reat staring eyes."

"What was it?" asked Jeanie, in a trembling voice.

"A fairy's bairn that had not thriven," said nurse; "and when their
bairns do not thrive, they just steal honest folks' children and carry
them away to their own country."

"And where's that?" said Randal.

"It's under the ground," said nurse, "and there they have gold and
silver and diamonds; and there's the Queen of them all, that's as
beautiful as the day. She has yellow hair-down to her feet, and she
has blue eyes, like the sky on a fine day, and her voice like all the
mavises singing in the spring. And she is aye dressed in green, and all
her court in green; and she rides a white horse with golden bells on the
bridle."

"I would like to go there and see her," said Randal.

"Oh, never say that, my bairn; you never know who may hear you! And if
you go there, how will you come back again? and what will your mother
do? and Jean here, and me that's carried you many a time in weary arms
when you were a babe?"

"Can't people come back again?" asked Randal.

"Some say 'Yes,' and some say 'No.' There was Tarn Hislop, that vanished
away the day before all the lads and your own father went forth to that
weary war at Flodden, and the English, for once, by guile, won the day.
Well, Tam Hislop, when the news came that all must arm and mount and
ride, he could nowhere be found. It was as if the wind had carried him
away. High and low they sought him, but there was his clothes and his
jack,* and his sword and his spear, but no Tam Hislop. Well, no man
heard more of him for seven whole years, not till last year, and then
he came back: sore tired he looked, ay, and older than when he was lost.
And I met him by the well, and I was frightened; and 'Tam,' I said,
'where have ye been this weary time?' 'I have been with them that I will
not speak the name-of,' says he. 'Ye mean the good folk,' said I. 'Ye
have said it,' says he. Then I went up to the house, with my heart in my
mouth, and I met Simon Grieve. 'Simon,' I says, 'here's Tam Hislop come
home from the good folk.' 'I 'll soon send him back to them,' says he.
And he takes a great rung** and lays it about Tarn's shoulders, calling
him coward loon, that ran away from the fighting. And since then Tam
has never been seen about the place. But the Laird's man, of Gala, knows
them that say he was in Perth the last seven years, and not in Fairyland
at all. But it was Fairyland he told me, and he would not l