18. The Fiery Cross. Scott says here: "When a chieftain designed to summon his clan, upon any sudden or important emergency, he slew a goat, and making a cross of any light wood, seared its extremities in the fire, and extinguished them in the blood of the animal. This was called the Fiery Cross, also Crean Tarigh, or the Cross of Shame, because disobedience to what the symbol implied, inferred infamy. It was delivered to a swift and trusty messenger, who ran full speed with it to the next hamlet, where he presented it to the principal person, with a single word, implying the place of rendezvous. He who received the symbol was bound to send it forward, with equal despatch, to the next village; and thus it passed with incredible celerity through all the district which owed allegiance to the chief, and also among his allies and neighbours, if the danger was common to them. At sight of the Fiery Cross, every man, from sixteen years old to sixty, capable of bearing arms, was obliged instantly to repair, in his best arms and accoutrements, to the place of rendezvous. He who failed to appear suffered the extremities of fire and sword, which were emblematically denounced to the disobedient by the bloody and burnt marks upon this warlike signal. During the civil war of 1745-6, the Fiery Cross often made its circuit; and upon one occasion it passed through the whole district of Breadalbane, a tract of thirty-two miles, in three hours. The late Alexander Stewart, Esq., of Invernahyle, described to me his having sent round the Fiery Cross through the district of Appine, during the same commotion. The coast was threatened by a descent from two English trigates, and the flower of the young men were with the army of Prince Charles Edward, then in England; yet the summons was so effectual that even old age and childhood obeyed it; and a force was collected in a few hours, so numerous and so enthusiastic, that all attempt at the intended diversion upon the country of the absent warriors was in prudence abandoned, as desperate."19. The Summer dawn's reflected hue, etc. Mr. Ruskin says (Modern Painters, iii. 278): "And thus Nature becomes dear to Scott in a threefold way: dear to him, first, as containing those remains or memories of the past, which he cannot find in cities, and giving hope of Praetorian mound or knight's grave in every green slope and shade of its desolate places; dear, secondly, in its moorland liberty, which has for him just as high a charm as the fenced garden had for the mediaeval; ... and dear to him, finally, in that perfect beauty, denied alike in cities and in men, for which every modern heart had begun at last to thirst, and Scott's, in its freshness and power, of all men's most earnestly.
"And in this love of beauty, observe that the love of colour is a leading element, his healthy mind being incapable of losing, under any modern false teaching, its joy in brilliancy of hue.
... In general, if he does not mean to say much about things, the one character which he will give is colour, using it with the most perfect mastery and faithfulness."After giving many illustrations of Scott's use of colour in his poetry, Ruskin quotes the present passage, which he says is "still more interesting, because it has no form in it at all except in one word (chalice), but wholly composes its imagery either of colour, or of that delicate half-believed life which we have seen to be so important an element in modern landscape.""Two more considerations," he adds, "are, however, suggested by the above passage. The first, that the love of natural history, excited by the continual attention now given to all wild landscape, heightens reciprocally the interest of that landscape, and becomes an important element in Scott's description, leading him to finish, down to the minutest speckling of breast, and slightest shade of attributed emotion, the portraiture of birds and animals; in strange opposition to Homer's slightly named 'sea-crows, who have care of the works of the sea,' and Dante's singing-birds, of undefined species. Compare carefully the 2d and 3d stanzas of Rokeby.
"The second point I have to note is Scott's habit of drawing a slight moral from every scene, ... and that this slight moral is almost always melancholy. Here he has stopped short without entirely expressing it:
"The mountain-shadows ..
..................... lie Like future joys to Fancy's eye.'
His completed thought would be, that these future joys, like the mountain-shadows, were never to be attained. It occurs fully uttered in many other places. He seems to have been constantly rebuking his own worldly pride and vanity, but never purposefully:
'The foam-globes on her eddies ride, Thick as the schemes of human pride That down life's current drive amain, As frail, as frothy, and as vain.'"Ruskin adds, among other illustrations, the reference to "foxglove and nightshade" in i. 218, 219 above.
28. Like future joys, etc. This passage, quoted by Ruskin above, also illustrates what is comparatively rare in figurative language-- taking the immaterial to exemplify the material. The latter is constantly used to symbolize or elucidate the former;but one would have to search long in our modern poetry to find a dozen instances where, as here, the relation is reversed. Cf.
639 below. We have another example in the second passage quoted by Ruskin. Cf. also Tennyson's "thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, That like a broken purpose waste in air;"and Shelly's "Our boat is asleep on Serchio's stream;Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream."30. Reared. The 1st ed. has "oped."
32. After this line the MS. has the couplet, "Invisible in fleecy cloud, The lark sent down her matins loud,"which reappears in altered form below.
33. Gray mist. The MS. has "light mist."
38. Good-morrow gave, etc. Cf. Byron, Childe Harold:
"and the bills Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass."39. Cushat dove. Ring-dove.
