[369] Gaul, son of Morni, first the enemy and afterwards the ally of Fingal, is one of the chief heroes of the Ossianic poems.
[370] belongings.
[371] in such fashion.
[372] covenant.
[373] Making light of.
[374] taken.
[375] know.
[376] well I know.
[377] Robert Stewart, Lord D’Aubigny and Mareschal of France, descended from the Darnley and Lennox family, was Captain of the Scots Guards of the King of France in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Readers of Quentin Durward will remember Scott’s description of the post as held by Lord Crawford.
[378] choose.
[379] nimbly.
[380] in warlike garb.
[381] stretched.
[382] before.
[383] coif, band.
[384] hold.
[385] caparisoned.
[386] crimson cloth.
[387] over the rough grassy ground.
[388] morning.
[389] beat.
[390] made.
[391] such a fright.
[392] covering.
[393] embroidered.
[394] doubt.
[395] staves, spears.
[396] Wonderfully.
[397] tough.
[398] dashed.
[399] flatwise.
[400] nimbly.
[401] gallantly.
[402] once.
[403] seized.
[404] grasped.
[405] well pleased.
[406] these.
[407] Boldly to prove their strength they pressed.
[408] coursing room was from the extremity, à l’outrance.
[409] swerved.
[410] course.
[411] violent.
[412] bolted.
[413] bound.
[414] each.
[415] match.
[416] pike, spear.
[417] cuirasse.
[418] place.
[419] joust.
[420] compact.
[421] lose.
[422] pavilion.
[423] embraced.
[424] gallantly.
[425] These are two of the last stanzas of “The Testament of Squyer Meldrum,” a composition chiefly occupied with the doughty squire’s directions for a sumptuous funeral. The lady to whom they are addressed was Marion Lawson, the young widow of John Haldane of Gleneagles, slain at Flodden, for whom the Squyer upon his return to Scotland in 1515 had formed a strong attachment, and by whom he had become the father of two children. In August, 1517, according to Pitscottie, Meldrum had, in gallantly defending his possession of this lady, been crippled and left for dead on the road to Leith by his rival Luke Stirling, brother of the laird of Keir, who followed him from Edinburgh and attacked him with fifty men.
[426] shining.
[427] beauty.
[428] Star.
[429] much.
[430] evening and morning.
[431] if.
[432] wish.
[433] fashion.
[434] bought you from woes.
[435] Redeeming.
[436] seated.
[437] mistuned.
[438] love.
[439] goods.
[440] make me know.
[441] Quick.
[442] God knows.
[443] vile.
[444] entry.
[445] these failings.
[446] what the devil is that thou tearest?
[447] ears.
[448] talk.
[449] burnt.
[450] dash.
[451] by the time that.
[452] whole clothes.
[453] learn.
[454] but if, unless.
[455] Leap.
[456] though.
[457] death.
[458] tether, halter.
[459] emptied.
[460] pitcher.
[461] Haste.
[462] hobgoblin.
[463] much.
[464] truth.
[465] The Court of Session had been established by James V. in May, 1532. The Seinzie was the older ecclesiastical consistory, or bishops’ court.
[466] company.
[467] hoar.
[468] i.e. in panniers, the ancient means of carriage.
[469] separate.
[470] kine.
[471] Ayrshire cattle were, to judge from this reference, as much esteemed in the sixteenth century as they are in the nineteenth.
[472] died.
[473] pasturing.
[474] Formerly the fine paid the feudal superior for relief from armed service; afterwards a fine of the best chattel, exacted by the landlord on the death of a tenant.
[475] clutched.
[476] uppermost clothes.
[477] coarse woollen.
[478] The reference here, says Laing, is to the cors present, or funeral gift to the clerk, the exaction of which had become a heavy grievance to the poor.
[479] parson.
[480] fourpence.
[481] Trowest.
[482] gander.
[483] pig.
[484] ask.
[485] stupefied.
[486] without.
[487] lot.
[488] The retailing of papal indulgences, here satirized by Lyndsay, was one of the chief abuses against which Luther had raised the indignation of Germany.
[489] grope, grip.
[490] naughty.
[491] lay.
[492] tricks.
[493] fellows.
[494] I know by heart.
[495] Sorrow destroy.
[496] knave.
[497] smothered in their baptism-cloth.
[498] dark.
[499] Khan.
[500] The real jawbone of Fingal.
[502] tail.
[503] snout.
[504] go.
[505] Belial.
[506] jest.
[507] vexation.
[508] cumber.
[509] blame.
[510] rascal, lit. gallowsful.
[511] fourth-day or intermittent fever.
[512] laid hold of.
[513] street-walker.
[514] scoundrel.
[515] Though you stay a year.
[516] one.
[517] counsel.
[518] without doubt.
[519] your fate you curse.
[520] speak.
[521] drivelling.
[522] my whole body I cross.
[523] At the horne, proclaimed rebel. Outlawry was proclaimed with three blasts of a horn. In 1512 Gavin Douglas was one of a great assize which passed an Act anent “the resset of Rebellis, and Personis being at our souerane Lordis horne.”
[524] bless.
[525] ropes.
[526] gout.
[527] search.
[528] go.
[529] coin.
[530] excuse.
[531] complain.
[532] Consistory.
[533] craves.
[534] whole.
[535] till then.
[536] place.
[537] I know full surely.
[538] frail.
[539] Ere.
[540] heat.
[541] evacuate fæces.
[542] gums.
[543] confounded.
[544] rag.
[545] by the altar.
[546] blow.
[547] sport.
[548] Quick, fellows!
[549] Laing quotes from the chartulary of Newbattle a grant by Seyer de Quency, lord of the manor of Tranent, of a coal-pit and quarry on the lands of Preston; which shows mining and quarrying to have been industries there as early as 1202.
[550] company.
[551] eight.
[552] a Scots plack equalled the third of a penny.
[553] halfway.
[554] device.