And there’s the other auld rhyme—
‘Between the Camp o’ Rink
And Tweed water clear,
Lie nine kings’ ransoms
For nine hundred year!’”
Randal and Jean were very glad to hear so much gold was near them as would pay nine kings’ ransoms. They took their small spades and dug little holes in the Camp of Rink, which is a great old circle of stonework, surrounded by a deep ditch, on the top of a hill above the house. But Jean was not a very good digger, and even Randal grew tired. They thought they would wait till they grew bigger, and then find the gold.
CHAPTER V.—The Good Folk
“EVERYBODY knows there’s fairies,” said the old nurse one night when she was bolder than usual. What she said we will put in English, not Scotch as she spoke it. “But they do not like to be called fairies. So the old rhyme runs:
‘If ye call me imp or elf, .
I warn you look well to yourself;
If ye call me fairy,
Ye ‘ll find me quite contrary;
If good neighbour you call me,
Then good neighbour I will be;
But if you call me kindly sprite,
I ‘ll be your friend both day and night.’
So you must always call them ‘good neighbours’ or ‘good folk,’ when you speak of them.”