THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE. 305

 

Here she had noticed the three great stones,
which made a kind of chamber on the hill-side,
and here she had anointed her eyes with the
salt water of the bottle of tears.

Then she had seen through the grass, she
declared, and through the upper soil, and she
had beheld great quantities of gold. And she
was running with the bottle to tell Randal, and
to touch his eyes with the water that he might
see it also. But, out of Fairyland, the strange
water only had its magical power while it was
still wet on the eyelashes. This the old nurse
soon found; for she went back to the three
standing stones, and looked and saw nothing,
only grass and daisies. And the fairy bottle
was broken, and all the water spilt.

This was her story, and Randal did not know
what to believe. But so many strange things
had happened to him, that one more did not
seem impossible. So he and Jean took the old
nurse home, and made her comfortable in her
room, and Jean put her to bed, and got hera
little wine and an oat-cake.

Then Randal very quietly locked the door
outside, and put the key in his pocket. It
would have been of no use to tell the old nurse
to be quiet about what she thought she had seen.

By this time it was late and growing dark.
But that night there would be a moon.

After supper, of which there was very little,
Lady Ker went to bed. But Randal and Jean