THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE. 297

you may be sure the old nurse was ready to tell
him all the saddest stories.

‘Full many a place in evil case
Where joy was wont afore, oh!
Wi’ Humes that dwell in Leader braes,
And Scotts that dwell in Yarrow!”

And the old woman would croon her old pro-
phecies, and tell them how Thomas the
Rhymer, that lived in Ercildoune, had foretold
all this. And she would wish they could find
these hidden treasures that the rhymes were
full of, and that maybe were lying—who knew?
—dquite near them on their own lands.

“Where is the Gold of Fairnilee?” she
would cry; ‘‘and, oh, Randal! can you no
dig for it, and find it, and buy corn out of
England for the poor folk that are dying at
your doors?

‘ Atween the wet ground and the dry
The Gold o’ Fairnilee doth lie.’

There it is, with the sun never glinting on it;
there it may bide till the Judgment-day, and
no man the better for it.

‘Between the Camp o’ Rink
And Tweed water clear,
Lie nine kings’ ransoms

For nine hundred year.

299

“‘T doubt it’s fairy gold, nurse,” said Randal,
‘and would all turn black when it saw the sun.
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