rugs, and other things we have to show for our ride."

Then he called to some of his men, who came into the hall, and cast down
great piles of all sorts of spoil and booty, silver plate, and silken
hangings, and a heap of rugs, and carpets, and plaids, such as Randal
had never seen before, for the English were much richer than the Scotch.

Randal threw himself on the pile of rugs and began to roll on it.

"Oh, mother," he cried suddenly, jumping up and looking with wide-open
eyes, "there 's something living in the heap! Perhaps it's a doggie, or
a rabbit, or a kitten."

[Illustration: Page 248]

Then Randal tugged at the cloths, and then they all heard a little
shrill cry.

"Why, it's a bairn!" said Lady Ker, who had sat very grave all the time,
pleased to have done the English some harm; for they had killed her
husband, and were all her deadly foes. "It's a bairn!" she cried,
and pulled out of the great heap of cloaks and rugs a little beautiful
child, in its white nightdress, with its yellow curls all tangled over
its blue eyes.

Then Lady Ker and the old nurse could not make too much of the pretty
English child that had come here in such a wonderful way.

How did it get mixed up with all the spoil? and how had it been carried
so far on horseback without being hurt? Nobody ever knew. It came as
if the fairies had sent it. English it was, but the best Scot could not
hate such a pretty child. Old Nancy Dryden ran up to the old nursery
with it, and laid it in a great wooden tub full of hot water, and was
giving it warm milk to drink, and dandling it, almost before the men
knew what had happened.

"Yon bairn will be a bonny mate for you, Maister Randal," said old Simon
Grieve. "'Deed, I dinna think her kin will come speering* after her at
Fairnilee. The Red Cock's crawing ower Hardriding Ha' this day, and when
the womenfolk come back frae the wood, they'll hae other thing to do
for-bye looking for bairns."

* Asking.

When Simon Grieve said that the Red Cock was crowing over his enemies'
home, he meant that he had set it on fire after the people who lived in
it had run away.

Lady Ker grew pale when she heard what he said. She hated the English,
to be sure, but she was a woman with a kind heart. She thought of the
dreadful danger that the little English girl had escaped, and she went
upstairs and helped the nurse to make the child happy.

[Illustration: Chapter Four]

CHAPTER IV.--_Rand