The Lady of the Lake
such an assurance from those by whom it was communicated as permits me
little doubt of its authenticity. Early in the last century, John Gunn,
a noted Cateran, or Highland robber, infested Inverness-shire, and
levied black-mail up to the walls of the provincial capital. A garrison
was then maintained in the castle of that town, and their pay (country
banks being unknown) was usually transmitted in specie under the guard
of a small escort. It chanced that the officer who commanded this
little party was unexpectedly obliged to halt, about thirty miles
from Inverness, at a miserable inn. About nightfall, a stranger in the
Highland dress, and of very prepossessing appearance, entered the same
house. Separate accommodations being impossible, the Englishman offered
the newly-arrived guest a part of his supper, which was accepted with
reluctance. By the conversation he found his new acquaintance knew well
all the passes of the country, which induced him eagerly to request his
company on the ensuing morning. He neither disguised his business and
charge, nor his apprehensions of that celebrated freebooter, John Gunn.
The Highlander hesitated a moment, and then frankly consented to be
his guide. Forth they set in the morning; and in travelling through
a solitary and dreary glen, the discourse again turned on John Gunn.
'Would you like to see him?' said the guide; and without waiting an
answer to this alarming question, he whistled, and the English officer,
with his small party, were surrounded by a body of Highlanders, whose
numbers put resistance out of question, and who were all well armed.
'Stranger,' resumed the guide, 'I am that very John Gunn by whom you
feared to be intercepted, and not without cause; for I came to the inn
last night with the express purpose of learning your route, that I
and my followers might ease you of your charge by the road. But I am
incapable of betraying the trust you reposed in me, and having convinced
you that you were in my power, I can only dismiss you unplundered and
uninjured.' He then gave the officer directions for his journey,
and disappeared with his party as suddenly as they had presented
themselves."
277. Flood. Flow; used for the sake of the rhyme, like drew just below.
Wont = wonted.
286. And still, etc. The MS. reads:
"And still, from copse and heather bush,
Fancy saw spear and broadsword ruch."
298. Three mighty lakes. Katrine, Achray, and Vennachar. Scott says:
"The torrent which discharges itself from Loch Vennachar, the lowest
and eastmost of the three lakes which form the scenery adjoining to the
Trosachs, sweeps through a flat and extensive moor, called Bochastle.
Upon a small eminence called the Dun of Bochastle, and indeed on the
plain itself, are some intrenchments which have been thought Roman.
There is adjacent to Callander a sweet villa, the residence of Captain
Fairfoul, entitled the Roman Camp."
301. Mouldering. The MS. has "martial."
309. This murderous Chief, etc. Cf. 106 above.
315. All vantageless, etc. Scott says: "The duellists of former times
did not always stand upon those punctilios respecting equality of arms,
which are not judged essential to fair combat. It is true that in formal
combats in the lists the parties were, by the judges of the field, put
as nearly as possible in the same circumstances. But in private duel it
was often otherwise. In that desperate combat which was fought between
Quelus, a minion of Henry III. of France, and Antraguet, with two
seconds on each side, from which only two persons escaped alive, Quelus
complained that his antagonist had over him the advantage of a poniard
which he used in parrying, while his left hand, which he was forced
to employ for the same purpose, was cruelly mangled. When he charged
Antraguet with this odds, 'Thou hast done wrong,' answered he, 'to
forget thy dagger at home. We are here to fight, and not to settle
punctilios of arms.' In a similar duel, however, a young brother of the
house of Aubayne, in Angoulesme, behaved more generously on the like
occasion, and at once threw away his dagger when his enemy challenged it
as an undue advantage. But at this time hardly anything can be conceived
more horridly brutal and savage than the mode in which private quarrels
were conducted in France. Those who were most jealous of the point
of honor, and acquired the title of Ruffines, did not scruple to take
advantage of strength, numbers, surprise, and arms, to accomplish their
revenge."
329. By prophet bred, etc. See iii. 91 fol. above; and for the
expression cf. iv. 124.
347. Dark lightning, etc. The MS. has "In lightning flashed the Chief's
dark eye," which might serve as a comment on Dark lightning.
349. Kern. See on iv. 73 above.
351. He yields not, etc. The MS. has "He stoops not, he, to James nor
Fate."
356. Carpet knight. Cf. Shakespeare, T. N. iii. 4. 257: "He is knight,
dubbed with unhatched rapier and on carpet consideration."
364. Ruth. Pity; obsolete, though we still have ruthless. Cf. Spenser,
F. Q. i. 1. 50:
"to stirre up gentle ruth
Both for her noble blood, and for her tender youth;"
Milton, Lycidas, 163: "Look homeward, Angel, now, and melt with ruth,"
etc.
380. His targe. Scott says: "A round target of light wood, covered with
strong leather and studded with brass or iron, was a necessary part of
a Highlander's equipment. In charging regular troops they received the
thrust of the bayonet in this buckler, twisted it aside, and used the
broadsword against the encumbered soldier. In the civil war of 1745
most of the front rank of the clans were thus armed; and Captain Grose
(Military Antiquities, vol. i. p. 164) informs us that in 1747 the
privates of the 42d regiment, then in Flanders, were for the most part
permitted to carry targets. A person thus armed had a considerable
advantage in private fray. Among verses between Swift and Sheridan,
lately published by Dr. Barrett, there is an account of such an
encounter, in which the circumstances, and consequently the relative
superiority of the combatants, are precisely the reverse of those in the
text:
'A Highlander once fought a Frenchman at Margate,
The weapons, a rapier, a backsword, and target;
Brisk Monsieur advanced as fast as he could,
But all his fine pushes were caught in the wood,
And Sawny, with backsword, did slash him and nick him,
While t'other, enraged that he could not once prick him,
Cried, "Sirrah, you rascal, you son of a whore,
Me will fight you, be gar! if you'll come from your door."'"
383. Trained abroad. That is, in France. See on i. 163 above. Scott says
here: "The use of defensive armor, and particularly of the buckler,
or target, was general in Queen Elizabeth's time, although that of the
single rapier seems to have been occasionally practised much earlier
(see Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare, vol. ii. p. 61). Rowland
Yorke, however, who betrayed the fort of Zutphen to the Spaniards, for
which good service he was afterwards poisoned by them, is said to have
been the first who brought the rapier-fight into general use. Fuller,
speaking of the swash-bucklers, or bullies, of Queen Elizabeth's time,
says, 'West Smithfield was formerly called Ruffian's Hall, where such
men usually met, casually or otherwise, to try masteries with sword
or buckler. More were frightened than hurt, more hurt than killed
therewith, it being accounted unmanly to strike beneath the knee. But
since that desperate traitor Rowland Yorke first introduced thrusting
with rapiers, sword and buckler are disused.' In The Two Angry Women
of Abingdon, a comedy, printed in 1599, we have a pathetic complaint:
'Sword and buckler fight begins to grow out of use. I am sorry for it;
I shall never see good manhood again. If it be once gone, this poking
fight of rapier and dagger will come up; then a tall man and a good
sword and buckler man will be spitted like a cat or rabbit.' But the
rapier had upon the Continent long superseded, in private duel, the use
of sword and shield. The masters of the noble science of defence were
chiefly Italians. They made great mystery of their art and mode of
instruction, never suffered any person to be present but the scholar who
was to be taught, and even examined closets, beds, and other places
of possible concealment. Their lessons often gave the most treacherous
advantages; for the challenged, having the right to choose his weapons,
frequently selected some strange, unusual, and inconvenient kind of
arms, the use of which he practised under these instructors, and thus
killed at his ease his antagonist, to whom it was presented for the
first time on the field of battle. See Brantome's Discourse on Duels,
and the work on the same subject, 'si gentement ecrit,' by the venerable
Dr. Paris de Puteo. The Highlanders continued to use broadsword and
target until disarmed after the affair of 1745-6."
385. Ward. Posture of defence; a technical term in fencing. Cf.
Falstaff's "Thou knowest my old ward" (1 Hen. IV. ii. 4. 215), etc.
387. While less expert, etc. The MS. reads:
"Not Roderick thus, though stronger far,
More tall, and more inured to war."
401, 402. And backward, etc. This couplet is not in the MS.; and the
same is true of 405, 406.
406. Let recreant yield, etc. The MS. has "Yield they alone who fear to
die." Scott says: "I have not ventured to render this duel so savagely
desperate as that of the celebrated Sir Ewan of Lochiel, chief of the
clan Cameron, called, from his sable complexion, Ewan Dhu. He was the
last man in Scotland who maintained the royal cause during the great
Civil War, and his constant incursions rendered him a very unpleasant
neighbor to the republican garrison at Inverlochy, now Fort William. The
governor of the fort detached a party of three hundred men to lay
waste Lochiel's possessions and cut down his trees; by in a sudden and
desperate attack made upon them by the chieftain with very inferior
numbers, they were almost all cut to pieces. The skirmish is detailed
in a curious memoir of Sir Ewan's life, printed in the Appendix of
Pennant's Scottish Tour (vol. i. p. 375):
'In this engagement Lochiel himself had several wonderful escapes. In
the retreat of the English, one of the strongest and bravest of the
officers retired behind a bush, when he observed Lochiel pursuing, and
seeing him unaccompanied with any, he leapt out and thought him his
prey. They met one another with equal fury. The combat was long and
doubtful: the English gentleman had by far the advantage in strength and
size; but Lochiel, exceeding him in nimbleness and agility, in the end
tript the sword out of his hand; they closed and wrestled, till both
fell to the ground in each other's arms. The English officer got
above Lochiel, and pressed him hard, but stretching forth his neck, by
attempting to disengage himself, Lochiel, who by this time had his hands
at liberty, with his left hand seized him by the collar, and jumping at
his extended throat, he bit it with his teeth quite through, and kept
such a hold of his grasp, that he brought away his mouthful; this, he
said, was the sweetest bit he ever had in his lifetime.'"
435. Unwounded, etc. The MS. reads:
"Panting and breathless on the sands,
But all unwounded, now he stands;"
and just below:
"Redeemed, unhoped, from deadly strife:
Next on his foe his look he | cast,
| threw,
Whose every breath appeared his last."
447. Unbonneted. Past tense, not participle.
449. Then faint afar. The MS. has "Faint and afar."
452. Lincoln green. See on i. 464 above.
462. We destined, etc. Cf. iv. 411 above.