The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gold Of Fairnilee, by Andrew Lang

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Title: The Gold Of Fairnilee

Author: Andrew Lang

Release Date: June 25, 2007 [EBook #21934]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLD OF FAIRNILEE ***

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 Si