t!" and turned quite white.

"Where is he?" she said.

Simon pointed across the hill. "They are bringing the corp," he said.
Randal knew the "corp" meant the dead body.

He began to cry. "Where is my father?" he said, "where is my father?"

His mother led him into the house. She gave him to the old nurse, who
cried over him, and kissed him, and offered him cakes, and made him a
whistle with a branch of plane tree, So in a short while Randal only
felt puzzled. Then he forgot, and began to play. He was a very little
boy.

Lady Ker shut herself up in her own room--her "bower," the servants
called it.

Soon Randal heard heavy steps on the stairs, and whispering. He wanted
to run out, and his nurse caught hold of him, and would not have let him
go, but he slipped out of her hand, and looked over the staircase.

They were bringing up the body of a man stretched on a shield.

It was Randal's father.

He had been slain at Flodden, fighting for the king. An arrow had gone
through his brain, and he had fallen beside James IV., with many another
brave knight, all the best of Scotland, the Flowers of the Forest.

What was it Randal saw, when he thought he met his father in the
twilight, three days before?

He never knew. His mother said he must have dreamed it all.

The old nurse used to gossip about it to the maids. "He's an unco'
bairn, oor Randal; I wush he may na be fey."

She meant that Randal was a strange child, and that strange things would
happen to him.

[Illustration: Chapter Three]

CHAPTER III.--_How Jean was brought to Fairnlee_

THE winter went by very sadly. At first the people about Fairnilee
expected the English to cross the Border and march against them. They
drove their cattle out on the wild hills, and into marshes where
only they knew the firm paths, and raised walls of earth and
stones--_barmkyns_, they called them--round the old house; and made many
arrows to shoot out of the narrow windows at the English. Randal used
to like to see the arrow-making beside the fire at! night. He was not
afraid; and said he would show the English what he could do with his
little bow. But weeks went on and no enemy came. Spring drew near, the
snow melted from the hills. One night Randal was awakened by a great
noise of shouting; he looked out of the window, and saw bright torches
moving about. He heard the cows "routing," or bellowing, and the women
screaming. He thought the English had come. So they