THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE. 243.

 

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.