e,[680] in the presence of King James, on
one Dr. Fian, a supposed wizard, who was charged with raising the storms
that the king encountered in his return from Denmark. The unfortunate
man was afterwards burned. This horrible torture, we are told,[681]
consisted in the leg and knee of the criminal being enclosed within a
tight iron boot or case, wedges of iron being then driven in with a
mallet between the knee and the iron boot. Sir Walter Scott, in "Old
Mortality," has given a description of Macbriar undergoing this
punishment. At a later period "the boot" signified, according to
Nares,[682] an instrument for tightening the leg or hand, and was used
as a cure for the gout, and called a "bootikins." The phrase "to give
the boots" seems to have been a proverbial expression, signifying "Don't
make a laughing-stock of me; don't play upon me."

[680] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 21.

[681] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 47; Douce has given a
representation of this instrument of torture from Milloeus's
"Praxis Criminis Persequendi," Paris, 1541.

[682] "Glossary," vol. i. p. 95.

In the "Merchant of Venice" (v. 1), where Lorenzo says:

"Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn:
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music,"

we have, doubtless, an allusion to the "Hock Cart" of the old
harvest-home. This was the cart which carried the last corn away from
the harvest-field,[683] and was generally profusely decorated, and
accompanied by music, old and young shouting at the top of their voices
a doggerel after the following fashion:

"We have ploughed, we have sowed,
We have reaped, we have mowed,
We have brought home every load,
Hip, hip, hip! harvest home."[684]

[683] Cf. "1 Henry IV." (i. 3):

"His chin, new reap'd,
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home."

[684] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 16-33.

In "Poor Robin's Almanack" for August, 1676, we read:

"Hoacky is brought home with hallowing,
Boys with plumb-cake the cart following."

_Holyrood Day_ (September 14). This festival,[685] called also
Holy-Cross Day, was instituted by the Romish Church, on account of the
recovery of a large piece of the supposed cross by the Emperor
Heraclius, after it had been taken away, on the plundering of Jerusalem,
by Chosroes, king of Persia. Among the customs associated with