Produced by David Widger
THE
GOLD OF FAIRNILEE
By Andrew Lang
TO
JEANIE LANG,
LARRA
Dear Jeanie,
For you, far away on the other side of the world, I made this little
tale of our own country. Your father and I have dug for treasure in the
Camp of Rink, with our knives, when we were boys. We did not find it:
the story will tell you why.
Are there Fairies as well as Bunyips in Australia? I hope so.
Yours always,
WHUPPITY STOORIE’S SONG IN THIS TALE
IS BY THE AUTHOR’S FRIEND, F. De Q. M.
THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE
[Illustration: Page 237]
[Illustration: Chapter One]
CHAPTER I.--_The Old House_
YOU may still see the old Scotch house where Randal was born, so long
ago. Nobody lives there now. Most of the roof has fallen in, there is no
glass in the windows, and all the doors are open. They were open in the
days of Randal’s father--nearly four hundred years have passed since
then--and everyone who came was welcome to his share of beef and broth
and ale. But now the doors are not only open, they are quite gone, and
there is nobody within to give you a welcome.
So there is nothing but emptiness in the old house where Randal lived
with Jean, three hundred and sixty years or so before you were born. It
is a high old house, and wide, with the broken slates still on the roof.
At the corner there are little round towers, like pepperboxes, with
sharp peaks. The stems of the ivy that covers the walls are as thick
as trees. There are many trees crowding all round, and there are hills
round it too; and far below you hear the Tweed whispering all day. The
house is called Fairnilee, which means “the Fairies’ Field;” for people
believed in fairies, as you shall hear, when Randal was a boy, and even
when my father was a boy.
Randal was all alone in the house when he was a little fellow--alone
with his mother, and Nancy the old nurse, and Simon Grieve the butler,
who wore a black velvet coat and a big silver chain. Then there were
the maids, and the grooms, and the farm folk, who were all friends of
Randal’s. He was not lonely, and he did not feel unhappy, even before
Jean came, as you shall be told. But the grown-up people were sad and
silent at Fairnilee. Randal had no father; his mother, Lady Ker, was
a widow. She was still quite young, and Randal thought her the most
beautiful person in the world. Children think these things about their
mothers, and Randal had seen no ladies but his mother only. She had
brown hair and brown eyes and red lips, and a grave kind face, which
looked serious under her great white widow’s cap with the black hood
over it. Randal never saw his mother cry; but when he was a very little
child indeed, he had heard her crying in the night: this was after his
father went away.
[Illustration: Chapter Two]