



Produced by David Widger





THE

GOLD OF FAIRNILEE

By Andrew Lang

TO

JEANIE LANG,

LARRA

Dear Jeanie,

For you, far away on the other side of the world, I made this little
tale of our own country. Your father and I have dug for treasure in the
Camp of Rink, with our knives, when we were boys. We did not find it:
the story will tell you why.

Are there Fairies as well as Bunyips in Australia? I hope so.

Yours always,

WHUPPITY STOORIE'S SONG IN THIS TALE
IS BY THE AUTHOR'S FRIEND, F. De Q. M.




THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE

[Illustration: Page 237]

[Illustration: Chapter One]




CHAPTER I.--_The Old House_

YOU may still see the old Scotch house where Randal was born, so long
ago. Nobody lives there now. Most of the roof has fallen in, there is no
glass in the windows, and all the doors are open. They were open in the
days of Randal's father--nearly four hundred years have passed since
then--and everyone who came was welcome to his share of beef and broth
and ale. But now the doors are not only open, they are quite gone, and
there is nobody within to give you a welcome.

So there is nothing but emptiness in the old house where Randal lived
with Jean, three hundred and sixty years or so before you were born. It
is a high old house, and wide, with the broken slates still on the roof.
At the corner there are little round towers, like pepperboxes, with
sharp peaks. The stems of the ivy that covers the walls are as thick
as trees. There are many trees crowding all round, and there are hills
round it too; and far below you hear the Tweed whispering all day. The
house is called Fairnilee, which means "the Fairies' Field;" for people
believed in fairies, as you shall hear, when Randal was a boy, and even
when my father was a boy.

Randal was all alone in the house when he was a little fellow--alone
with his mother, and Nancy the old nurse, and Simon Grieve the butler,
who wore a black velvet coat and a big silver chain. Then there were
the maids, and the grooms, and the farm folk, who were all friends of
Randal's. He was not lonely, and he did not feel unhappy, even before
Jean came, as you shall be told. But the grown-up people were sad and
silent at Fairnilee. Randal had no father; his mother, Lady Ker, was
a widow. She was still quite young, and Randal thought her the most
beautiful person in the world. Children think these things about their
mothers, and Randal had seen no ladies but his mother only. She had
brown hair and brown eyes and red lips, and a grave kind face, which
looked serious under her great white widow's cap with the black hood
over it. Randal never saw his mother cry; but when he was a very little
child indeed, he had heard her crying in the night: this was after his
father went away.

[Illustration: Chapter Two]




CHAPTER II.--_How Randal's Father Came Home_

RANDAL remembered his father's going to fight the English, and how he
came back again. It was a windy August evening when he went away: the
rain had fallen since morning. Randal had watched the white mists
driven by the gale down through the black pine-wood that covers the hill
opposite Fairnilee. The mist looked like armies of ghosts, he thought,
marching, marching through the pines, with their white flags flying and
streaming. Then the sun came out red at evening, and Randal's father
rode away with all his men. He had a helmet on his head, and a great axe
hanging from his neck by a chain, and a spear in his hand. He was riding
his big horse, _Sir Hugh_, and he caught Randal up to the saddle and
kissed him many times before he clattered out of the courtyard. All the
tenants and men about the farm rode with him, all with spears and a flag
embroidered with a crest in gold. His mother watched them from the tower
till they were out of sight. And Randal saw them ride away, not on
hard, smooth roads like ours, but along a green grassy track, the water
splashing up to their stirrups where they crossed the marshes.

[Illustration: Page 240]

Then the sky turned as red as blood, in the sunset, and next it grew
brown, like the rust on a sword; and the Tweed below, when they rode the
ford, was all red and gold and brown.

Then time went on; that seemed a long time to Randal. Only the women
were left in the house, and Randal played with the shepherd's children.
They sailed boats in the mill-pond, and they went down to the boat-pool
and watched to see the big copper- salmon splashing in the
still water. One evening Randal looked up suddenly from his play. It was
growing dark. He had been building a house with the round stones and wet
sand by the river. He looked up, and there was his own father! He was
riding all alone, and his horse, _Sir Hugh_, was very lean and lame, and
scarred with the spurs. The spear in his father's hand was broken, and
he had no sword; and he looked neither to right nor to left. His eyes
were wide open, but he seemed to see nothing.

Randal cried out to him, "Father! Father!" but he never glanced at
Randal. He did not look as if he heard him, or knew he was there, and
suddenly he seemed to go away, Randal did not know how or where.

Randal was frightened.

He ran into the house, and went to his mother.

"Oh, mother," he said, "I have seen father! He was riding all alone, and
he would not look at me. _Sir Hugh_ was lame!"

"Where has he gone?" said Lady Ker, in a strange voice.

"He went away out of sight," said Randal. "I could not see where he
went."

Then his mother told him it could not be, that his father would not have
come back alone. He would not leave his men behind him in the war.

But Randal was so sure, that she did not scold him. She knew he believed
what he said.

He saw that she was not happy.

All that night, which was the Fourth of September, in the year 1513, the
day of Flodden fight, Randal's mother did not go to bed. She kept moving
about the house. Now she would look from the tower window up Tweed; and
now she would go along the gallery and look down Tweed from the other
tower. She had lights burning in all the windows. All next day she was
never still. She climbed, with two of her maids, to the top of the hill
above Yair, on the other side of the river, and she watched the roads
down Ettrick and Yarrow. Next night she slept little, and rose early.
About noon, Randal saw three or four men riding wearily, with tired
horses. They could scarcely cross the ford of Tweed, the horses were so
tired. The men were Simon Grieve the butler, and some of the tenants.
They looked very pale; some of them had their heads tied up, and there
was blood on their faces. Lady Ker and Randal ran to meet them.

Simon Grieve lighted from his horse, and whispered to Randal's mother.

Randal did not hear what he said, but his mother cried, "I knew it! I
knew it!" and turned quite white.

"Where is he?" she said.

Simon pointed across the hill. "They are bringing the corp," he said.
Randal knew the "corp" meant the dead body.

He began to cry. "Where is my father?" he said, "where is my father?"

His mother led him into the house. She gave him to the old nurse, who
cried over him, and kissed him, and offered him cakes, and made him a
whistle with a branch of plane tree, So in a short while Randal only
felt puzzled. Then he forgot, and began to play. He was a very little
boy.

Lady Ker shut herself up in her own room--her "bower," the servants
called it.

Soon Randal heard heavy steps on the stairs, and whispering. He wanted
to run out, and his nurse caught hold of him, and would not have let him
go, but he slipped out of her hand, and looked over the staircase.

They were bringing up the body of a man stretched on a shield.

It was Randal's father.

He had been slain at Flodden, fighting for the king. An arrow had gone
through his brain, and he had fallen beside James IV., with many another
brave knight, all the best of Scotland, the Flowers of the Forest.

What was it Randal saw, when he thought he met his father in the
twilight, three days before?

He never knew. His mother said he must have dreamed it all.

The old nurse used to gossip about it to the maids. "He's an unco'
bairn, oor Randal; I wush he may na be fey."

She meant that Randal was a strange child, and that strange things would
happen to him.

[Illustration: Chapter Three]




CHAPTER III.--_How Jean was brought to Fairnlee_

THE winter went by very sadly. At first the people about Fairnilee
expected the English to cross the Border and march against them. They
drove their cattle out on the wild hills, and into marshes where
only they knew the firm paths, and raised walls of earth and
stones--_barmkyns_, they called them--round the old house; and made many
arrows to shoot out of the narrow windows at the English. Randal used
to like to see the arrow-making beside the fire at! night. He was not
afraid; and said he would show the English what he could do with his
little bow. But weeks went on and no enemy came. Spring drew near, the
snow melted from the hills. One night Randal was awakened by a great
noise of shouting; he looked out of the window, and saw bright torches
moving about. He heard the cows "routing," or bellowing, and the women
screaming. He thought the English had come. So they had; not the English
army, but some robbers from the other side of the Border. At that time
the people on the south side of Scotland and the north side of England
used to steal each other's cows time about. When a Scotch squire, or