“No,” said Anna obstinately, “of course I shouldn’t believe it.  Such things couldn’t happen.  It is silly to tell such stories as you Cornish people do, and expect other people to believe them.”

Kitty looked at her in pained surprise.  It seemed to her that Anna’s way of speaking was quite irreverent.  She longed to know, yet shrank from asking her, if she scorned, too, those other stories, so precious and real to Kitty, the story of King Arthur in his hidden resting-place, waiting to be roused from his long sleep; of Tristram and Iseult asleep in the little chapel beneath the sea; of—­oh, a hundred others of giants and fairies, witches and spectres.  But she held her peace rather than hear them scoffed at and discredited.

The sunshine, chased by a cloud and a fresh little breeze, disappeared.  Anna shivered and looked about her.

“Oh, how gloomy and lonely it all looks directly the sun goes in!” she cried.  “I should hate to be here in the dark, or in a storm.  Shouldn’t you, Kitty?  I think I should die of fright; I know I should if I were here alone.”

“I’d love to be here in a storm,” said Kitty firmly, “a real thunderstorm.  It would be grand to watch it all from the top of the tors.  I don’t think I would very much mind being up here all night either.  You see, there is nothing that could possibly hurt one, no wild beasts or robbers.  Bad people would be afraid to come.”

“I think it would be perfectly dreadful,” shuddered Anna.  “You would never know who was coming round the rocks, or who was hiding; and robbers could come behind you and catch you, and you wouldn’t be able to see or hear them until they were right on you; and you might scream and scream with all your might and main and no one would hear you.”

“If I sneered at giants, I wouldn’t talk of robbers if I were you,” said Dan severely.  “Imagine robbers coming to a place like this!  Why, there’s nothing and nobody to rob.”

“They would come here to hide, of course, not to rob,” said Anna crushingly, and Dan felt rather small.

Betty and Tony began to feel bored.

“I am going to get sticks for the fire,” said Betty.  “Come along, Tony.  You others can come, too, if you like.”

“Betty is beginning to think of her tea already,” laughed Dan, but they all joined her in her search—­not that there was any need to search, for dry sticks and furze bushes lay all around them in profusion.

“Oh, here’s the cromlech,” cried Kitty, coming suddenly on the great rock, which was poised so lightly on top of other great rocks that it would sway under the lightest touch, yet had remained unmoved by all the storms and hurricanes of the ages that had passed over it.  She ran lightly up and on to it, and stood there swaying gently, the breeze fluttering out her skirts and flushing her cheeks.

“You must make a wish while you are standing on it, and then if you can make the rock move you will get your wish,” explained Betty to Anna.  “It isn’t every one who can.  I don’t suppose you could, ’cause you don’t believe in things like we do.”