The Gold of Fairnilee | Page 7

say 'No.' There was Tarn Hislop, that
vanished away the day before all the lads and your own father went
forth to that weary war at Flodden, and the English, for once, by guile,
won the day. Well, Tam Hislop, when the news came that all must arm
and mount and ride, he could nowhere be found. It was as if the wind
had carried him away. High and low they sought him, but there was his
clothes and his jack,* and his sword and his spear, but no Tam Hislop.
Well, no man heard more of him for seven whole years, not till last
year, and then he came back: sore tired 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.