'My sand is run, my thread is spun,
This sign regardeth me.'"
No spot was looked on, in early youth, with more awe than that Bogle Burn whose stony bed crossed over the St. Boswells and Melrose road in the cheerless hollow beside a gloomy wood; it was here that True Thomas beheld things unseen by mere mortal eye. Who could doubt? Was there not still standing in Earlston the remains of his old tower to confute all scoffers!
[Original]
"The hare sail kittle on my hearth stane,
And there never will be a Laird Learmunt again."
And, a hundred years ago and more, did not a hare actually produce its young on the shattered, grass-grown hearth-stone of the Rhymer's dwelling? So everybody believed. But if doubt yet lingered anywhere regarding some portion of True Thomas's story, it was easily set at rest by the words cut on that old stone built into the wall ot the church at Earlston.
"Auld Rymer's race