“Master Ridd, are you mad?” she said, and took my hand to move me.

“Not mad, but half asleep,” I answered, feigning not to notice her, that so she might keep hold of me.

“Come away, come away, if you care for life.  The patrol will be here directly.  Be quick, Master Ridd, let me hide thee.”

“I will not stir a step,” said I, though being in the greatest fright that might be well imagined, “unless you call me ‘John.’”

“Well, John, then—­Master John Ridd, be quick, if you have any to care for you.”

“I have many that care for me,” I said, just to let her know; “and I will follow you, Mistress Lorna, albeit without any hurry, unless there be peril to more than me.”

Without another word she led me, though with many timid glances towards the upper valley, to, and into, her little bower, where the inlet through the rock was.  I am almost sure that I spoke before (though I cannot now go seek for it, and my memory is but a worn-out tub) of a certain deep and perilous pit, in which I was like to drown myself through hurry and fright of boyhood.  And even then I wondered greatly, and was vexed with Lorna for sending me in that heedless manner into such an entrance.  But now it was clear that she had been right and the fault mine own entirely; for the entrance to the pit was only to be found by seeking it.  Inside the niche of native stone, the plainest thing of all to see, at any rate by day light, was the stairway hewn from rock, and leading up the mountain, by means of which I had escaped, as before related.  To the right side of this was the mouth of the pit, still looking very formidable; though Lorna laughed at my fear of it, for she drew her water thence.  But on the left was a narrow crevice, very difficult to espy, and having a sweep of grey ivy laid, like a slouching beaver, over it.  A man here coming from the brightness of the outer air, with eyes dazed by the twilight, would never think of seeing this and following it to its meaning.

Lorna raised the screen for me, but I had much ado to pass, on account of bulk and stature.  Instead of being proud of my size (as it seemed to me she ought to be) Lorna laughed so quietly that I was ready to knock my head or elbows against anything, and say no more about it.  However, I got through at last without a word of compliment, and broke into the pleasant room, the lone retreat of Lorna.

The chamber was of unhewn rock, round, as near as might be, eighteen or twenty feet across, and gay with rich variety of fern and moss and lichen.  The fern was in its winter still, or coiling for the spring-tide; but moss was in abundant life, some feathering, and some gobleted, and some with fringe of red to it.  Overhead there was no ceiling but the sky itself, flaked with little clouds of April whitely wandering over it.  The floor was made of soft low grass, mixed with moss and primroses; and in a niche of shelter moved the delicate wood-sorrel.