d slowly, etc. The MS. reads:

"Sullen and slow the rivals bold
Loosed at his hest their desperate hold,
But either still on other glared," etc.

795. Brands. A pet word with Scott. Note how often it has been used
already in the poem.

798. As faltered. See on 601 above.

801. Pity 't were, etc. Scott says here: "Hardihood was in every respect
so essential to the character of a Highlander, that the reproach of
effeminacy was the most bitter which could be thrown upon him. Yet it
was sometimes hazarded on what we might presume to think slight grounds.
It is reported of old Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, when upwards of
seventy, that he was surprised by night on a hunting or military
expedition. He wrapped him in his plaid, and lay contentedly down
upon the snow, with which the ground happened to be covered. Among his
attendants, who were preparing to take their rest in the same manner,
he observed that one of his grandsons, for his better accommodation, had
rolled a large snow-ball, and placed it below his head. The wrath of
the ancient chief was awakened by a symptom of what he conceived to be
degenerate luxury. 'Out upon thee,' said he, kicking the frozen bolster
from the head which it supported, 'art thou so effeminate as to need
a pillow?' The officer of engineers, whose curious Letters from the
Highlands have been more than once quoted, tells a similar story of
Macdonald of Keppoch, and subjoins the following remarks: 'This and
many other stories are romantick; but there is one thing, that at
first thought might seem very romantick, of which I have been credibly
assured, that when the Highlanders are constrained to lie among the
hills, in cold dry weather, they sometimes soak the plaid in some river
or burn (i.e. brook), and then holding up a corner of it a little
above their heads, they turn themselves round and round, till they are
enveloped by the whole mantle. They then lay themselves down on the
heath, upon the leeward side of some hill, where the wet and the warmth
of their bodies make a steam, like that of a boiling kettle. The wet,
they say, keeps them warm by thickening the stuff, and keeping the wind
from penetrating. I must confess I should have been apt to question this
fact, had I not frequently seen them wet from morning to night, and,
even at the beginning of the rain, not so much as stir a few yards to
shelter, but continue in it without necessity, till they were, as we
say, we