THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE. 255

 

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 Tam-
son, 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 Cauld-
shiels 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.