THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE. 271

‘Ma bairn’s tint !”’* she cried, “ma bairn’s
tint! They ’ll find him never. The good folk
have stolen him away from that weary Wishing
Well!”

‘‘Hush, nurse,” said Lady Ker, ‘‘do not
frighten Jean.”

She spoke to the men, who had no doubt
that Randal would soon be found and brought
home.

So Jean was put to bed, where she forgot all
her troubles; and Lady Ker waited, waited, all
night, till the grey light began to come in,
about two in the morning.

Lady Ker kept very still and quiet, telling
her beads, and praying. But the old nurse
would never be still, but was always wandering
out, down to the river’s edge, listening for the
shouts of the shepherds coming home. Then
she would come back again, and moan and
wring her hands, crying for ‘‘ her bairn.”

About six o’clock, when it was broad day-
light and all the birds were singing, the men
returned from the hill.

But Randal did not come with them.

Then the old nurse set up a great cry, as the
country people do over the bed of someone
who has just died.

Lady Ker sent her away, and called Simon
Grieve to her own room.

“You have not found the boy yet?” she

* Tint, lost.