and to this day it is believed that the hart and the
hind were messengers from the Queen of the Fairies, and that True Thomas
went back with them to dwell in her country for ever.

LORD SOULIS

"Lord Soulis he sat in Hermitage Castle,
And beside him Old Redcap sly;--
'Now, tell me, thou sprite, who art meikle of might,
The death that I must die.'

They roll'd him in a sheet of lead,
A sheet of lead for a funeral pall;
They plunged him in the cauldron red,
And melted him, lead, and bones, and all."

And so thou hast seen the great cauldron at Skelf-hill, little Annie,
standing high up on the hillside, and thou wouldst fain hear its story.

'Tis a weird tale, Sweetheart, and one to make the blood run cold, for
'tis the story of a cruel and a wicked man, and how he came by a violent
and a fearsome death. But Grannie will tell it thee, and when thou
thinkest of it, thou must always try to remember how true it is what the
Good Book says, that "all they that take the sword, shall perish with
the sword," which means, I take it, that they who show no mercy need
expect none at the hands of others.

'Tis a tale of spirits and of witchcraft, child, things that in our days
we do not believe in; but I had it from my grandfather, who had heard it
when he was a laddie from the old shepherds out on the hills, and they
believed it all and feared to pass that way in the dark.

But to come to the story itself. Long, long ago, in far bygone days,
William de Soulis, Lord of Liddesdale, kept high state in his Castle of
Hermitage. The royal blood of Scotland flowed in his veins, for he was
sixth in descent from Alexander II., and could an ancestress of his have
proved her right, he might have sat on the throne of Scotland.

Besides owning Liddesdale, he had lands in Dumfriesshire, and in the
Lothians, and he might have been like the "Bold Buccleuch," a succourer
of widows, and a defender of the oppressed and the destitute.

But instead of this he worked all manner of wickedness, till his very
name was dreaded far and near. He oppressed his vassals; he troubled his
neighbours; he was even at enmity with the King himself. And because he
feared that his Majesty might come against him with an army, he had
fortified his castle with much care. In order to do this thoroughly, he
forced his vassals to work like beasts of burden, putting bores[21] on
their shoulders, and yoking them to sledges