“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).”