*The Mystery of the Eildons* "Before their eyes the Wizard lay As if he had not been dead a day. His hoary beard in silver roll’d, He seemed some seventy winters old. High and majestic was his look, At which the fellest friends had shook, And all unruffled was his face; They trusted his soul had gotten grace." SCOTT: _Lay of the Last Minstrel._ Just above Melrose, the ruined abbey of which is one of the beauties of Scotland, there rises a striking mass of three hills known as "the triple Eildons." They rise very high above the surrounding land, and are steep enough to need a very hard scramble to mount to the very summit; but once at the top the view is wonderful indeed. On a fine day the Tweed can be seen winding in and out most picturesquely, till it loses itself in the low distant haze of the North Sea, thirty miles away. But even grander is the view of the entire line of the Cheviots, like a huge wall, fifty miles long, seen to immense advantage from Eildon, which towers over the rich valleys of Tweed and Teviot that lie between. One of the legends of the triple Eildons is that King Arthur lies sleeping beneath them, some day to awaken. Tradition says that he fought a great battle near here, by Gala Water, in the Vale of Woe. However that may be, it is certain that at the foot of Eildon lie many famous dead. In Melrose Abbey lies the heart of Robert Bruce, and also the body of the strong King Alexander II., he who first subdued and made obedient the wild tribes of Argyle. Here, too, is buried the brave Douglas who died so gallantly on the field of Otterbourne; and also of another brave Douglas who got his death wound at Poictiers. Sir Walter Scott, who did more than any other man to spread all over the world the knowledge of Scotland, Scottish history, Scottish romance, and Scottish character, lies buried on the southern side of Eildon, in the rival abbey of Dryburgh. But Melrose can claim a man who in his day was an object of the deepest wonder and terror—Michael Scott, the famous wizard of the thirteenth century, he who brought the learning of Aristotle to expound to Western Europe, he whom Dante described as learned in every deep spell of the magic arts. Perhaps he was only a scientist, born before his time; yet even to-day old folk in the country remember that it was he who is said to have cleft the head of Eildon Hill into three! One of the many strange tales told of Michael Scott is this:—