essed that they had fed ever since the
famine began--on snails! But there were not snails enough for all the
country-side, even if people had cared to eat them. So many men and
women died, and more were very weak and ill.

Lady Ker spent all her money in buying food for her people. Jean and she
lived on as little as they could, and were as careful as they could be.
They sold all the beautiful silver plate, except the cup that Randal's
father used to drink out of long ago. But almost everything else was
sold to buy corn.

So the weary year went on, and Midsummer Night came round--the seventh
since the night when Randal was lost.

Then Jean did what she had always meant to do. In the afternoon she
slipped out of the house of Fairnilee, taking a little bread in a
basket, and saying that she, would go to see the farmer's wife at Peel,
which was on the other side of Tweed. But her mind was to go to the
Wishing Well.

There she would wish for Randal back again, to help his mother in the
evil times. And if she, too, passed away as he had passed out of sight
and hearing, then at least she might meet him in that land where he had
been carried.

[Illustration: Page 281]

How strange it seemed to Jean to be doing everything over again that she
had done seven years before. Then she had been a little girl, and it had
been hard work for her to climb up the side of the Peel burn. Now she
walked lightly and quickly, for she was tall and well-grown. Soon she
reached the crest of the first hill, and remembered how she had sat down
there and cried, when she was a child, and how the flies had tormented
her. They were buzzing and teasing still; for good times or bad make
no difference to them, as long as the sun shines. Then she reached the
cairn at the top of the next hill, and far below her lay the forest, and
deep within it ran Yarrow, glittering like silver.

[Illustration: Page 282]

Jean paused a few moments, and then struck into a green path which
led through the wood. The path wound beneath dark pines; their topmost
branches, were red in the evening light, but the shade was black beneath
them. Soon the path reached a little grassy glade, and there among cold,
wet grasses was the Wishing Well. It was almost hidden by the grass, and
looked very black, and cool, and deep. A tiny trickle of water flowed
out of it, flowed down to join the Yarrow. The trees about it had scraps
of rags and other things pinned to them, offerings m