252 THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE.

 

and tournaments. There was peace in the
country; or if there was war, it did not come
near the quiet valley of the Tweed and the
hills that lie round Fairnilee. In summer
they were always on the hills and by the
burnsides. :

You cannot think, if you have not tried, what
pleasant company a burn is. It comes out of
the deep, black wells in the moss, far away on
the tops of the hills, where the sheep feed, and
the fox peers from his hole, and the ravens
build in the crags. The burn flows down from
the lonely places, cutting a way between steep,
green banks, tumbling in white waterfalls over
rocks, and lying in black, deep pools below the
waterfalls. At every turn it does something
new, and plays a fresh game with its brown
waters. The white pebbles in the water look
like gold: often Randal would pick one out
and think he had found a gold-mine, till he
got it into the sunshine, and then it was only
a white stone, what he called a “chucky-
stane;”” but he kept hoping for better luck
next time. | In the height of summer, when the
- streams were very low, he and the shepherd’s
boys would build dams of stones and turf
across a narrow part of the burn, while Jean
sat and watched them on a little round knoll.
Then, when plenty of water had collected in
the pool, they would break the dam and let it
all run downhill in a little flood; they called it