“Are you sure there are no holes—full of water, down there?” she faltered.
“Ay, there’s ane or twa,” replied Donal, “but we’ll haud oot o’ them.”
Ginevra shuddered, but was determined to show no fear: Donal should not reproach her with lack of faith! They stepped at last on the level below, covered with granite chips and stones and great blocks. In the middle rose a confused heap of all sorts. To this, and round to the other side of it, Donal led her. There shone the moon on the corner of a pool, the rest of which crept away in blackness under an overhanging mass. She caught his arm with both hands. He told her to look up. Steep granite rock was above them all round, on one side dark, on the other mottled with the moon and the thousand shadows of its own roughness; over the gulf hung vaulted the blue, cloud-blotted sky, whence the moon seemed to look straight down upon her, asking what they were about, away from their kind, in such a place of terror.
Suddenly Donal caught her hand. She looked in his face. It was not the moon that could make it so white.
“Ginevra!” he said, with trembling voice.
“Yes, Donal,” she answered.
“Ye’re no angry at me for ca’in ye by yer name? I never did it afore.”
“I always call you Donal,” she answered.
“That’s naitral. Ye’re a gran’ leddy, an’ I’m naething abune a herd-laddie.”
“You’re a great poet, Donal, and that’s much more than being a lady or a gentleman.”