Page:The Lady of the Lake - Scott (1810).djvu/419

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NOTES TO CANTO FIFTH.
403

ing question, he whistled, and the English officer, with his small party, were surrounded by a body of Highlanders, whose numbers put resistance out of question, and who were all well armed. "Stranger," resumed the guide, "I am that very John Gunn by whom you feared to be intercepted, and not without cause; for I came to the inn last night with the express purpose of learning your route, that I and my followers might ease you of your charge by the road. But I am incapable of betraying the trust you reposed in me, and having convinced you that you were in my power, I can only dismiss you unplundered and uninjured." He then gave the officer directions for his journey, and disappeared with his party, as suddenly as they had presented themselves.

Note IV.

——On Bochastle the mouldering lines,
Where Rome, the empress of the world,
Of yore her eagle wings unfurled.—St. XII. p. 207.

The torrent which discharges itself from Lord Vennachar, the lowest and eastmost of the three lakes which form the scenery adjoining to the Trosachs, sweeps through a flat and extensive moor, called Bochastle. Upon a small eminence, called the Dun of Bochastle, and indeed on the plain itself, are some entrenchments which have been thought Roman. There is adjacent to Callender, a sweet villa, the residence of Captain Fairfoul, entitled the Roman Camp.