Note 332 — ACT III. SCENE I.
Reading edition
kern] i. e., properly, an Irish foot-soldier—a low, savage fellow; “the very drosse and scum of the countrey,” says B. Riche, ... “that live by robbing and spoyling the poor countreyman:” (vide Boswell’s note on Macbeth—Malone’s Shakespeare, vol. xi. p. 16.) So too Bryan afterwards talks of going to steal cows again in Ireland, p. 177.