IV

The Gypsy girl was as lithe and active as Winifred herself, and

vastly more powerful. I was wasted by illness and fatigue. Along the

rough path we went, while the morning gradually broke over the east.

Great isles and continents of clouds were rolled and swirled from

peak to peak, from crag to crag, across steaming valley and valley;

iron-grey at first, then faintly tinged with rose, which grew warmer

and richer and deeper every moment.

'It's a-goin' to be one of the finest sunrises ever seed,' said the

Gypsy girl. 'Dordi! the Gorgios come to see our sunrises,' she

continued, with the pride of an owner of Snowdon. 'You know this is

the only way to see the hills. You may ride up the Llanberis side in

a go-cart.'

Racked with anxiety as I was. I found it a relief during the ascent

to listen to the Gypsy's talk about Winifred. She gave me a string of

reminiscences about her that enchained, enchanted, and yet harrowed

me. A strong friendship had already sprung up between me and my

companion; and I was led to tell her about the cross and the curse,

the violation of my father's tomb and its disastrous consequences.

She was evidently much awed by the story.

'Well,' said she, when I had stopped to look round, 'it's my belief

as the cuss is a-workin' now, and'll have to spend itself. If it

could ha' spent itself on the feyther as did the mischief, why all

well an' good, but, you see, he's gone, an' left it to spend itself

on his chavi; jist the way with 'em Gorgio feythers an' Romany

daddies. It'll have to spend itself, though, that cuss will, I'm

afeard.'

'But,' I said, 'you don't mean that you think for her father's crime

she'll have to beg her bread in desolate places.'

'I do though, wusser luck,' said the Gypsy solemnly, stopping

suddenly, and standing still as a statue.

'And this,' I ejaculated, 'is the hideous belief of all races in all

times! Monstrous if a lie--more monstrous if true! Anyhow I'll find

her. I'll traverse the earth till I find her. I'll share her lot with

her, whatever it may be, and wherever it may be in the world. If

she's a beggar, I'll beg by her side.'

'Right you are, brother,' said the Gypsy, breaking in

enthusiastically. 'I likes to hear a man say that. You're liker a

Romany chi nor a Romany chal, the more I see of you. What I says to

our people is:--"If the Romany chals would only stick by the Romany

chies as the Romany chies sticks by the Romany chals, where 'ud the

Gorgios be then? Why, the Romanies would be the strongest people on

the arth." But you see, reia, about this cuss--a cuss has to work

itself out, jist for all the world like the bite of a sap.'

[Footnote]

[Footnote: _Sap_, a snake.]

Then she continued, with great earnestness, looking across the

kindling expanse of hill and valley before us: 'You know, the very

dead things round us,--these here peaks, an' rocks, an' lakes, an'

mountains--ay, an' the woods an' the sun an' the sky above our

heads,--cusses us when we do anythink wrong. You may see it by the

way they looks at you. Of course I mean when you do anythink wrong

accordin' to us Romanies. I don't mean wrong accordin' to the

Gorgios: they're two very different kinds o' wrongs.'

'I don't see the difference,' said I; 'but tell me more about

Winifred.'

'You don't see the difference?' said Sinfi. 'Well then, I do. It's

wrong to tell a lie to a Romany, ain't it? But is it wrong to tell a

lie to a Gorgio? Not a bit of it. And why? 'Cause most Gorgios is

fools and wants lies, an' that gives the poor Romanies a chance. But

this here cuss is a very bad kind 'o cuss. It's a dead man's cuss,

and what's wuss, him as is cussed is dead and out of the way, and so

it has to be worked out in the blood of his child. But when she's

done that, when she's worked it out of her blood, things'll come

right agin if the cross is put back agin on your father's buzzum.'

'When she has done what?' I said.

'Begged her bread in desolate places,' said the Gypsy girl solemnly.

'Then if the cross is put back agin on your feyther's buzzum, I

believe things'll all come right. It's bad the cusser was your

feyther though.'

'But why?' I asked.

'There's nobody can't hurt you and them you're fond on as your own

breed can. As my poor mammy used to say, "For good or for ill you

must dig deep to bury your daddy." But you know, brother, the wust o'

this job is that it's a trúshul as has been stole.'

'A trúshul?'

'What you call a cross. There's nothin' in the world so strong for

cussin' and blessin' as a trúshul, unless the stars shinin' in the

river or the hand in the clouds is as strong. Why, I tell you there's

nothin' a trúshul can't do, whether it's curin' a man as is bit by a

sap, or wipin' the very rainbow out o' the sky by jist layin' two

sticks crossways, or even curin' the cramp in your legs by jist

settin' your shoes crossways; there's nothin' for good or bad a

trúshul _can't_ do if it likes. Hav'n't you never heer'd o' the

dukkeripen o' the trúshul shinin' in the sunset sky when the light

o' the sinkin' sun shoots up behind a bar o' clouds an' makes a kind

o fiery cross? But to go and steal a trushul out of a dead man's

tomb--why, it's no wonder as the Wynnes is cussed, feyther and

child.'

I could not have tolerated this prattle about Gypsy superstitions had

I not observed that through it all the Gypsy was on the _qui vive_,

looking for the traces of her path that Winifred had unconsciously

left behind her. Had the Gypsy been following the trail with the

silence of an American Indian, she could not have worked more

carefully than she was now working while her tongue went rattling on.

I afterwards found this to be a characteristic of her race, as I

afterwards found that what is called the long sight of the Gypsies

(as displayed in the following of the _patrin_ [Footnote: Trail]) is

not long sight at all, but is the result of a peculiar faculty the

Gypsies have of observing more closely than Gorgios do everything

that meets their eyes in the woods and on the hills and along the

roads. When we reached the spot indicated by the Gypsy as being

Winifred's haunt, the ledge where she was in the habit of coming for

her imaginary interviews with the 'Prince of the Mist,' we did not

stay there, but for a time still followed the path, which from this

point became rougher and rougher, alongside deep precipices and

chasms. Every now and then she would stop on a ledge of rock, and,

without staying her prattle for a moment, stoop down and examine the

earth with eyes that would not have missed the footprint of a rat.

When I saw her pause, as she sometimes would in the midst of her

scrutiny, to gaze inquiringly down some gulf, which then seemed awful

to my inexperienced eyes, but which later on in the day, when I came

to see the tremendous chasms of that side of Snowdon, seemed

insignificant enough, the circulation of my blood would seem to stop,

and then rush again through my body more violently than before. And

while the 'patrin-chase' went on, and the morning grew brighter and

brighter, the Gypsy's lithe, catlike tread never faltered. The rise

and fall of her bosom were as regular and as calm as in the

public-house. Such agility and such staying power in a woman

astonished me. Finding no trace of Winnie, we returned to the little

plateau by Knockers' Llyn.

'This is the place,' said the Gypsy; 'it used to be called in old

times the haunted llyn, because when you sings the Welsh dukkerin

gillie here or plays it on a crwth, the Knockers answers it. I dare

say you've heard o' what the Gorgios call the triple echo o' Llyn

Ddu'r Arddu. Well, it's somethin' like that, only bein' done by the

knocking sperrits, it's grander and don't come 'cept when they hears

the Welsh dukkerin gillie. Now, you must hide yourself somewheres

while I go and touch the crwth in her favourite place. I think she'll

come to that. I wish though I hadn't brought ye,' she continued,

looking at me meditatively; 'you're a little winded a-ready, and we

ain't begun the rough climbing at all. Up to this 'ere pool Winnie

and me and Rhona Boswell used to climb when we was children; it

needed longer legs nor ourn to get farther up, and you're winded

a-ready. If she should come on you suddent, she's liker than not to

run for a mile or more up that path where we've just been and then to

jump down one of them chasms you've just seed. But if she does pop

on ye, don't you try to grab her, whatever you do; leave me alone for

that. You ain't got strength enough to grab a hare; you ought to be

in bed. Besides, she won't be skeared at me. But,' she continued,

turning round to look at the vast circuit of peaks stretching away as

far as the eye could reach, 'we shall have to ketch her to-day

somehow. She'll never go back to the cottage where you went and

skeared her; and if she don't have a fall, she'll run about these

here hills till she drops. We shall have to ketch her to-day somehow.

I'm in hopes she'll come to the sound of my crwth, she's so uncommon

fond on it; and if she don't come in the flesh, p'rhaps her livin'

mullo will come, and that'll show she's alive.'

She placed me in a crevice overlooking the small lake, or pool, which

on the opposite side was enclosed in a gorge, opening only by a cleft

to the east. Then she unburdened herself of a wallet containing the

breakfast, saying, 'When I come back we'll fall to and breakfiss.'

She then, as though she were following the trail, made a circuit of

the pool and disappeared through the gorge. All round the pool there

was a narrow ragged ledge leading to this eastern opening. I stood

concealed in my crevice and looked at the peaks, or rather at the

vast masses of billowy vapours enveloping them, as they sometimes

boiled and sometimes blazed, shaking--when the sun struck one and

then another--from brilliant amethyst to vermilion, shot occasionally

with purple, or gold, or blue.

A radiance now came pouring through the eastern opening down the

gorge or cwm itself, and soon the light vapours floating about the

pool were turned to sailing gauzes, all quivering with different

dyes, as though a rainbow had become torn from the sky and woven into

gossamer hangings and set adrift.

Fatigue was beginning to numb my senses and to conquer my brain. The

acuteness of my mental anguish had consumed itself in its own intense

fires. The idea of Winifred's danger became more remote. The

mist-pageants of the morning seemed somehow to emanate from Winnie.

'No one is worthy to haunt such a scene as this,' I murmured, sinking

against the rock, 'but Winifred--so beautiful of body and pure of

soul. Would that I were indeed her "Prince of the Mist," and that we

could die here together with Sinfi's strains in our ears.'

Then I felt coming over me strange influences which afterwards became

familiar to me--influences which I can only call the spells of

Snowdon. They were far more intense than those strange, sweet, wild,

mesmeric throbs which I used to feel in Graylingham Wood, and which

my ancestress, Fenella Stanley, seems also to have known, but they

were akin to them. Then came the sound of Sinfi's crwth and song, and

in the distance repetitions of it, as though the spirits of Snowdon

were, in very truth, joining in a chorus.

At once a marvellous change came over me. I seemed to be listening to

my ancestress, Fenella Stanley, and not to Sinfi Lovell. I was

hearing that strain which in my childhood I had so often tried to

imagine, and it was conjuring up the morning sylphs of the mountain

air and all the 'flower-sprites' and 'sunshine elves' of Snowdon.

V

I shook off the spell when the music ceased; then I began to wonder

why the Gypsy did not return. I was now faint and almost famished for

want of food. I opened the Gypsy's wallet. There was the substantial

and tempting breakfast she had brought from the cottage

cupboard--cold beef and bread, and ale. I spread the breakfast on the

ground.

Scarcely had I done so when a figure appeared at the opening of the

gorge and caught the ruddy flood of light. It was Winifred,

bare-headed. I knew it was she, and I waited in breathless suspense,

crouching close up into the crevice, dreading lest she should see me

and be frightened away. She stood in the eastern cleft of the gorge

against the sun for fully half a minute, looking around as a stag

might look that was trying to give the hunters the slip.

'She has seen the Gypsy,' I thought, 'and been scared by her.' Then

she came down and glided along the side of the pool. At first she did

not see me, though she stood opposite and stopped, while the

opalescent vapours from the pool steamed around her, and she shone as

through a glittering veil, her eyes flashing like sapphires. The

palpitation of my heart choked me; I dared not stir, I dared not

speak; the slightest movement or the slightest sound might cause her

to start away. There was she whom I had travelled and toiled to

find--there was she, so close to me, and yet must I let her pass and

perhaps lose her after all--for ever?

Where was the Gypsy girl? I was in an agony of desire to see her or

hear her crwth, and yet her approach might frighten Winifred to her

destruction.

But Winifred, who had now seen me, did not bound away with that

heart-quelling yell of hers which I had dreaded. No, I perceived to

my astonishment that the flash of the eyes was not of alarm, but of

greeting to me--pleasure at seeing me! She came close to the water,

and then I saw a smile on her face through the misty film--a flash of

shining teeth.

'May I come?' she said.

'Yes, Winifred,' I gasped, scarcely knowing what I said in my

surprise and joy.

She came slipping round the pool, and in a few seconds was by my

side. Her clothes were saturated with last night's rain, but though

she looked very cold, she did not shiver, a proof that she had not

lain down on the hills, but had walked about during the whole night.

There was no wildness of the maniac--there was no idiotic stare. But

oh the witchery of the gaze!

If one could imagine the look on the face of a wanderer from the

cloud-palaces of the sylphs, or the gaze in the eyes of a statue

newly animated by the passion of the sculptor who had fashioned it,

or the smile on the face of a wondering Eve just created upon the

earth--any one of these expressions would, perhaps, give the idea

of that on Winifred's face as she stood there.

'May I sit down, Prince?' said she.

'Yes, Winnie,' I replied; 'I've been waiting for you.'

'Been waiting for poor Winnie?' she said, her eyes sparkling anew

with pleasure; and she sat down close by my side, gazing hungrily at

the food--her hands resting on her lap.

I laid my hand upon one of hers; it was so damp and cold that it made

me shudder.

'Why, Winifred,' I said, 'how cold you are!' 'The hills are _so_

cold!' said she, '_so_ cold when the stars go out, and the red

streaks begin to come.'

'May I warm your hands in mine, Winnie?' I said, longing to clasp the

dear fingers, but trembling lest anything I might say or do should

bring about a repetition of last night's catastrophe.

'_Will_ you, Prince?' said she. 'How very, very kind!' and in a

moment the hand was between mine.

Remembering that it was through looking into my eyes that she

recognised me in the cottage, I now avoided looking straight into

hers. All this time she kept gazing wistfully at the food spread out

on the ground.

'Are you hungry, Winifred?' I said.

'Oh yes; _so_ hungry!' said she, shaking her head in a sad meditative

way. 'Poor Winifred is so hungry and cold and lonely!'

'Will you breakfast with the Prince of the Mist, Winifred?'

'Oh, may I, Prince?' she asked, her face beaming with delight.

'To be sure you may, Winnie. You may always breakfast with the Prince

of the Mist if you like.'

'Always? Always?' she repeated.

'Yes, Winnie,' I said, as I handed her some bread and meat, which she

devoured ravenously.

'Yes, dear Winnie,' I continued, handing her a foaming horn of

Sinfi's ale, to which she did as full justice as she was doing to the

bread and meat. 'Yes, I want you to breakfast with me and dine with

me always.'

'Do you mean _live_ with you, Prince?' she asked, looking me dreamily

in the face--'live with you behind the white mist? Is this our

wedding breakfast, Prince?'

'Yes, Winnie.'

Then her eyes wandered down over her dress, and she said, 'Ah! how

strange I did not notice my green fairy kirtle before. And I declare

I never felt till this moment the wreath of gold leaves round my

forehead. Do they shine much in the sun?'

'They quite dazzle me, Winnie,' I said, arching my hand above my

eyes, as if to protect them from the glare.

'Do you have a nice fire there when it's very cold?' she said.

'Yes, Winifred,' I said.

She then sank into silence, while I kept plying her with food.

After she had appeased her hunger she sat looking into the pool,

quite unconscious, apparently, of my presence by her side, and lost

in a reverie similar to that which I had seen at the cottage.

The form her dementia had taken was unlike anything that I had ever

conceived. Madness seemed too coarse a word to denote so wonderful

and fascinating a mental derangement. Mivart's comparison to a

musical-box recurred to me, and seemed most apt. She was in a waking

dream. The peril lay in breaking through that dream and bringing her

real life before her. There was a certain cogency of dreamland in all

she said and did. And I found that she sank into silent reverie

simply because she waited, like a person in sleep, for the current of

her thoughts to be directed and dictated by external phenomena. As

she sat there gazing in the pool, her hand gradually warming between

my two hands, I felt that never when sane, never in her most

bewitching moments, had she been so lovable as she was now. This new

kind of spell she exercised over me it would be impossible to

describe. But it sprang from the expression on her face of that

absolute freedom from all self-consciousness which is the great charm

in children, combined with the grace and beauty of her own matchless

girlhood. A desire to embrace her, to crush her to my breast, seized

me like a frenzy.

'Winifred,' I said, 'you are very cold.'

But she was now insensible to sound. I knew from experience now that

I must shake her to bring her back to consciousness, for evidently,

in her fits of reverie, the sounds falling upon her ear were not

conveyed to the brain at all.