cut off his retreat. Perceiving the danger of his situation, he acted as the celebrated and ill-requited Mina is said to have done in similar circumstances. He divided his force into three parts, appointed a place of rendezvous, and commanded them to retreat by different routes. But when John of Lorn arrived at the spot where they divided, he caused the hound to be put upon the trace, which immediately directed him to the pursuit of that party which Bruce headed. This, therefore, Lorn pursued with his whole force, paying no attention to the others. The king again subdivided his small body into three parts, and with the same result, for the pursuers attached themselves exclusively to that which he led in person. He then caused his followers to disperse, and retained only his foster-brother in his company. The sloughdog followed the trace, and, neglecting the others, attached himself and his attendants to pursuit of the king. Lorn became convinced that his enemy was nearly in his power, and detached five of his most active attendants to follow him, and interrupt his flight. They did so with all the agility of mountaineers. “What aid wilt thou make?" said Bruce to his single attendant, when he saw the five men gain ground on him. "The best I can," replied his foster-brother. "Then," said Bruce, "here I make my stand." The five pursuers came up fast. The king took three to himself, leaving the other two to his foster-brother. He slew the first who encountered him; but observing his fosterbrother hard pressed, he sprung to his assistance, and despatched one of his assailants. Leaving him to deal with the survivor, he returned upon the other two, both of whom he slew before his foster-brother had despatched his single antagonist. When this hard encounter was over, with a courtesy, which in the whole work marks Bruce's character, he thanked his foster-brother for his aid. 66 It likes you to say so," answered his follower; "but you yourself slew four of the five.”—“True,” said the king, “but only because I had better opportunity than you. They were not apprehensive of me when they saw me encounter three, so I had a moment's time to spring to thy aid, and to return equally unexpectedly upon my own opponents."

In the meanwhile Lorn's party approached rapidly, and the king and his foster-brother betook themselves to a neighbouring wood. Here they sat down, for Bruce was exhausted by fatigue,

until the cry of the slough-hound came so near, that his fosterbrother entreated Bruce to provide for his safety by retreating further. "I have heard," answered the king," that whosoever will wade a bowshot length down a running stream, shall make the slough-hound lose scent.-Let us try the experiment, for were yon devilish hound silenced, I should care little for the rest."

Lorn in the meanwhile advanced, and found the bodies of his slain vassals, over whom he made his moan, and threatened the most deadly vengeance. Then he followed the hound to the side of the brook, down which the king had waded a great way. Here the hound was at fault, and John of Lorn, after long attempting in vain to recover Bruce's trace, relinquished the pursuit.

66

Others," says Barbour, "affirm, that upon this occasion the king's life was saved by an excellent archer who accompanied him, and who perceiving they would be finally taken by means of the blood-hound, hid himself in a thicket, and shot him with an arrow. In which way,” adds the metrical biographer, "this. escape happened I am uncertain, but at that brook the king escaped from his pursuers."

"Quhen the chasseris relyit war,

And Jhon of Lorn had met thaim thar,
He tauld Sehyr Aymer all the cass
How that the king eschapyt wass;
And how that he his five men slew,
And syne to the wode him drew.
Quhen Schyr Aymer herd this, in hy
He sanyt him for the ferly:
And said; He is gretly to pryss;

For I knaw nane that liffand is,

That at myscheyff gan help him swa.

I trow he suld be hard to sla,

And he war bodyn' ewynly."

On this wiss spak Schyr Aymery."

BARBOUR'S Bruce, Book v., v. 391.

The English historians agree with Barbour as to the mode in which the English pursued Bruce and his followers, and the dex

1 Matched..

terity with which he evaded them. The following is the testimony of Harding, a great enemy to the Scottish nation:

"The King Edward with hoost hym sought full sore,

But ay he fled into woodes and strayte forest,
And slewe his men at staytes and daungers thore,
And at marreys and mires was ay full prest
Englyshmen to kyll withoutyn any rest;

In the mountaynes and cragges he slew ay where,
And in the nyght his foes he frayed full sere:

"The King Edward with hornes and houndes him soght,
With menne on fote, through marris, mosse, and myre,
Through wodes also, and mountens (wher thei fought,
And euer the Kyng Edward hight men greate hyre,
Hym for to take and by myght conquere;
But thei might hym not gette by force ne by train,
He satte by the fyre when thei went in the rain."

HARDYNG'S Chronicle, p. 303-4.

Peter Langtoft has also a passage concerning the extremities to which King Robert was reduced, which he entitles

De Roberto Brus et fuga circum circa fit.
"And wele I understode that the Kyng Robyn
Has drunken of that blode the drink of Dan Waryn.
Dan Waryn he les tounes that he held,
With wrong he mad a res, and misberyng of scheld,
Sithen into the forest he yede naked and wode,
Als a wild beast, ete of the gres that stode,
Thus of Dan Waryn in his boke men rede,

God gyf the King Robyn, that alle his kynde so spede,

Sir Robynet the Brus he durst noure abide,

That thei mad him restus, both in more and wod-side,
To while he mad this train, and did umwhile outrage," &c.
PETER LANGTOFT's Chronicle, vol. ii., p. 335,

NOTE L.

8vo, London, 1810.

These are the savage wilds that lie

North of Strathnardill and Dunskye.— P. 108.

The extraordinary piece of scenery which I have here attempt-ed to describe, is, I think, unparalleled in any part of Scotland,

at least in any which I have happened to visit. It lies just upon the frontier of the Laird of Mac-Leod's country, which is thereabouts divided from the estate of Mr. Maccallister of StrathAird, called Strathnardill by the Dean of the Isles. The following account of it is extracted from a journal' kept during a tour through the Scottish islands:

"The western coast of Sky is highly romantic, and at the same time displays a richness of vegetation in the lower grounds to which we have hitherto been strangers. We passed three salt-water lochs, or deep embayments, called Loch Bracadale, Loch Einort, and Loch and about 11 o'clock opened Loch Slavig. We were now under the western termination of the high ridge of mountains called Cuillen, or Quillin, or Coolin, whose weather-beaten and serrated peaks we had admired at a distance from Dunvegan. They sunk here upon the sea, but with the same bold and peremptory aspect which their distant appearance indicated. They appeared to consist of precipitous sheets of naked rock, down which the torrents were leaping in a hundred lines of foam. The tops of the ridge, apparently inaccessible to human foot, were rent and split into the most tremendous pinnacles. Towards the base of these bare and precipitous crags, the ground, enriched by the soil washed down from them, is comparatively verdant and productive. Where we passed within the small isle of Soa, we entered Loch Slavig, under the shoulder of one of these grisly mountains, and observed that the opposite side of the loch was of a milder character, the mountains being softened down into steep green declivities. From the bottom of the bay advanced a headland of high rocks, which divided its depth into two recesses, from each of which a brook issued. Here it had been intimated to us we would find some romantic scenery; but we were uncertain up which inlet we should proceed in search of it. We chose, against our better judgment, the southerly dip of the bay, where we saw a house which might afford us information. We found, upon enquiry, that there is a lake adjoining to each branch of the bay; and walked a couple of miles to see that near the farmhouse, merely because the honest highlander seemed jealous of

[This is the Poet's own journal.-ED.]

the honour of his own loch, though we were speedily convinced it was not that which we were recommended to examine. It had no particular merit, excepting from its neighbourhood to a very high cliff, or precipitous mountain, otherwise the sheet of water had nothing differing from any ordinary low-country lake. We returned and re-embarked in our boat, for our guide shook his head at our proposal to climb over the peninsula, or rocky headland which divided the two lakes. In rowing round the headland, we were surprised at the infinite number of sea-fowl, then busy apparently with a shoal of fish.

“Arrived at the depth of the bay, we found that the discharge from this second lake forms a sort of waterfall, or rather a rapid stream, which rushes down to the sea with great fury and precipitation. Round this place were assembled hundreds of trouts and salmon, struggling to get up into the fresh water: with a net we might have had twenty salmon at a haul; and a sailor, with no better hook than a crooked pin, caught a dish of trouts during our absence. Advancing up this huddling and riotous brook, we found ourselves in a most extraordinary scene; we lost sight of the sea almost immediately after we had climbed over a low ridge of crags, and were surrounded by mountains of naked rock, of the boldest and most precipitous character. The ground on which we walked was the margin of a lake, which seemed to have sustained the constant ravage of torrents from these rude neighbours. The shores consisted of huge strata of naked granite, here and there intermixed with bogs, and heaps of gravel and sand piled in the empty water-courses. Vegetation there was little or none; and the mountains rose so perpendicularly from the water edge, that Borrowdale, or even Glencoe, is a jest to them. We proceeded a mile and a half up this deep, dark, and solitary lake, which was about two miles long, half a mile broad, and is, as we learned, of extreme depth. The murky vapours which enveloped the mountain ridges, obliged us by assuming a thousand varied shapes, changing their drapery into all sorts of forms, and sometimes clearing off all together. It is true, the mist made us pay the penalty by some heavy and downright showers, from the frequency of which a Highland boy whom we brought from the farm, told us the lake was popularly called the Water-kettle. The proper name is Loch Corriskin,