ust one of the good folk, I 'm thinking; but it's no weel to be
speaking o' _them_."

Randal knew that the "good folk" meant the fairies. The old nurse called
them the good folk for fear of offending them. She would not speak
much about them, except now and then, when the servants had been making
merry.

"And is there any treasure hidden near Fairnilee, nursie?" asked little
Jean.

"Treasure, my bonny doo! Mair than a' the men about the toon could carry
away frae morning till nicht. Do ye no ken the auld rhyme?--

'Atween the wet ground and the dry
The gold of Fairnilee doth lie.'

And there's the other auld rhyme--

'Between the Camp o' Rink
And Tweed water clear,
Lie nine kings' ransoms
For nine hundred year!'"

Randal and Jean were very glad to hear so much gold was near them as
would pay nine kings' ransoms. They took their small spades and dug
little holes in the Camp of Rink, which is a great old circle of
stonework, surrounded by a deep ditch, on the top of a hill above the
house. But Jean was not a very good digger, and even Randal grew tired.
They thought they would wait till they grew bigger, and _then_ find the
gold.

[Illustration: Chapter Five]

CHAPTER V._--The Good Folk_

"EVERYBODY knows there's fairies," said the old nurse one night when she
was bolder than usual. What she said we will put in English, not Scotch
as she spoke it. "But they do not like to be called fairies. So the old
rhyme runs:

'If ye call me imp or elf, .
I warn you look well to yourself;
If ye call me fairy,
Ye 'll find me quite contrary;
If good neighbour you call me,
Then good neighbour I will be;
But if you call me kindly sprite,
I 'll be your friend both day and night.'

So you must always call them 'good neighbours' or 'good folk,' when you
speak of them."

"Did _you_ ever see a fairy, nurse?" asked Randal.

"Not myself, but my mother knew a woman--they called her Tibby Dickson,
and her husband was a shepherd, and she had a bairn, as bonny a bairn as
ever you saw. And one day she went to the well to draw water, and as
she was coming back she heard a loud scream in her house. Then her heart
leaped, and fast she ran and flew to the cradle; and there she saw an
awful sight--not her own bairn, but a withered imp, with hands like a
mole's, and a face like a frog's, and a mouth from ear to ear, and two
g