Their durks hang down between their leggs Where they made many slopes and geggs; By rubbing on their naked side, And wambling from side to side. But those who were their chief Commanders, As such who bore the pirnie standarts, Who led the van, and drove the rear, Were right well mounted of their gear; With brogues, trues, and pirnie plaides, With good blew bonnets on their heads, Which on the one side had a flipe Adorn’d with a tobacco pipe. With durk, and snap-work, and snuff-mill, A bagg which they with onions fill, And, as their strick observers say, A tupe horn fill’d with usquebay; A slasht out coat beneath her plaides, A targe of timber, nails and hides; With a long two handed sword, As good’s the country can affoord; Had they not need of bulk and bones, Who fight with all these arms at once? It’s marvelous how in such weather, Ov’r hill and hop they came together; How in such stormes they came so farr; The reason is, they’re smear’d with tar, Which doth defend them heel and neck, Just as it doth their sheep protect; But least ye doubt that this is true, They’re just the colour of tar’d wool.[45] Here we have two distinct forms of dress—that of the men, the kilt or the belted plaid, and that of the “chief Commanders,” who “were right well mounted of their gear; with brogues, trues, and pirnie plaides.” But perhaps the most striking evidence that two forms of dress were in use in the Highlands at this time is that supplied by the supporters of the arms of Skene of that Ilk. The blazon of the supporters in the Lyon Register is:— [Illustration: On the dexter by a highland man in his proper garb holding a skene with his right hand in a guarding posture, and on the sinister be another in a servill habit his target on the left arm and the darlach by his side.[46] ] In the Introduction to the _Nisbet Plates_,[47] the work from which the illustration is taken, it is pointed out that in the Nisbet MS. the description of the supporters runs as follows:— Supported on the dexter by a highland gentleman in his proper garb, holding a skein with his right hand in a guarding posture, and on the sinister by another highlandman in a servill habit, with his target on his left arme and his dorloch be his side.[48] It is impossible to conceive of evidence of a more conclusive and satisfactory character than that here adduced of the existence of both modes of dress at this period and of the rank of the respective wearers. The original illustration is the work of Robert Wood, an Edinburgh engraver, and in Mr Ross’s Opinion was executed, and Alexander Nisbet’s description above quoted written, 1695-1704.[49]