IV

The next day I was again at Wynne's cottage, and the next, and the

next. We two, Winifred and I, used to stroll out together through the

narrow green lanes, and over the happy fields, and about the

Wilderness and the wood, and along the cliffs, and then down the

gangway at Flinty Point (the only gangway that was firm enough to

support my crutches, Winifred aiding me with the skill of a woman and

the agility of a child), and then along the flints below Flinty

Point. She rapidly fell into my habits. She was an adept in finding

birds' nests and wild honey; and though she would not consent to my

taking the eggs, she had not the same compunction about the honey,

and she only regretted with me that we could not be exactly like St.

John, as Graylingham Wilderness yielded no locusts to eat with the

honey. Winifred, though the most healthy of children, had a passion

for the deserted church on the cliffs, and for the desolate

churchyard.

It was one of those flint and freestone churches that are sprinkled

along the coast. Situated as it was at the back of a curve cut by the

water into the end of a peninsula running far into the sea, the tower

looked in the distance like a lighthouse. I observed after the first

day of our meeting that Winifred never would mount the tower steps

again. And I knew why. So delicate were her feelings, so acute did

her kind little heart make her, that she would not mount steps which

I could never mount.

Not that Winifred looked upon me as her little lover. There was not

much of the sentimental in her. Once when I asked her on the sands if

I might be her lover, she took an entirely practical view of the

question, and promptly replied 'certumly,' adding, however, like the

wise little woman I always found her, that she 'wasn't _quite_ sure

she knew what a lover was, but if it was anything _very_ nice she

should certumly like _me_ to be it.'

It was the child's originality of manner that people found so

captivating. One of her many little tricks and ways of an original

quaintness was her habit of speaking of herself in the third person,

like the merest baby. 'Winifred likes this,' 'Winifred doesn't like

that,' were phrases that had an irresistible fascination for me.

Another fascinating characteristic of hers was connected with her

superstitions. Whenever on parting with her I exclaimed, as I often

did. 'Oh, what a lovely day we have had, Winifred!' she would look

expectantly in my eyes, murmuring, 'And--and--' This meant that I

was to say. 'And shall have many more such days,' as though there

were a prophetic power in words.

She talked with entire seriousness of having seen in a place called

Fairy Glen in Wales the Tylwyth Teg. And when I told her of Oberon

and Titania, and _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, whose acquaintance I

had made through Lamb's _Tales from Shakespeare_, she said that one

bright moonlight night she, in the company of two of her Gypsy

playmates, Rhona Boswell and a girl called Sinfi, had visited this

same Fairy Glen, when they saw the Fairy Queen alone on a ledge of

rock, dressed in a green kirtle with a wreath of golden leaves about

her head.

Another subject upon which I loved to hear her talk was that of the

'Knockers' of Snowdon, the guardians of undiscovered copper mines,

who sometimes by knocking on the rocks gave notice to individuals

they favoured of undiscovered copper, but these favoured ones were

mostly children who chanced to wander up Snowdon by themselves. She

had, she said, not only heard but seen these Knockers. They were

thick-set dwarfs, as broad as they were long. One Knocker, an elderly

female, had often played with her on the hills. Knockers' Llyn,

indeed, was very much on Winifred's mind. When a golden cloud, like

the one on which she was singing her song at the time I first saw

her, shone over a person's head at Knockers' Llyn, it was a sign of

good fortune. She was sure that it was so, because the Welsh people

believed it, and so did the Gypsies.

Not a field or a hedgerow was unfamiliar to us. We were most learned

in the structure of birds' nests, in the various colours of birds'

eggs, and in insect architecture. In all the habits or the wild

animals of the meadows we were most profound little naturalists.

Winifred could in the morning, after the dews were gone, tell by the

look of a buttercup or a daisy what kind of weather was at hand, when

the most cunning peasant was deceived by the hieroglyphics of the

sky, and the most knowing seaman could 'make nothing of the wind.'

Her life, in fact, had been spent in the open air.

There were people staying at the Hall, and they and Frank engrossed

all my mother's attention. At least, she did not appear to notice my

absence from home.

My brother Frank, however, was not so unobservant (he was two years

older than myself). Early one morning, before breakfast, curiosity

led him to follow me, and he came upon us in Graylingham Wood as we

were sitting under a tree close to the cliff, eating the wild honey

we had found in the Wilderness.

He stood there swinging a ground-ash cane, and looking at her in a

lordly, patronising way, the very personification no doubt of boyish

beauty. I became troubled to see him look so handsome. The contrast

between him and a cripple was not fair, I thought, as I observed an

expression of passing admiration on little Winifred's face. Yet I

thought there was not the pleased smile with which she had first

greeted me, and a weight of anxiety was partially removed, for it had

now become quite evident to me that I was as much in love as any

swain of eighteen--it had become quite evident that without Winifred

the poor little shattered sea-gull must perish altogether. She was

literally my world.

Frank came and sat down with us, and made himself as agreeable as

possible. He tried to enter into our play, but we were too slow for

him; he soon became restless and impatient. 'Oh bother!' he said, and

got up and left us.