Lyes in this place,"
it says; and somehow it gave one a peg to hang one's faith upon. The whole, or at least a sufficient part of it, is quite real in that countryside by the Rhymer's Glen where True Thomas lay "on Huntlie bank." and where flourished the Eildon Tree; and that True Thomas's still unfulfilled prophecies will yet one day come to pass, is a sound article of belief. Though how the ruthless prediction is to come about regarding the house of Cowdenknowes, (which is not far removed from the Rhymers old tower,) one does not quite see. But it was a doom pronounced against a pitiless Home who there "had aince commanding." And the Homes are gone.
"Vengeance! Vengeance! when and where?
On the house of Coldingknow, now and ever mair!"
Perhaps, too, that was not of True Thomas's foretelling. One prefers rather to think of Cowdenknowes in connection with the ballad:
"O the broom, and the bonny, bonny broom,
And the broom of the Cowdenknowes!
And aye sae sweet as the lassie sang,
I' the bught, milking the ewes."