[G] Wordsworth.
[H] Round about the shores of Loch Skene the Ettrick Shepherd herded the flocks of his master, and fed his boyish fancies with the romance and beauty which breathes from every feature of the scene. One day, when we were at Loch Skene on a fishing excursion with him, he pointed up to the black crag overhanging the water, and said—“You see the edge o’ that cliff; I ance as near dropped frae it intil eternity as I dinna care to think o’. I was herdin’ aboot here, and lang and lang I thocht o’ speelin’ up to the eyry, frae which I could hear the young eagles screamin’ as plain as my ain bonny Mary Gray (his youngest daughter) when she’s no pleased wi’ the colley; but the fear o’ the auld anes aye keepit me frae the attempt. At last, ae day, when I was at the head o’ the cliff, and the auld eagle away frae the nest, I took heart o’ grace, and clambered down (for there was nae gettin’ up). Weel, sir, I was at the maist kittle bit o’ the craig, wi’ my foot on a bit ledge just wide enough to bear me, and sair bothered wi’ my plaid and stick, when, guid saf’s! I heard the boom o’ the auld eagle’s wings come whaff, whaffing through the air, and in a moment o’ time she brought me sic a whang wi’ her wing, as she rushed enraged by, and then turning short again and fetching me anither, I thought I was gane for ever; but providence gave me presence o’ mind to regain my former resting-place, and there flinging off my plaid, I keepit aye nobbing the bird wi’ my stick till I was out o’ danger. It was a fearsome time!” It would have been dreadful had the pleasure which “Kilmeny,” “Queen Hynde,” and the hundred other beautiful creations which the glorious old bard has given us, been all thus destroyed “at one fell swoop.”
[I] “Fey,” a Scottish word, expressive of that unaccountable and violent mirth which is supposed frequently to portend sudden death.—Ed.
[J] “But halve your men in equal parts,
Your purpose to fulfil;
Let ae half keep the water-side,
The rest gae round the hill.”
Battle of Philiphaugh—Border Ballad.
[K] Sir Walter Scott says that “the number of slain in the field did not exceed three or four hundred.” All the authorities I have seen state the number at a thousand. He also accuses Lesly of abusing his victory by slaughtering many of his prisoners in cold blood. Now, it is true that a hundred of the Irish adventurers were shot; but this was in pursuance of an act of both Parliaments, and not from any private revenge on the part of General Lesly.
[L] The last person burned for witchcraft in Scotland was at Spot—the scene of our present story.