The Gold of Fairnilee | Page 7

he looked, ay, and older than when he was lost. And I met him by the well, and I was frightened; and 'Tam,' I said, 'where have ye been this weary time?' 'I have been with them that I will not speak the name-of,' says he. 'Ye mean the good folk,' said I. 'Ye have said it,' says he. Then I went up to the house, with my heart in my mouth, and I met Simon Grieve. 'Simon,' I says, 'here's Tam Hislop come home from the good folk.' 'I 'll soon send him back to them,' says he. And he takes a great rung** and lays it about Tarn's shoulders, calling him coward loon, that ran away from the fighting. And since then Tam has never been seen about the place. But the Laird's man, of Gala, knows them that say he was in Perth the last seven years, and not in Fairyland at all. But it was Fairyland he told me, and he would not lie to his own mother's half-brother's cousin."
* Jack, a kind of breastplate.
** Rung, a staff.
Randal did not care much for the story of Tam Hislop. A fellow who would let old Simon Grieve beat him could not be worthy of the Fairy Queen.
Randal was about thirteen now, a tall boy, with dark eyes, black hair, a brown face with the red on his cheeks. He had grown up in a country where everything was magical and haunted; where fairy knights rode on the leas after dark, and challenged men to battle. Every castle had its tale of Redcap, the sly spirit, or of the woman of the hairy hand. Every old mound was thought to cover hidden gold. And all was so lonely; the green hills rolling between river and river, with no men on them, nothing but sheep, and grouse, and plover. No wonder that Randal lived in a kind of dream. He would lie and watch the long grass till it locked like a forest, and he thought he could see elves dancing between the green grass stems, that were like fairy trees. He kept wishing that he, too, might meet the Fairy Queen, and be taken into that other world where everything was beautiful.
[Illustration: Chapter Six]
CHAPTER VI.
--The Wishing Well
"JEAN," said Randal one midsummer day, "I am going to the Wishing Well."
"Oh, Randal," said Jean, "it is so far away!"
"I can walk it," said Randal, "and you must come, too; I want you, Jeanie. It 's not so very far."
"But mother says it is wrong to go to Wishing Wells," Jean answered.
"Why is it wrong?" said Randal, switching at the tall foxgloves with a stick.
"Oh, she says it is a wicked thing, and forbidden by the Church. People who go to wish there, sacrifice to the spirits of the well; and Father Francis told her that it was very wrong."
"Father Francis is a shaveling," said Randal. "I heard Simon Grieve say so."
"What's a shaveling, Randal?"
"I don't know: a man that does not fight, I think. I don't care what a shaveling says: so I mean just to go and wish, and I won't sacrifice anything. There can't be any harm in that!"
"But, oh Randal, you've got your green doublet on!"
"Well! why not?"
"Do you not know it angers the fair--I mean the good folk,--that anyone should wear green on the hill but themselves?"
"I cannot help it," said Randal. "If I go in and change my doublet, they will ask what I do that for. I 'll chance it, green or grey, and wish my wish for all that."
"And what are you going to wish?"
"I 'm going to wish to meet the Fairy Queen! Just think how beautiful she must be! dressed all in green, with gold bells on her bridle, and riding a white horse shod with gold! I think I see her galloping through the woods and out across the hill, over the heather.'
"But you will go away with her, and never see me any more," said Jean.
"No, I won't; or if I do, I 'll come back, with such a horse, and a sword with a gold handle. I'm going to the Wishing Well. Come on!"
Jean did not like to say "No," and off they went.
Randal and Jean started without taking anything with them to eat. They were afraid to go back to the house for food. Randal said they would be sure to find something somewhere. The Wishing Well was on the top of a hill between Yarrow and Tweed. So they took off their shoes, and waded the Tweed at the shallowest part, and then they walked up the green grassy bank on the other side, till they came to the burn of Peel. Here they passed the old square tower of Peel, and the shepherd dogs came