THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE. 275.

 

Ker told her that she had put her own trust in
Heaven, and in the Saints. And she gave the
nurse such a look when she said that, ‘‘if ever
Jean heard of this, she would send nurse away
from Fairnilee, out of the country,” that the
old woman was afraid, and was quiet.

As for poor Jean, she was perhaps the most
unhappy of them all. She thought to herself,
if she had refused to go with Randal to the
Wishing Well, and had run in and told Lady
Ker, then Randal would never have started to
find the Wishing Well. And she put herself
in great danger, as she fancied, to find him.
She wandered alone on the hills, seeking all
the places that were believed to be haunted by
fairies.

At every Fairy Knowe, as the country people
called the little round green knolls in the midst
of the heather, Jean would stoop her ear to the
ground, trying to hear the voices of the fairies
within. For it was believed that you might
hear the sound of their speech, and the tramp-
ling of their horses, and the shouts of the fairy
children. But no sound came, except the song
of the burn flowing by, and the hum of gnats
in the air, and the gock, gock, the cry of the
grouse, when you frighten him in the heather.

Then Jeanie would try another way of
meeting the fairies, and finding Randal. She
would walk nine times round a Fairy Knowe,
beginning from the left side, because then it