The startled servant who let me in asked if there was anything the
matter. I explained my early rising by telling him that I was merely
going to Knockers' Llyn to see the sunrise. He gave me a letter which
had come on the previous evening, and had been addressed by mistake
to Carnarvon. As the handwriting was new to me, I felt sure that it
was only an unimportant missive from some stranger, and I put it into
my pocket without opening it.
On my return I found Sinfi in the little room where we had supped. I
guessed that an essential part of her crazy project was that we
should breakfast at the llyn.
On the table was a basket filled with the materials for the
breakfast.
Another breakfast was spread for us two on the table, and the teapot
was steaming. Sinfi saw me look at the two breakfasts and smile.
'We've got a good way to walk before we get to the pool where we are
goin' to breakfast,' she said, 'so I thought we'd take a snack before
we start.'
As we went along I noticed that the air of Snowdon seemed to have its
usual effect on Sinfi. In taking the path that led to Knockers' Llyn
we saw before us Cwm-Dyli, the wildest of all the Snowdonian
recesses, surrounded by frowning precipices of great height and
steepness. We then walked briskly on towards our goal. When the three
peaks that she knew so well--y Wyddfa, Lliwedd, and Crib Goch--stood
out in the still grey light she stopped, set down her basket, clapped
her hands, and said, 'Didn't I tell you the mornin' was a-goin' to be
ezackly the same as then? No mists to-day. By the time we get to the
llyn the colours o' the vapours, what they calls the Knockers' flags,
will come out ezackly as they did that mornin' when you and me first
went arter Winnie.'
All the way Sinfi's eyes were fixed on the majestic forehead of y
Wyddfa and the bastions of Lliwedd which seemed to guard it as though
the Great Spirit of Snowdon himself was speaking to her and drawing
her on, and she kept murmuring 'The two dukkeripens.'
But still she said nothing about her wedding, though that some such
mad idea as that suggested by Rhona possessed her mind was manifest
enough.
'Here we are at last,' she said, when we reached the pool for which
we were bound; and setting down her little basket she stood and
looked over to the valley beneath.
The colours were coming more quickly every minute, and the entire
picture was exactly the same as that which I had seen on the morning
when we last saw Winifred on the hills, so unlike the misty panorama
that Snowdon usually presents. Y Wyddfa was silhouetted against the
sky, and looked as narrow and as steep as the sides of an acorn. Here
we halted and set down our basket.
As we did so she said, 'Hark! the Knockers! Don't you hear them?
Listen, listen!'
I did listen, and I seemed to hear a peculiar sound as of a distant
knocking against the rocks by some soft substance. She saw that I
heard the noise.
'That's the Snowdon spirits as guards more copper mines than ever
yet's been found. And they're dwarfs. I've seed 'em, and Winnie has.
They're little, fat, short folk, somethin' like the woman in Primrose
Court, only littler. Don't you mind the gal in the court said Winnie
used to call the woman Knocker? Sometimes they knock to show to some
Taffy as has pleased 'em where the veins of copper may be found, and
sometimes they knock to give warnin' of a dangerous precipuss, and
sometimes they knock to give the person as is talkin' warnin' that
he's sayin' or doin' somethin' as may lead to danger. They speaks to
each other too, but in a v'ice so low that you can't tell what words
they're a-speakin', even if you knew their language. My crwth and
song will rouse every spirit on the hills.'
I listened again. This was the mysterious sound that had so
captivated Winnie's imagination as a child.
The extraordinary lustre of Sinfi's eyes indicated to me, who knew
them so well, that every nerve, every fibre in her system, was
trembling under the stress of some intense emotion. I stood and
watched her, wondering as to her condition, and speculating as to
what her crazy project could be.
Then she proceeded to unpack the little basket.
'This is for the love-feast,' said Sinfi.
'You mean betrothal feast,' I said. 'But who are the lovers?'
'You and the livin' mullo that you made me draw for you by my crwth
down by Beddgelert--the livin' mullo o' Winnie Wynne.'
'At last then,' I said to myself, 'I know the form the mania has
taken. It is not her own betrothal, but mine with Winnie's wraith,
that is deluding her crazy brain. How well I remember telling her how
I had promised Winnie as a child to be betrothed by Knockers' Llyn.
Poor Sinfi! Mad or sane, her generosity remains undimmed.'
Before the breakfast cloth could be laid--indeed before the basket
was unpacked--she asked me to look at my watch, and on my doing so
and telling her the time, she jumped up and said, 'It's later than I
thought. We must lay the cloth arterwards.' She then placed me in
that same crevice overlooking the tarn whence Winnie had come to me
on that morning.
Knockers' Llyn, it will perhaps be remembered, is enclosed in a
little gorge opening by a broken, ragged fissure at the back to the
east. Leading to this opening there is on one side a narrow, jagged
shelf which runs half-way round the pool. Sinfi's movements now were
an exact repetition of everything she did on that first morning of
our search for Winnie.
While I stood partially concealed in my crevice, Sinfi took up her
crwth, which was lying on the rock.
'What are you going; to do, Sinfi?' I said.
'I'm just goin' to bring back old times for you. You remember that
mornin' when my crwth and song called Winnie to us at this very llyn?
I'm goin' to play on my crwth and sing the same song now. It's to
draw her livin' mullo, as I did at Bettws and Beddgelert, so that the
dukkeripen of the "Golden Hand" may come true.'
'But how can it come true, Sinfi?' I said.
'The dukkeripen allus does come true, whether it's good or whether
it's bad.'
'Not always,' I said.
'No, not allus,' she cried, starting up, while there came over her
face that expression which had so amazed me at Beddgelert. When at
last breath came to her she was looking towards y Wyddfa through the
kindling haze.
'There you're right, Hal Aylwin. It ain't every dukkeripen as comes
true. The dukkeripen allus comes true, unless it's one as says a
Gorgio shall come to the Kaulo Camloes an' break Sinfi Lovell's
heart. Before that dukkeripen shall come true Sinfi Lovell 'ud cut
her heart out. Yes, my fine Gorgio, she'd cut it out--she'd cut it
out and fling it in that 'ere llyn. She did cut it out when she took
the cuss on herself. She's a-cuttin' it out now.'
Then without saying another word Sinfi took up her crwth and moved
towards the llyn.
'You'll soon come back, Sinfi?' I said.
'We've got to see about that,' she replied, still pale and trembling
from the effects of that sudden upheaval of the passion of a
Titaness. 'If the livin' mullo does come you can't have a love-feast
without company, you know, and I sha'n't be far off if you find you
want me.'
She then took up her crwth, went round the llyn, and disappeared
through the eastern cleft. In a few minutes I heard her crwth. But
the air she played was not the air of the song she called the 'Welsh
dukkerin' gillie' which I had heard by Beddgelert. It was the air of
the same idyll of Snowdon that I first beard Winifred sing on the
sands of Raxton. Then I heard in the distance those echoes, magical
and faint, which were attributed by Winifred and Sinfi to the
Knockers or spirits of Snowdon.