“JEAN,” said Randal one midsummer day, “I am going to the Wishing
Well.”
“Oh, Randal,” said Jean, “it is so far away!”
“I can walk it,” said Randal, “and you must come, too; I want you,
Jeanie. It ‘s not so very far.”
“But mother says it is wrong to go to Wishing Wells,” Jean answered.
“Why is it wrong?” said Randal, switching at the tall foxgloves with a
stick.
“Oh, she says it is a wicked thing, and forbidden by the Church. People
who go to wish there, sacrifice to the spirits of the well; and Father
Francis told her that it was very wrong.”
“Father Francis is a shaveling,” said Randal. “I heard Simon Grieve say
so.”
“What’s a shaveling, Randal?”
“I don’t know: a man that does not fight, I think. I don’t care what
a shaveling says: so I mean just to go and wish, and I won’t sacrifice
anything. There can’t be any harm in _that!_”
“But, oh Randal, you’ve got your green doublet on!”
“Well! why not?”
“Do you not know it angers the fair--I mean the good folk,--that anyone
should wear green on the hill but themselves?”
“I cannot help it,” said Randal. “If I go in and change my doublet, they
will ask what I do that for. I ‘ll chance it, green or grey, and wish my
wish for all that.”
“And what are you going to wish?”
“I ‘m going to wish to meet the Fairy Queen! Just think how beautiful
she must be! dressed all in green, with gold bells on her bridle, and
riding a white horse shod with gold! I think I see her galloping through
the woods and out across the hill, over the heather.’
“But you will go away with her, and never see me any more,” said Jean.
“No, I won’t; or if I do, I ‘ll come back, with such a horse, and a
sword with a gold handle. I’m going to the Wishing Well. Come on!”
Jean did not like to say “No,” and off they went.
Randal and Jean started without taking anything with them to eat. They
were afraid to go back to the house for food. Randal said they would be
sure to find something somewhere. The Wishing Well was on the top of a
hill between Yarrow and Tweed. So they took off their shoes, and waded
the Tweed at the shallowest part, and then they walked up the green
grassy bank on the other side, till they came to the burn of Peel. Here
they passed the old square tower of Peel, and the shepherd dogs came out
and barked at them. Randal threw a stone at them, and they ran away with
their tails between their legs.
[Illustration: Page 265]
“Don’t you think we had better go into Peel, and get some bannocks to
eat on the way, Randal?” said Jean.
But Randal said he was not hungry; and, besides, the people at Peel
would tell the Fairnilee people where they had gone.
“We’ll _wish_ for things to eat when we get to the Wishing Well,” said
Randal. “All sorts of good things--cold venison pasty, and everything
you like.”
So they began climbing the hill, and they followed the Peel burn. It ran
in and out, winding this way and that, and when they did get to the
top of the hill, Jean was very tired and very hungry. And she was very
disappointed. For she expected to see some wonderful new country at her
feet, and there was only a low strip of sunburnt grass and heather, and
then another hill-top! So Jean sat down, and the hot sun blazed on her,
and the flies buzzed about her and tormented her.
“Come on, Jean,” said Randal; “it must be over the next hill!”
So poor Jean got up and followed him, but he walked far too fast for
her. When she reached the crest of the next hill, she found a great
cairn, or pile of grey stones; and beneath her lay, far, far below, a
deep valley covered with woods, and a stream running through it that she
had never seen before.
That stream was the Yarrow.
Randal was nowhere in sight, and she did not know where to look for the
Wishing Well. If she had walked straight forward through the trees she
would have come to it; but she was so tired, and so hungry, and so hot,
that she sat down at the foot of the cairn and cried as if her heart
would break.
Then she fell asleep.
When Jean woke, it was as dark as it ever is on a midsummer night in
Scotland.
It was a soft, cloudy night; not a clear night with a silver sky.
Jeanie heard a loud roaring close to her, and the red light of a great
fire was in her sleepy eyes.
In the firelight she saw strange black beasts, with horns, plunging and
leaping and bellowing, and dark figures rushing about the flames. It was
the beasts that made the roaring. They were bounding about close to the
fire, and sometimes in it, and were all mixed in the smoke.
Jeanie was dreadfully frightened, too frightened to scream.
Presently she heard the voices of men shouting on the hill below her.
The shouts and the barking of dogs came nearer and nearer.
Then a dog ran up to her, and licked her face, and jumped about her.
[Illustration: Page 267]
It was her own sheepdog, _Yarrow_.
He ran back to the men who were following him, and came again with one
of them.
It was old Simon Grieve, very tired, and so much out of breath that he
could scarcely speak.
Jean was very glad to see him, and not frightened any longer.
“Oh, Jeanie, my doo’,” said Simon, “where hae ye been? A muckle gliff ye
hae gien us, and a weary spiel up the weary braes.”
Jean told him all about it: how she had come with Randal to see the
Wishing Well, and how she had lost him, and fallen asleep.
“And sic a nicht for you bairns to wander on the hill,” said Simon.
“It’s the nicht o’ St. John, when the guid folk hae power. And there’s
a’ the lads burning the Bel fires, and driving the nowt* through them:
nae less will serve them. Sic a nicht!”
* Nowt, cattle.
This was the cause of the fire Jean saw, and of the noise of the cattle.
On midsummer’s night the country people used to light these fires, and
drive the cattle through them. It was an old, old custom come down from
heathen times.
Now the other men from Fairnilee had gathered round Jean. Lady Ker had
sent them out to look for Randal and her on the hills. They had heard
from the good wife at Peel that the children had gone up the burn, and
_Yarrow_ had tracked them till Jean was found.
[Illustration: Chapter Seven]