never a word o' Randal in a' the country-side."

"Did you find no trace of him?" said Lady Ker, sitting down suddenly in
the great armchair.

"We went first through the wood, my Lady, by the path to the Wishing
Well. And he had been there, for the whip he carried in his hand was
lying on the grass. And we found _this_."

He put his hand in his pouch, and brought out a little silver crucifix,
that Randal used always to wear round his neck on a chain.

"This was lying on the grass beside the Wishing Well, my Lady--"

Then he stopped, for Lady Ker had swooned away. She was worn out with
watching and with anxiety about Randal.

Simon went and called the maids, and they brought water and wine, and
soon Lady Ker came back to herself, with the little silver crucifix in
her hand.

The old nurse was crying, and making a great noise.

"The good folk have taken ma bairn," she said, "this nicht o' a' the
nichts in the year, when the fairy folk--preserve us frae them!---have
power. But they could nae take the blessed rood o' grace; it was beyond
their strength. If gipsies, or robber folk frae the Debatable Land, had
carried away the bairn, they would hae taken him, cross and a'. But the
guid folk have gotten him, and Randal Ker will never, never mair come
hame to bonny Fairnilee."

What the old nurse said was what everybody thought. Even Simon Grieve
shook his head, and did not like it.

But Lady Ker did not give up hope. She sent horsemen through all the
country-side: up Tweed to the Crook, and to Talla; up Yarrow, past
Catslack Tower, and on to the Loch of Saint Mary; up Ettrick to
Thirlestane and Buccleugh, and over to Gala, and to Branxholme in
Teviotdale; and even to Hermitage Castle, far away by Liddel water.

They rode far and rode fast, and at every cottage and every tower they
asked "had anyone seen a boy in green?" But nobody had seen Randal
through all the country-side. Only a shepherd lad, on Foulshiels hill,
had heard bells ringing in the night, and a sound of laughter go past
him, like a breeze of wind over the heather.

Days went by, and all the country, was out to look for Randal. Down
in Yetholme they sought him, among the gipsies; and across the Eden
in merry Carlisle; and through the Land Debatable, where the robber
Armstrongs and Grahames lived; and far down Tweed, past Melrose, and up
Jed water, far into the Cheviot hills.

But there never came any word of Randal. He had vanished as if the earth