CHAPTER VII.--_Where is Randal?_

JEAN was found, but where was Randal? She told the men who had come out
to look for her, that Randal had gone on to look for the Wishing Well.
So they rolled her up in a big shepherd's plaid, and two of them carried
Jean home in the plaid, while all the rest, with lighted torches in
their hands, went to look for Randal through the wood.

Jean was so tired that she fell asleep again in her plaid before they
reached Fairnilee. She was wakened by the men shouting as they drew near
the house, to show that they were coming home. Lady Ker was waiting at
the gate, and the old nurse ran down the grassy path to meet them.

"Where's my bairn?" she cried as soon as she was within call.

The men said, "Here 's Mistress Jean, and Randal will be here soon;
they have gone to look for him."

"Where are they looking?" cried nurse.

"Just about the Wishing Well."

The nurse gave a scream, and hobbled back to Lady Ker.

"Ma bairn's tint!"* she cried, "ma bairn's tint! They 'll find him
never. The good folk have stolen him away from that weary Wishing Well!"

* Tint, lost.

"Hush, nurse," said Lady Ker, "do not frighten Jean."

She spoke to the men, who had no doubt that Randal would soon be found
and brought home.

So Jean was put to bed, where she forgot all her troubles; and Lady Ker
waited, waited, all night, till the grey light began to come in, about
two in the morning.

Lady Ker kept very still and quiet, telling her beads, and praying. But
the old nurse would never be still, but was always wandering out, down
to the river's edge, listening for the shouts of the shepherds coming
home. Then she would come back again, and moan and wring her hands,
crying for "her bairn."

About six o'clock, when it was broad daylight and all the birds were
singing, the men returned from the hill.

But Randal did not come with them.

Then the old nurse set up a great cry, as the country people do over the
bed of someone who has just died.

Lady Ker sent her away, and called Simon Grieve to her own room.

"You have not found the boy yet?" she said, very stately and pale.
"He must have wandered over into Yarrow; perhaps he has gone as far
as Newark, and passed the night at the castle, or with the shepherd at
Foulshiels."

"No, my Lady," said Simon Grieve, "some o' the men went over to Newark,
and some to Foulshiels, and other some down to Sir John Murray's at
Philiphaugh; but there's