“Come an’ I’ll lat ye see ’t,” rejoined Donal. “It’s weel worth luikin’ intil. Ye hae nae notion sic a place as ’tis. It micht be amo’ the grenite muntains o’ Aigypt, though they takna freely sic fine blocks oot o’ this ane as they tuik oot o’ that at Syene. Ye wadna be fleyt to come an’ see what the meen maks o’ ’t, wad ye, mem?”
“No, Donal. I would not be frightened to go anywhere with you. But—”
“Eh, mem! it maks me richt prood to hear ye say that. Come awa than.”
So saying, he turned aside, and led her into the narrow passage, cut through a friable sort of granite. Gibbie, thinking they had gone to have but a peep and return, stood in the road, looking at the clouds and the moon, and crooning to himself. By and by, when he found they did not return, he followed them.
When they reached the end of the cutting, Ginevra started at sight of the vast gulf, the moon showing the one wall a ghastly gray, and from the other throwing a shadow half across the bottom. But a winding road went down into it, and Donal led her on. She shrunk at first, drawing back from the profound, mysterious-looking abyss, so awfully still; but when Donal looked at her, she was ashamed to refuse to go farther, and indeed almost afraid to take her hand from his arm; so he led her down the terrace road. The side of the quarry was on one hand, and on the other she could see only into the gulf.
“Oh, Donal!” she said at length, almost in a whisper, “this is like a dream I once had, of going down and down a long roundabout road, inside the earth, down and down, to the heart of a place full of the dead—the ground black with death, and between horrible walls.”
Donal looked at her; his face was in the light reflected from the opposite gray precipice: she thought it looked white and strange, and grew more frightened, but dared not speak. Presently Donal again began to sing, and this is something like what he sang:—
“Death! whaur do ye bide, auld Death?”
“I bide in ilka breath,”
Quo’ Death.
“No i’ the pyramids,
An’ no the worms amids,
’Neth coffin-lids;
I bidena whaur life has been,
An’ whaur ’s nae mair to be dune.”
“Death! whaur do ye bide, auld Death?”
“Wi’ the leevin’, to dee ’at’s laith,”
Quo’ Death.
“Wi’ the man an’ the wife
’At lo’e like life,
But (without) strife;
Wi’ the bairns ’at hing to their mither,
An’ a’ ’at lo’e ane anither.”
“Death! whaur do ye bide, auld Death?”
“Abune an’ aboot an’ aneath,”
Quo’ Death.
“But o’ a’ the airts,
An’ o’ a’ the pairts,
In herts,
Whan the tane to the tither says na,
An’ the north win’ begins to blaw.”
“What a terrible song, Donal!” said Ginevra.
He made no reply, but went on, leading her down into the pit: he had been afraid she was going to draw back, and sang the first words her words suggested, knowing she would not interrupt him. The aspect of the place grew frightful to her.