ht to him a great silence fell on all the
company, and everyone sat listening breathlessly while he sang to them
song after song of long ago.

He sang of King Arthur and his Table, and his Knights, and told how they
lay sleeping under the Eildon Hills, waiting to be awakened at the Crack
of Doom. He sang of Gawaine, and Merlin, Tristrem and Isolde; and those
who listened to the wondrous story felt somehow that they would never
hear such minstrelsy again.

Nor did they. For that very night, when all the guests had departed, and
the evening mists had settled down over the river, a soldier, in the
camp on the hillside, was awakened by a strange pattering of little feet
on the dry bent[20] of the moorland.

[Footnote 20: Withered grass.]

Looking out of his tent, he saw a strange sight.

There, in the bright August moonlight, a snow-white hart and hind were
pacing along side by side. They moved in slow and stately measure,
paying little heed to the ever-increasing crowd who gathered round their
path.

"Let us send for Thomas of Ercildoune," said someone at last; "mayhap he
can tell us what this strange sight bodes."

"Yea, verily, let us send for True Thomas," cried everyone at once, and
a little page was hastily despatched to the old tower.

Its master started from his bed when he heard the message, and dressed
himself in haste. His face was pale, and his hands shook.

"This sign concerns me," he said to the wondering lad. "It shows me that
I have spun my thread of life, and finished my race here."

So saying, he slung his magic harp on his shoulder, and went forth in
the moonlight. The men who were waiting for him saw him at a distance,
and 'twas noted how often he turned and looked back at his old tower,
whose gray stones were touched by the soft autumn moonbeams, as though
he were bidding it a long farewell.

He walked along the moor until he met the snow-white hart and hind;
then, to everyone's terror and amazement, he turned with them, and all
three went down the steep bank, which at that place borders the Leader,
and plunged into the river, which was running at high flood.

"He is bewitched! To the rescue! To the rescue, ere it be too late!"
cried the crowd with one voice.

But although a knight leaped on his horse in haste, and spurred him at
once through the raging torrent, he could see nothing of the Rhymer or
his strange companions. They had vanished, leaving neither sign nor
trace behind them;