The Gold of Fairnilee | Page 9

the house, to show that they were coming home. Lady Ker was waiting at the gate, and the old nurse ran down the grassy path to meet them.
"Where's my bairn?" she cried as soon as she was within call.
The men said, "Here 's Mistress Jean, and Randal will be here soon; they have gone to look for him."
"Where are they looking?" cried nurse.
"Just about the Wishing Well."
The nurse gave a scream, and hobbled back to Lady Ker.
"Ma bairn's tint!"* she cried, "ma bairn's tint! They 'll find him never. The good folk have stolen him away from that weary Wishing Well!"
* Tint, lost.
"Hush, nurse," said Lady Ker, "do not frighten Jean."
She spoke to the men, who had no doubt that Randal would soon be found and brought home.
So Jean was put to bed, where she forgot all her troubles; and Lady Ker waited, waited, all night, till the grey light began to come in, about two in the morning.
Lady Ker kept very still and quiet, telling her beads, and praying. But the old nurse would never be still, but was always wandering out, down to the river's edge, listening for the shouts of the shepherds coming home. Then she would come back again, and moan and wring her hands, crying for "her bairn."
About six o'clock, when it was broad daylight and all the birds were singing, the men returned from the hill.
But Randal did not come with them.
Then the old nurse set up a great cry, as the country people do over the bed of someone who has just died.
Lady Ker sent her away, and called Simon Grieve to her own room.
"You have not found the boy yet?" she said, very stately and pale. "He must have wandered over into Yarrow; perhaps he has gone as far as Newark, and passed the night at the castle, or with the shepherd at Foulshiels."
"No, my Lady," said Simon Grieve, "some o' the men went over to Newark, and some to Foulshiels, and other some down to Sir John Murray's at Philiphaugh; but there's never a word o' Randal in a' the country-side."
"Did you find no trace of him?" said Lady Ker, sitting down suddenly in the great armchair.
"We went first through the wood, my Lady, by the path to the Wishing Well. And he had been there, for the whip he carried in his hand was lying on the grass. And we found this."
He put his hand in his pouch, and brought out a little silver crucifix, that Randal used always to wear round his neck on a chain.
"This was lying on the grass beside the Wishing Well, my Lady--"
Then he stopped, for Lady Ker had swooned away. She was worn out with watching and with anxiety about Randal.
Simon went and called the maids, and they brought water and wine, and soon Lady Ker came back to herself, with the little silver crucifix in her hand.
The old nurse was crying, and making a great noise.
"The good folk have taken ma bairn," she said, "this nicht o' a' the nichts in the year, when the fairy folk--preserve us frae them!---have power. But they could nae take the blessed rood o' grace; it was beyond their strength. If gipsies, or robber folk frae the Debatable Land, had carried away the bairn, they would hae taken him, cross and a'. But the guid folk have gotten him, and Randal Ker will never, never mair come hame to bonny Fairnilee."
What the old nurse said was what everybody thought. Even Simon Grieve shook his head, and did not like it.
But Lady Ker did not give up hope. She sent horsemen through all the country-side: up Tweed to the Crook, and to Talla; up Yarrow, past Catslack Tower, and on to the Loch of Saint Mary; up Ettrick to Thirlestane and Buccleugh, and over to Gala, and to Branxholme in Teviotdale; and even to Hermitage Castle, far away by Liddel water.
They rode far and rode fast, and at every cottage and every tower they asked "had anyone seen a boy in green?" But nobody had seen Randal through all the country-side. Only a shepherd lad, on Foulshiels hill, had heard bells ringing in the night, and a sound of laughter go past him, like a breeze of wind over the heather.
Days went by, and all the country, was out to look for Randal. Down in Yetholme they sought him, among the gipsies; and across the Eden in merry Carlisle; and through the Land Debatable, where the robber Armstrongs and Grahames lived; and far down Tweed, past Melrose, and up Jed water, far into the Cheviot hills.
But there never came any word of Randal. He had vanished as if the earth had opened and swallowed him. Father Francis came from Melrose Abbey, and prayed with Lady Ker, and gave