|And{273} now we shall go--as they say in Selkirk--"up the Watters," a phrase which, to us of "the Forest," used of old to convey the idea of going on a vast journey. "Did ye see the Eclipse, on Monday?" asked a Selkirk man of his crony. "Man, _No!_ I was up the Watters that day." Which reply-conveyed, perhaps not so much the feeling that an eclipse was a frivolous affair pertaining to geographically remote Selkirk alone, as that the answerer had been too deeply engaged up the waters with other business to have leisure to attend to such petty trifles as solar phenomena. Business "up the Watters," one used to understand, was not seldom protracted far into the night, and at times there were lunar phenomena observable, such as double moons, and stars whose place in the heavens was not definitely fixed. Leaving Selkirk by the Ettrick road, in about a couple of miles we come abreast of the spot where Yarrow drowns herself in Ettrick. And here below Bowhill, on the sunny, wooded peninsula formed by the two rivers, lies Carterhaugh, scene of that famous fairy tale "The Young Tamlane." Tamlane when a boy of nine was carried off by the Fairies. "There came a wind out of the north, A sharp wind and a snell; And a deep sleep came over me, And frae my horse I fell." {274}The Queen of the Fairies "keppit" (caught) him as he fell, and bore him off to dwell in Fairyland. There he remained, neither increasing in years nor in stature, but taking at will his human shape, and returning to earth for a time when it pleased him. [Illustration: 0294] Carterhaugh was his special haunt, and here, if they did not altogether shun that neighbourhood, young women too often had cause to repent having met him. "O I forbid ye, maidens a', That wear gowd on your hair, To come or gae by Carterhaugh, For young Tamlane is there." "Fair Janet," however, was one who would take no warning: "I'll cum and gang to Carterhaugh, And ask nae leave o' him," {275}said she. And she went. But "She hadna pu'd a red red rose, A rose but barely three; Till up and starts a wee wee man, At Lady Janet's knee." "He's ta'en her by the milk-white hand, amang the leaves sae green,"--and Janet rued her visit. Later, Tamlane tells her how he may be rescued from Fairyland, and the ballad relates Janet's successful venture: "The night it is good Hallowe'en, When fairy folk will ride; And they that wad their true love win At Miles Cross they maun bide. "Gloomy, gloomy, was the night, And eiry was the way, As fair Janet in her green mantle, To Miles Cross she did gae.