Page:The Lay of the Last Minstrel - Scott (1805).djvu/281

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

272

discharging a shaft which nailed the captain's thigh to his saddle, "If I cannot sew, I can yerk[1]."

Bilhope Stag.—St. V. p. 96.

There is an old rhime which thus celebrates the places in Liddesdale, remarkable for game.

Bilhope braes for bucks and raes,
And Carit haughs for swine,
And Tarras for the good bull-trout,
If he be ta'en in time.

The bucks and roes, as well as the wild swine, are now extinct; but the good bull-trout is still famous.

Of silver broach and bracelet proud.—St. V. p. 97.

As the Borderers were indifferent about the furniture of their habitations, so much exposed to be burned and plundered, they were proportionally anxious to display splendour in decorating and ornamenting their females. See Lesly de Moribus Limitaneorum.

Belted Will Howard.—St. VI. p. 97.

Lord William Howard, third son of Thomas, duke of Norfolk, succeeded to Naworth Castle, and a large domain annexed to it, in right of his wife Elizabeth, sister of George Lord Dacre, who died without heirs male, in the 11th of Queen Elizabeth. By a poetical anachronism, he is introdu-

  1. Yerk—to twitch, as shoemakers do, in securing the stitches of their work.