Betty and I looked at the stone and at the yawning chasm and then at each other; and then we went away and sat down in a corner of the battlement to think it over.
We had supposed that there would be some experienced guides on hand, anxious to earn sixpence by assisting at the rite, as there had been at St. Kevin's bed; but the tower was deserted, save for ourselves.
"Well," said Betty, at last, "there's one thing certain—I'm not going away from here until I've kissed that stone. I'd be ashamed to go home without kissing it."
"So would I," I agreed; "but I'd prefer that to hanging head downward over that abyss. Anyway, I won't take the responsibility of holding you by the heels while you do it. Perhaps some one will come up, after awhile, to help."
So we looked at the scenery and talked of various things; but all either of us thought about was kissing the stone, and we touched on it incidentally now and then, and then shied away from it, and pretended to think of something else. Presently we heard voices on the stair, and a man and two women emerged on the parapet. We waited, but they didn't approach the stone, they just looked around at the landscape; and finally Betty inquired casually if they were going to kiss the Blarney stone.
"Kiss the Blarney stone?" echoed the man, who was an Englishman. "I should think not! It's altogether too risky!"
"But it seems a shame to go away without kissing it," Betty protested.
"Yes, it does," the other agreed; "but I was here once before, and I fought that all out then. It's really just a silly old legend, you know—nobody believes it!"
Now to my mind silly old legends are far more worthy of belief than most things, but it would be folly to say so to an Englishman. So the conversation dropped, and presently he and his companions went away, and Betty and I sat down again and renewed our conversation.
And then again we heard voices, and this time it was two American women, well along in years. They asked us if we knew which was the Blarney stone, and we hastened to point it out to them, and explained the process of kissing it. There were postcards illustrating the process on sale at the entrance, and we had studied them attentively before we came in, so that we knew the theory of it quite well.