274. THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE.

 

to look for Randal. Down in Yetholme they
sought him, among the gipsies; and across
the Eden in merry Carlisle; and through the
Land Debatable, where the robber Armstrongs
and Grahames lived; and far down Tweed,
past Melrose, and up Jed water, far into the
Cheviot hills.

But there never came any word of Randal.
He had vanished as if the earth had opened
and swallowed him. Father Francis came
from Melrose Abbey, and prayed with Lady
Ker, and gave her all the comfort he could.
He shook his head when he heard of the
Wishing Well, but he said that no spirit of
earth or air could have power for ever over a
Christian soul. But, even when he spoke, he
remembered that, once in seven years, the
fairy folk have to pay a dreadful tax, one of
themselves, to the King of a terrible country of
Darkness; and what if they had stolen Randal,
to pay the tax with um!

This was what troubled good Father Francis,
though, like a wise man, he said nothing about
it, and even put the thought away out of his
own mind.

But you may be sure that the old nurse had
thought of this tax on the fairies too, and that
she did not hold her peace about it, but spoke
to everyone that would listen to her, and would
have spoken to the mistress if she had been
allowed. But when she tried to begin, Lady