" in 172 below.

168. The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream. The MS. reads:

"The fatal Ben-Shie's dismal scream, And seen her wrinkled form, the sign Of woe and death to Alpine's line."

Scott has the following note here: "Most great families in the Highlands were supposed to have a tutelar, or rather a domestic, spirit, attached to them, who took an interest in their prosperity, and intimated, by its wailings, any approaching disaster. That of Grant of Grant was called May Moullach, and appeared in the form of a girl, who had her arm covered with hair. Grant of Rothiemurcus had an attendant called Bodach-an-dun, or the Ghost of the Hill; and many other examples might be mentioned. The Ben-Shie implies the female fairy whose lamentations were often supposed to precede the death of a chieftain of particular families. When she is visible, it is in the form of an old woman, with a blue mantle and streaming hair. A superstition of the same kind is, I believe, universally received by the inferior ranks of the native Irish.

"The death of the head of a Highland family is also sometimes supposed to be announced by a chain of lights of different colours, called Dr'eug, or death of the Druid. The direction which it takes marks the place of the funeral." [See the Essay on Fairy Superstitions in Scott's Border Minstrelsy.]

169. Sounds, too, had come, etc. Scott says: "A presage of the kind alluded to in the text, is still believed to announce death to the ancient Highland family of M'Lean of Lochbuy. The spirit of an ancestor slain in battle is heard to gallop along a stony bank, and then to ride thrice around the family residence, ringing his fairy bridle, and thus intimating the approaching calamity. How easily the eye as well as the ear may be deceived upon such occasions, is evident from the stories of armies in the air, and other spectral phenomena with which history abounds. Such an apparition is said to have been witnessed upon the side of Southfell mountain, between Penrith and Keswick, upon the 23d June, 1744, by two persons, William Lancaster of Blakehills, and Daniel Stricket his servant, whose attestation to the fact, with a full account of the apparition, dated the 21st of July, 1745, is printed in Clarke's Survey of the Lakes. The apparition consisted of several troops of horse moving in regular order, with a steady rapid motion, making a curved sweep around the fell, and seeming to the spectators to disappear over the ridge of the mountain. Many persons witnessed this phenomenon, and observed the last, or last but one, of the supposed troop, occasionally leave his rank, and pass, at a gallop, to the front, when he resumed the steady pace. The curious appearance, making the necessary allowance for imagination, may be perhaps sufficiently accounted for by optical deception."

171. Shingly. Gravelly, pebbly.

173. Thunderbolt. The 1st ed. has "thunder too."

188. Framed. The reading of the 1st ed.; commonly misprinted "formed," which occurs in 195.

190. Limbs. The 1st ed. has "limb."

191. Inch-Cailliach. Scott says: "Inch-Cailliach, the Isle of Nuns, or of Old Women, is a most beautiful island at the lower extremity of Loch Lomond. The church belonging to the former nunnery was long used as the place of worship for the parish of Buchanan, but scarce any vestiges of it now remain. The burial-ground continues to be used, and contains the family places of sepulture of several neighboring clans. The monuments of the lairds of Macgregor, and of other families claiming a descent from the old Scottish King Alpine, are most remarkable. The Highlanders are as zealous of their rights of sepulture as may be expected from a people whose whole laws and government, if clanship can be called so, turned upon the single principle of family descent. 'May his ashes be scattered on the water,' was one of the deepest and most solemn imprecations which they used against an enemy." [See a detailed description of the funeral ceremonies of a Highland chieftain in the Fair Maid of Perth.]

203. Dwelling low. That is, burial-place.

207. Each clansman's execration, etc. The MS. reads:

"Our warriors, on his worthless bust, Shall speak disgrace and woe;"

and below:

"Their clattering targets hardly strook; And first they muttered low."

212. Stook. One of the old forms of struck. In the early eds. of Shakespeare, we find struck, stroke, and strook (or strooke) for the past tense, and all these, together with stricken, strucken, stroken, and strooken, for the participle. Cf. Milton, Hymn of Nativity, 95:

"When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet As never was by mortal finger strook;"

where, as here, it used for the sake of the rhyme.

214. Then, like the billow, etc. The repetition of the same rhyme here gives well the cumulative effect of the rising billow.

217. Burst, with load roar. See on i. 73 above; and cf. 227 below.

228. Holiest name. The MS. has "holy name."

245. Mingled with childhood's babbling trill, etc. "The whole of this stanza is very impressive; the mingling of the children's curses is the climax of horror. Note the meaning of the triple curse. The cross is of ancestral yew—the defaulter is cut off from communion with his clan; it is sealed in the fire—the fire shall destroy his dwelling; it is dipped in blood—his heart's blood is to be shed" (Taylor).

253. Coir-Uriskin. See on 622 below.

255. Beala-nam-bo. "The pass of the cattle," on the other side of Benvenue from the Goblin's Cave; "a magnificent glade, overhung with birch-trees, by which the cattle, taken in forays, were conveyed within the protection of the Trosachs" (Black).

279. This sign. That is, the cross. To all, which we should not expect with bought, was apparently suggested by the antithetical to him in the preceding line; but if all the editions did not read bought, we might suspect that Scott wrote brought.

281. The murmur, etc. The MS. has "The slowly muttered deep Amen."

286. The muster-place, etc. The MS. reads "Murlagan is the spot decreed."

Lanrick Mead is a meadow at the northwestern end of Loch Vennachar.

300. The dun deer's hide, etc. Scott says: "The present brogue of the Highlanders is made of half-dried leather, with holes to admit and let out the water; for walking the moors dry-shod is a matter altogether out of the question. The ancient buskin was still ruder, being made of undressed deer's hide, with the hair outwards,—a circumstance which procured the Highlanders the well-known epithet of Red-shanks. The process is very accurately described by one Elder (himself a Highlander), in the project for a union between England and Scotland, addressed to Henry VIII.: 'We go a-hunting, and after that we have slain red-deer, we flay off the skin by and by, and setting of our barefoot on the inside thereof, for want of cunning shoemakers, by your grace's pardon, we play the cobblers, compassing and measuring so much thereof as shall reach up to our ankles, pricking the upper part thereof with holes, that the water may repass where it enters, and stretching it up with a strong thong of the same above our said ankles. So, and please your noble grace, we make our shoes. Therefore, we using such manner of shoes, the rough hairy side outwards, in your grace's dominions of England, we be called Rough-footed Scots' (Pinkerton's History, vol. ii. p. 397)."

Cf. Marmion, v. 5:

"The hunted red-deer's undressed hide Their hairy buskins well supplied."

304. Steepy. For the word (see also iv. 374 below) and the line, cf. Shakespeare, T. of A. i. 1. 75:

"Bowing his head against the steepy mount To climb his happiness."

309. Questing. Seeking its game. Bacon (Adv. of Learning, v. 5) speaks of "the questing of memory."

310. Scaur. Cliff, precipice; the same word as scar. Cf. Tennyson's Bugle Song: "O sweet and far, from cliff and scar;" and in the Idyls of the King: "shingly scaur."

314. Herald of battle, etc. The MS. reads:

"Dread messenger of fate and fear, Herald of danger, fate and fear, Stretch onward in thy fleet career! Thou track'st not now the stricken doe, Nor maiden coy through greenwood bough."

322. Fast as the fatal symbol flies, etc. "The description of the starting of the Fiery Cross bears more marks of labor than most of Mr. Scott's poetry, and borders, perhaps, on straining and exaggeration; yet it shows great power" (Jeffrey).

332. Cheer. In its original sense of countenance, or look. Cf. Shakespeare, M. N. D. iii. 2. 96: "pale of cheer;" Spenser, F. Q. i. 1. 2: "But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad;" Dryden, Hind and Panther, iii. 437: "Till frowning skies began to change their cheer," etc.

333. His scythe. The reading of the 1st and other early eds.; "the scythe" in more recent ones.

342. Alas, thou lovely lake! etc. "Observe Scott's habit of looking at nature, neither as dead, nor merely material, nor as altered by his own feelings; but as having an animation and pathos of its own, wholly irrespective of human passion—an animation which Scott loves and sympathizes with, as he would with a fellow creature, forgetting himself altogether, and subduing his own humanity before what seems to him the power of the landscape.... Instead of making Nature anywise subordinate to himself, he makes himself subordinate to HER—follows her lead simply—does not venture to bring his own cares and thoughts into her pure and quiet presence—paints her in her simple and universal truth, adding no result of momentary passion or fancy, and appears, therefore, at first shallower than other poets, being in reality wider and healthier" (Ruskin).

344. Bosky. Bushy, woody. Cf. Milton, Comus, 313: "And every bosky bourn from side to side;" Shakespeare, Temp. iv. i. 81: "My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down," etc.

347. Seems for the scene, etc. The MS. has "Seems all too lively and too loud."

349. Duncraggan's huts. A homestead between Lochs Achray and Vennachar, near the Brigg of Turk.

355. Shot him. See on i. 142 above. Scott is much given to this construction.

357. The funeral yell, etc. The MS. has "'T is woman's scream, 't is childhood's wail."

Yell may at first seem too strong a word here, but it is in keeping with the people and the times described. Besides Scott was familiar with old English poetry, in which it was often used where a modern writer would choose another word. Cf. Surrey, Virgil's AEneid: "With wailing great and women's shrill yelling;" and Gascoigne, De Profundis:

"From depth of doole wherein my soule dooth dwell, ........... O gracious God, to thee I crie and yell."

362. Torch's ray. The 1st ed. reads "torches ray" and supply;" corrected in the Errata to read as in the text. Most eds. print "torches' ray."

369. Coronach. Scott has the following note here: "The Coronach of the Highlanders, like the Ululatus of the Romans, and the Ululoo of the Irish, was a wild expression of lamentation, poured forth by the mourners over the body of a departed friend. When the words of it were articulate, they expressed the praises of the deceased, and the loss the clan would sustain by his death. The following is a lamentation of this kind, literally translated from the Gaelic, to some of the ideas of which the text stands indebted. The tune is so popular that it has since become the war-march, or gathering of the clan.

Coronach on Sir Lauchlan, Chief of Maclean.

'Which of all the Senachies Can trace thy line from the root, up to Paradise, But Macvuirih, the son of Fergus? No sooner had thine ancient stately tree Taken firm root in Albin, Than one of thy forefathers fell at Harlaw.— 'T was then we lost a chief of deathless name.

''T is no base weed—no planted tree, Nor a seedling of last Autumn; Nor a sapling planted at Beltain; Wide, wide around were spread its lofty branches— But the topmost bough is lowly laid! Thou hast forsaken us before Sawaine.

'Thy dwelling is the winter house;— Loud, sad, and mighty is thy death-song! Oh! courteous champion of Montrose! Oh! stately warrior of the Celtic Isles! Thou shalt buckle thy harness on no more!'

"The coronach has for some years past been suspended at funerals by the use of the bagpipe; and that also is, like many other Highland peculiarities, falling into disuse, unless in remote districts."

370. He is gone, etc. As Taylor remarks, the metre of this dirge seems to be amphibrachic; that is, made up of feet, or metrical divisions, of three syllables, the second of which is accented. Some of the lines appear to be anapestic (made up of trisyllabic feet, with the last syllable accented); but the rhythm of these is amphibrachic; that is, the rhythmic pause is after the syllable that follows the accent.

"(He) is gone on the mountain, {Like) a summer- dried fountain."

Ten lines out of twenty-four are distinctly amphibrachic, as

"To Duncan no morrow."

So that it seems best to treat the rest as amphibrachic, with a superfluous unaccented syllable at the beginning of the line. Taylor adds: "The song is very carefully divided. To each of the three things, mountain, forest, fountain, four lines are given, in the order 3, 1, 2."

384. In flushing. In full bloom. Cf. Hamlet, iii. 3. 81: "broad blown, as flush as May."

386. Correi. A hallow in the side of a hill, where game usually lies.

387. Cumber. Trouble, perplexity. Cf. Fairfax, Tasso ii. 73: "Thus fade thy helps, and thus thy cumbers spring;" and Sir John Harrington, Epigrams, i. 94: "without all let [hindrance] or cumber."

388. Red. Bloody, not afraid of the hand-to-hand fight.

394. Stumah. "Faithful; the name of a dog" (Scott).

410. Angus, the heir, etc. The MS. reads:

"Angus, the first of Duncan's line, Sprung forth and seized the fatal sign, And then upon his kinsman's bier Fell Malise's suspended tear. In haste the stripling to his side His father's targe and falchion tied."

439. Hest. Behest, bidding; used only in poetry. Cf. Shakespeare, Temp. iii. 1. 37: "I have broke your hest to say so;" Id. iv. 1. 65: "at thy hest," etc.

452. Benledi saw the Cross of Fire, etc. Scott says here: "Inspection of the provincial map of Perthshire, or any large map of Scotland, will trace the progress of the signal through the small district of lakes and mountains, which, in exercise of my imaginary chieftain, and which, at the period of my romance, was really occupied by a clan who claimed a descent from Alpine,—a clan the most unfortunate and most persecuted, but neither the least distinguished, least powerful, nor least brave of the tribes of the Gael.

"The first stage of the Fiery Cross is to Duncraggan, a place near the Brigg of Turk, where a short stream divides Loch Achray from Loch Vennachar. From thence, it passes towards Callander, and then, turning to the left up the pass of Leny, is consigned to Norman at the Chapel of Saint Bride, which stood on a small and romantic knoll in the middle of the valley, called Strath-Ire. Tombea and Arnandave, or Adrmandave, are names of places in the vicinity. The alarm is then supposed to pass along the Lake of Lubnaig, and through the various glens in the district of Balquidder, including the neighboring tracts of Glenfinlas and Strath-Gartney."

453. Strath-Ire. This valley connects Lochs Voil and Lubnaig. The Chapel of Saint Bride is about half a mile from the southern end of Loch Lubnaig, on the banks of the River Leny, a branch of the Teith (hence "Teith's young waters"). The churchyard, with a few remains of the chapel, are all that now mark the spot.

458. Until, where, etc. The MS. reads:

"And where a steep and wooded knoll Graced the dark strath with emerald green."

465. Though reeled his sympathetic eye. That is, his eye reeled in sympathy with the movement of the waters—a poetic expression of what every one has felt when looking into a "dizzily dancing" stream.

478. That morning-tide. That morning time. Tide in this sense is now used only in a few poetic compounds like eventide, springtide, etc. See iv. 59 below. For its former use, cf. Spenser, F. Q. i. 2. 29: "and rest their weary limbs a tide;" Id. iii. 6. 21: "that mine may be your paine another tide," etc. See also Scott's Lay, vi. 50: "Me lists not at this tide declare."

483. Bridal. Bridal party; used as a collective noun.

485. Coif-clad. Wearing the coif, or curch. See on 114 above; as also for snooded.

488. Unwitting. Unknowing. Cf. 367 above. For the verb wit, see on i. 596 above.

495. Kerchief. Curch, which is etymologically the same word, and means a covering for the head. Some eds. print "'kerchief," as if the word were a contraction of handkerchief.

508. Muster-place. The 1st ed. has "mustering place;" and in 519 "brooks" for brook.

510. And must he, etc. The MS. reads: "And must he then exchange the hand."

528. Lugnaig's lake. loch Lubnaig is about four miles long and a mile broad, hemmed in by steep, and rugged mountains. The view of Benledi from the lake is peculiarly grand and impressive.

530. The sickening pang, etc. Cf. The Lord of the Isles, vi. 1: "The heartsick faintness of the hope delayed." See Prov. xiii. 12.

531. And memory, etc. The MS. reads:

"And memory brought the torturing train Of all his morning visions vain; But mingled with impatience came The manly love of martial fame."

541. Brae. The brow or side of a hill.

545. The heath, etc. The metre of the song is the same as that of the poem, the only variation being in the order of the rhymes.

546. Bracken. Fern; "the Pteris aquilina" (Taylor).

553. Fancy now. The MS. has "image now."

561. A time will come, etc. The MS. reads:

"A time will come for love and faith, For should thy bridegroom yield his breath, 'T will cheer him in the hour of death, The boasted right to thee, Mary."

570. Balquidder. A village near the eastern end of Loch Voil, the burial-place of Rob Roy and the scene of many of his exploits. The Braes extend along the north side of the lake and of the Balvaig which flows into it.

Scott says here: "It may be necessary to inform the Southern reader that the heath on the Scottish moorlands is often set fire to, that the sheep may have the advantage of the young herbage produced, in room of the tough old heather plants. This custom (execrated by sportsmen) produces occasionally the most beautiful nocturnal appearances, similar almost to the discharge of a volcano. This simile is not new to poetry. The charge of a warrior, in the fine ballad of Hardyknute, is said to be 'like fire to heather set.'"

575. Nor faster speeds it, etc. "The eager fidelity with which this fatal signal is hurried on and obeyed, is represented with great spirit and felicity" (Jeffrey).

577. Coil. Turmoil. Cf. Shakespeare, Temp. i. 2. 207:

"Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil Would not infect his reason?"

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