262 THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE.

 

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.”

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 ina
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 looked 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.