mbered the taste of
the physic that the old nurse made by boiling the bark of elder-tree
branches; and I remember it too, for it was the very nastiest thing that
ever was tasted, and did nobody any good after all.

Then Randal and Jean walked out, strolling along without much noticing
where they went, and talking about the pleasant days when they were
children.

[Illustration: Chapter Twelve]

CHAPTER XII.--_At the Catrail_

THEY had climbed up the slope of a hill, and they came to a broad old
ditch, beneath the shade of a wood of pine trees. Below them was a wide
marsh, all yellow with marsh flowers, and above them was a steep slope
made of stones. Now the dry ditch, where they sat down on the grass,
looking towards the Tweed, with their backs to the hill, was called the
_Catrail_. It ran all through that country, and must have been made by
men very long ago. Nobody knows who made it, nor why. They did not know
in Randal's time, and they do not know now. They do not even know what
the name _Catrail_ means, but that is what it has always been called.
The steep slope of stone above them was named the Camp of Rink; it is a
round place, like a ring, and no doubt it was built by the old Britons,
when they fought against the Romans, many hundreds of years ago. The
stones of which it is built are so large that we cannot tell how men
moved them. But it is a very pleasant, happy place on a warm summer day,
like the day when Randal and Jean sat there, with the daisies at their
feet, and the wild doves cooing above their heads, and the rabbits
running in and out among the ferns.

Jean and Randal talked about this and that, chiefly of how some money
could be got to buy corn and cattle for the people. Randal was in
favour of crossing the Border at night, and driving away cattle from the
English side, according to the usual custom.

"Every day I expect to see a pair of spurs in a dish for all our
dinner," said Randal.

That was the sign the lady of the house in the Forest used to give her
men, when all the beef was done, and more had to be got by fighting.

But Jeanie would not hear of Randal taking spear and jack, and putting
himself in danger by fighting the English. They were her own people
after all, though she could not remember them and the days before she
was carried out of England by Simon Grieve.

"Then," said Randal, "am I to go back to Fairyland, and fetch more gold
like this ugly thing?" and he felt in h