Page:The Lay of the Last Minstrel - Scott (1805).djvu/276

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NOTES

ON

CANTO IV.



Great Dundee.—St. II, p. 94.

The viscount of Dundee, slain in the battle of Killycrankie.

For sheltering marsh and caverned cell,
The peasant leaves his lowly shed.—St. III. p. 95.

The morasses were the usual refuge of the Border herdsmen, on the approach of an English army. (Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. I. p. 49.) Caves hewed in the most dangerous and inaccessible places also afforded an occasional retreat. Such caverns may be seen in the precipitous banks of the Teviot at Sunlaws and Ancram, upon the Jed at Hundalee, and in many other places upon the Border. The banks of the Eske, at Gorton and Hawthornden, are hollowed into similar recesses. But even these dreary dens were not always secure places of con-