Note 29 — Chapter VII

Even the loftiness of the surrounding buildings is taken into account. “The uncommon height and antique appearance of these houses,” says the author, “some of which were formerly the property of the Knights Templars and the Knights of St. John, and still exhibit upon their fronts and gables the iron cross of these orders, gave additional effect to a scene in itself so striking.” This sentence, it is somewhat remarkable, is also used (perhaps I should say repeated) by Sir Walter Scott, when he finds occasion to describe the same scene in his “Provincial Antiquities of Scotland.”