298 THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE.

 

It would just be like this bottle, the only thing
I brought with me out of Fairyland.”
Then Randal put his hand in his velvet

pouch,and brought
bottle.* It was
and was made of
none of them had
It was black, and
light through it,
green and yellow

 

out a curious small
shaped like this,
something that
ever seen before.
you could see the
and there were
spots and streaks

on it.

“That ugly bottle looked like gold and
diamonds when I found it in Fairyland,” said
Randal, “and the water in it smelled as sweet
as roses. But when I touched my eyes with it,
a drop that ran into my mouth was.as salt as
the sea, and immediately everything changed:
the gold bottle became this glass thing, and
the fairies became like folk dead, and the sky
grew grey, and all turned waste and ugly.
That’s the way with fairy gold, nurse; and if
you found it, even, it would all be dry leaves
and black bits of coal before the sun set.”

‘Maybe so, and maybe no,” said the old
nurse. “The Gold o’ Fairnilee may no be
fairy gold, but just wealth o’ this world that
folk buried here lang syne. But noo, Randal,
ma bairn, I maun gang out and see ma sister’s
son’s dochter, that’s lying sair sick o’ the kin-

* Tn bottles like this, the old Romans used to keep their
tears for-their dead friends,