“What can the old woman be doing?” whispered Randal. “Why, she has got my fairy bottle in her hand!”
Then he remembered how he had shown her the bottle, and how she had gone out without giving it back to him.
Jean and he watched, and kept very quiet.
They saw the old nurse, still kneeling, take the stopper out of the black strange bottle, and turn the open mouth gently on her hand. Then she carefully put in the stopper, and rubbed her eyes with the palm of her hand. Then she crawled along in their direction, very slowly, as if she were looking for something in the grass.
Then she stopped, still looking very closely at the grass.
Next she jumped to her feet with a shrill cry, clapping her hands; and then she turned, and was actually running along the edge of the marsh, towards Fairnilee.
“Nurse!” shouted Randal, and she stopped suddenly, in a fright, and let the fairy bottle fall.
It struck on a stone, and broke to pieces with a jingling sound, and the few drops of strange water in it ran away into the grass.
“Oh, ma bairns, ma bairns, what have you made me do?” cried the old nurse pitifully. “The fairy gift is broken, and maybe the Gold of Fairnilee, that my eyes have looked on, will ne’er be seen again.”