nd some Highland people think so still, and believe they
have seen the great kelpie come roaring out of the lake; or Shellycoat,
whose skin is all crusted like a rock with shells, sitting beside the
sea.

The old nurse had other tales, that nobody believes any longer, about
Brownies. A Brownie was a very useful creature to have in a house. He
was a kind of fairy-man, and he came out in the dark, when everybody had
gone to bed, just as mice pop out at night.

He never did anyone any harm, but he sat and warmed himself at the
kitchen fire. If any work was unfinished he did it, and made everything
tidy that was left out of order. It is a pity there are no such bogles
now! If anybody offered the Brownie any payment, even if it was only a
silver penny or a new coat, he would take offence and go away.

Other stories the old nurse had, about hidden treasures and buried gold.
If you believed her, there was hardly an old stone on the hillside but
had gold under it. The very sheep that fed upon the Eildon Hills, which
Randal knew well, had yellow teeth because there was so much gold under
the grass. Randal had taken two scones, or rolls, in his pocket for
dinner, and ridden over to the Eildon Hills. He had seen a rainbow touch
one of them, and there he hoped he would find the treasure that always
lies at the tail of the rainbow. But he got very soon tired of digging
for it with his little dirk, or dagger. It blunted the dagger, and
he found nothing. Perhaps he had not marked quite the right place, he
thought. But he looked at the teeth of the sheep, and they were yellow;
so he had no doubt that there was a gold-mine under the grass, if he
could find it.

The old nurse knew that it was very difficult to dig up fairy gold.
Generally something happened just when people heard their pick-axes
clink on the iron pot that held the treasure. A dreadful storm of
thunder and lightning would break out; or the burn would be flooded, and
rush down all red and roaring, sweeping away the tools and drowning the
digger; or a strange man, that nobody had ever seen before, would come
up, waving his arms, and crying out that the Castle was on fire. Then
the people would hurry up to the Castle, and find that it was not on
fire at all. When they returned, all the earth would be just as it was
before they began, and they would give up in despair. Nobody could ever
see the man again that gave the alarm.

"Who could he be, nurse?" Randal asked.

"J