The Gold of Fairnilee | Page 5

smooth ice of the boat-pool, beneath the branches of the alders.
Or they would go out with Yarrow, the shepherd's dog, and follow the
track of wild creatures in the snow. The rabbit makes marks like **,
and the hare makes marks like **; but the fox's track is just as if you
had pushed a piece of wood through the snow--a number of cuts in the
surface, going straight along.
[Illustration: Tracks of Hare and Fox]
When it was very cold, the grouse and black-cocks would come into the
trees near the house, and Randal and Jean would put out porridge for
them to eat. And the great white swans floated in from the frozen lochs
on the hills, and gathered round open reaches and streams of the Tweed.
It was pleasant to be a boy then in the North. And at Hallow E'en they
would duck for apples in tubs of water, and burn nuts in the fire, and
look for the shadow of the lady Randal was to marry, in the mirror; but
he only saw Jean looking over his shoulder.
The days were very short in winter, so far North, and they would soon
be driven into the house. Then they sat by the nursery fire; and those
were almost the pleasantest hours, for the old nurse would tell them old
Scotch stories of elves and fairies, and sing them old songs. Jean would
crawl close to Randal and hold his hand, for fear the Red Etin, or some
other awful bogle, should get her: and in the dancing shadows of the
firelight she would think she saw Whuppity Stoorie, the wicked old
witch with the spinning-wheel; but it was really nothing but the shadow
of the wheel that the old nurse drove with her foot--birr, birr--and that
whirred and rattled as she span and told her tale.
[Illustration: Page 254]
For people span their cloth at home then, instead of buying it from

shops; and the old nurse was a great woman for spinning.
She was a great woman for stories, too, and believed in fairies, and
"bogles," as she called them. Had not her own cousin, Andrew Tamson,
passed the Cauldshiels Loch one New Year morning? And had he not
heard a dreadful roaring, as if all the cattle on Faldonside Hill were
routing at once? And then did he not see a great black beast roll down
the hillside, like a black ball, and run into the loch, which grew white
with foam, and the waves leaped up the banks like a tide rising? What
could that be except the kelpie that lives in Cauldshiels Loch, and is
just a muckle big water bull? "And what for should there no be water
kye, if there 's land kye?"
Randal and Jean thought it was very likely there were "kye," or cattle,
in the water. And some Highland people think so still, and believe they
have seen the great kelpie come roaring out of the lake; or Shellycoat,
whose skin is all crusted like a rock with shells, sitting beside the sea.
The old nurse had other tales, that nobody believes any longer, about
Brownies. A Brownie was a very useful creature to have in a house. He
was a kind of fairy-man, and he came out in the dark, when everybody
had gone to bed, just as mice pop out at night.
He never did anyone any harm, but he sat and warmed himself at the
kitchen fire. If any work was unfinished he did it, and made everything
tidy that was left out of order. It is a pity there are no such bogles now!
If anybody offered the Brownie any payment, even if it was only a
silver penny or a new coat, he would take offence and go away.
Other stories the old nurse had, about hidden treasures and buried gold.
If you believed her, there was hardly an old stone on the hillside but
had gold under it. The very sheep that fed upon the Eildon Hills, which
Randal knew well, had yellow teeth because there was so much gold
under the grass. Randal had taken two scones, or rolls, in his pocket for
dinner, and ridden over to the Eildon Hills. He had seen a rainbow
touch one of them, and there he hoped he would find the treasure that
always lies at the tail of the rainbow. But he got very soon tired of
digging for it with his little dirk, or dagger. It blunted the dagger, and

he found nothing. Perhaps he had not marked quite the right place, he
thought. But he looked at the teeth of the sheep, and they were yellow;
so he had no doubt that there was a gold-mine under the grass, if