A piece of sad news this for the poor boar! (Croudy the shepherd, that once was.) When Gudgel pronounced the last sentence, the animal sprung to his feet, gave a great snuff, and grunted out a moan that would have pierced any heart but Gudgel’s. “St Elijah!” said he, “what a fine animal!” and gave him a lash with his whip as he rose. Mumps snarled, and tried to bite the voluptuary in return for the unprovoked attack on his master.
Precisely about the same time that Gudgel alighted at Eildon-Hall, the two lovely and mysterious sisters met at their accustomed place in the Abbey Walk, for it chanced to be the few minutes of their appearance in mortal frame. Their eyes had still the wild unearthly dash of sublimity in them; and human eye could not scan to which state of existence they pertained, but their miens were more beautiful and serene than when they last met.
“I give you joy, dear sister,” said the one, “of our happy release! Our adversary is baffled and driven from his usurped habitation—Our woeful work of annihilation will henceforth cease, for the evil principle shall not, as we dreaded, prevail in this little world of man, in which we have received for a time a willing charge. Say what more is to be done before we leave these green hills and the Eildon Tree.”
“Much is yet to be done, my beloved Ellen,” answered the other. “As I was this day traversing the air in the form of a wild swan, I saw the Borderers coming down in full array; with a Chieftain of most undaunted might at their head. We must find means to warn the haughty Douglas, else they will cut his whole retinue to pieces; and the protector of the faithful must not fall into the hands of such men as these.”
“He hath preyed on the vitals of his subjects,” said she that spoke first; and as she spoke she fixed her eyes on the ground in a thoughtful attitude.
“It is meet he should,” said the other—“And think ye he will not meet with his guerdon better where he is than among these freemen of the Border? Think not so seriously of this matter, for it will not abide a thought—from the spider to the king, all live upon one another!—What numbers one overgrown reptile must devour, to keep the balance of nature in equipoise!”
The two lovely sisters, as she spoke this, held each other by the hand; their angelic forms were bent gently forward, and their faces toward the ground; but as they lifted these with a soft movement towards heaven, a tear was glistening in each eye. Whether these had their source from the fountain of human feelings, or from one more sublimed and pure, no man to this day can determine.
“And then what is to become of the two little changelings?” said the last speaker. “All the spells of priests and friars will avail nought without our aid.—And the wild roe-deer? And the boar of Eildon? He, I suppose, may take his fate—he is not worthy our care farther.—A selfish grovelling thing, that had much more of the brute than the man (as he should be) at first—without one principle of the heart that is worthy of preservation.”