The author's theory is, that the dream was only the recapitulation of information which Mr.Rutherfurd had really received from his father while in life, but which at first he merely recalled as a general impression that the claim was settled.It is not uncommon for persons to recover, during sleep, the thread of ideas which they have lost during their waking hours.
It may be added, that this remarkable circumstance was attended with bad consequences to Mr.Rutherfurd ; whose health and spirits were afterwards impaired by the attention which he thought himself obliged to pay to the visions of the night.
Note E, p..--Nick-sticks.
A sort of tally generally used by bakers of the olden time in settling with their customers.Each family had its own nick-stick, and for each loaf as delivered a notch was made on the stick.Accounts in Exchequer, kept by the same kind of check, may have occasioned the Antiquary's partiality.In Prior's time the English bakers had the same sort of reckoning.
Have you not seen a baker's maid, Between two equal panniers sway'd?
Her tallies useless lie and idle, If placed exactly in the middle.
Note F, p..--Witchcraft.
A great deal of stuff to the same purpose with that placed in the mouth of the German adept, may be found in Reginald Scott's _Discovery of Witchcraft,_ Third Edition, folio, London, 1665.The Appendix is entitled, ``An Excellent Discourse of the Nature and Substances of Devils and Spirits, in two Books ; the first by the aforesaid author (Reginald Scott), the Second now added in this Third Edition as succedaneous to the former, and conducing to the completing of the whole work.'' This Second Book, though stated as succedaneous to the first, is, in fact, entirely at variance with it; for the work of Reginald Scott is a compilation of the absurd and superstitious ideas concerning witches so generally entertained at the time, and the pretended conclusion is a serious treatise on the various means of conjuring astral spirits.
[Scott's _Discovery of Witchcraft_ was first published in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, London, 1584.]
Note G, p..--Gyneocracy.
In the fishing villages on the Firths of Forth and Tay, as well as elsewhere in Scotland, the government is gyneocracy, as described in the text.In the course of the late war, and during the alarm of invasion, a fleet of transports entered the Firth of Forth under the convoy of some ships of war, which would reply to no signals.A general alarm was excited, in consequence of which, all the fishers, who were enrolled as sea-fencibles, got on board the gun-boats which they were to man as occasion should require, and sailed to oppose the supposed enemy.The foreigners proved to be Russians, with whom we were then at peace.The county gentlemen of Mid-Lothian, pleased with the zeal displayed by the sea-fencibles at a critical moment, passed a vote for presenting the community of fishers with a silver punch-bowl, to be used on occasions of festivity.But the fisher-women, on hearing what was intended, put in their claim to have some separate share in the intended honorary reward.The men, they said, were their husbands;it was they who would have been sufferers if their husbands had been killed, and it was by their permission and injunctions that they embarked on board the gun-boats for the public service.They therefore claimed to share the reward in some manner which should distinguish the female patriotism which they had shown on the occasion.The gentlemen of the county willingly admitted the claim; and without diminishing the value of their compliment to the men, they made the females a present of a valuable broach, to fasten the plaid of the queen of the fisher-women for the time.
It may be further remarked, that these Nereids are punctilious among themselves, and observe different ranks according to the commodities they deal in.One experienced dame was heard to characterise a younger damsel as ``a puir silly thing, who had no ambition, and would never,''
she prophesied, ``rise above the _mussel-line_ of business.''
Note H, p..--Battle of Harlaw.
The great battle of Harlaw, here and formerly referred to, might be said to determine whether the Gaelic or the Saxon race should be predominant in Scotland.Donald, Lord of the Isles, who had at that period the power of an independent sovereign, laid claim to the Earldom of Ross during the Regency of Robert, Duke of Albany.To enforce his supposed right, he ravaged the north with a large army of Highlanders and Islesmen.He was encountered at Harlaw, in the Garioch, by Alexander, Earl of Mar, at the head of the northern nobility and gentry of Saxon and Norman descent.
The battle was bloody and indecisive; but the invader was obliged to retire in consequence of the loss he sustained, and afterwards was compelled to make submission to the Regent, and renounce his pretensions to Ross;so that all the advantages of the field were gained by the Saxons.The battle of Harlaw was fought 24th July 1411.
Note I, p..--Elspeth's death.
The concluding circumstance of Elspeth's death is taken from an incident said to have happened at the funeral of John, Duke of Roxburghe.
