104. Lurch. Rob. Cf. Shakespeare, Cor. ii. 2. 105: “He lurch’d all swords of the garland;” that is, robbed them all of the prize.
112. The drum. The 1st ed. has “your drum.”
116. Plaid. For the rhyme, see on i. 363 above.
124. Store of blood. Plenty of blood. Cf. Milton, L’Allegro, 121: “With store of ladies,” etc. See also on the adjective, i. 548 above.
127. Reward thy toil. The Ms. goes on thus:
“Get thee an ape, and
then at once
Thou mayst renounce
the warder’s lance,
And trudge through borough
and through land,
The leader of a juggler
band.”
Scott has the following note here: “The jongleurs, or jugglers, as we learn from the elaborate work of the late Mr. Strutt, on the sports and pastimes of the people of England, used to call in the aid of various assistants, to render these performances as captivating as possible. The glee-maiden was a necessary attendant. Her duty was tumbling and dancing; and therefore the Anglo-Saxon version of Saint Mark’s Gospel states Herodias to have vaulted or tumbled before King Herod. In Scotland these poor creatures seem, even at a late period, to have been bondswomen to their masters, as appears from a case reported by Fountainhall: ’Reid the mountebank pursues Scot of Harden and his lady for stealing away from him a little girl, called the tumbling-lassie, that dance upon his stage; and he claimed damages, and produced a contract, whereby he bought her from her mother for 30 Scots. But we have no slaves in Scotland, and mothers cannot sell their bairns; and physicians attested the employment of tumbling would kill her; and her joints were now grown stiff, and she declined to return; though she was at least a ’prentice, and so could not run away from her master; yet some cited Moses’s law, that if a servant shelter himself with thee against his master’s cruelty, thou shalt surely not deliver him up. The Lords, renitente cancellario, assoilzied Harden on the 27th of January (1687)’ (Fountainhall’s Decisions, vol. i. p. 439).”
136. Purvey. Provide. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. v. 12. 10: “He all things did purvay which for them needfull weare.”
147. Bertram, etc. The Ms. has “Bertram | his | | such | violence withstood.”
152. The tartan screen. That is, the tartan which she had drawn over her head as a veil.
155. The savage soldiery, etc. The Ms. has “While the rude soldiery, amazed;” and in 164 below, “Should Ellen Douglas suffer wrong.”
167. I shame me. I shame myself, I am ashamed. The very was formerly used intransitively in this sense. Cf. Shakespeare, R. of L. 1143: “As shaming any eye should thee behold;” A. Y. L. iv. 3. 136: “I do not shame to tell you what I was,” etc.
170. Needwood. A royal forest in Staffordshire.