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For five days did they struggle up this short glen; two of these days being occupied in traversing only three miles of a rugged defile, to which they gave the name of Eildon Cleugh. But "nothing is denied to well-directed labour."
As with Thomas of Ercildoune, whom the Queen of Faëry carried away into Eildon Hill, the short period of his absence seemed seven years long. An old English song came into his head: Winter wakeneth all my care, Now these leaves waxeth bare: Oft in cometh into my thought, Of this worldes joy how it goeth all to naught.
As we continued ascending, the prospect behind us widened, till we reached the summit of the Carter Fell, whence there is a view of great extent and beauty. The Eildon Hills, though twenty-five miles distant, seemed in the foreground of the picture. With a glass, Edinburgh Castle might be seen over the dim outline of the Muirfoot Hills.
It was but a transient outbreak, and he returned instantly, wagging his tail, and looking up dubiously in his master's face; uncertain whether he would censure or applaud. "Aye, aye, old boy!" cried Scott, "you have done wonders. You have shaken the Eildon hills with your roaring; you may now lay by your artillery for the rest of the day.
She dismissed her childish letter, which had given her so much vexation, from her memory, feeling sure that George Eildon had also forgotten it long ago. She did not know of the letter Lady Arthur had written when she believed herself to be dying, and it was well she did not. Every one who watched the sun rise on New Year's morning, 1875, will bear witness to the beauty of the sight.
There was a very coarse-looking man at table with us, who informed us that he owned the best horse anywhere round the Eildon Hills, and could make the best cast for a salmon, and catch a bigger fish than anybody, with other self-laudation of the same kind.
Having got him into her power, she took him down with her into Fairyland, where he abode, as he deemed, for three days, but in reality for three years. At the end of that time the lady carries him back to Eildon Tree and bids him farewell.
One moonlight night, as he rode over Bowden Moor, on the west side of the Eildon Hills, the scene of Thomas the Rhymer's prophecies, and often mentioned in his story, having a brace of horses along with him which he had not been able to dispose of, he met a man of venerable appearance and singularly antique dress, who, to his great surprise, asked the price of his horses, and began to chaffer with him on the subject.
"Here," said he, pausing, "is Huntley Bank, on which Thomas the Rhymer lay musing and sleeping when he saw, or dreamt he saw, the queen of Elfland: "'True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank; A ferlie he spied wi' his e'e; And there he saw a ladye bright, Come riding down by the Eildon tree.
There be some who say that he is living yet in Elfland, and that one day he will come again to earth. Meanwhile he is not forgotten. The Eildon tree no longer waves its branches in the breeze, but a large stone named the Eildon-tree stone marks the spot where once it grew.
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