Aylwin Part 23

There, in the distance, I saw her in the rain, running along the road. My first impulse was to follow her and run her down. But luckily I considered the effect this might have in increasing her terror, and stopped. She was soon out of sight. I wandered about the road calling her name, and calling on Heaven to have a little pity--a little mercy.

III

I decided to return to the house, but found that I had lost my way in the obscurity and pelting rain. For hours I wandered about, without the slightest clue as to where I was. I was literally soaked to the skin. Several times I fell into holes in a mora.s.s, and was up to my hips in moss and mud and water. Then I began to call out for a.s.sistance till I was hoa.r.s.e. I might as well have called out on an uninhabited island.

The night wore on, and the darkness grew so intense that I could scarcely see my hand when I held it up. Every star in the heavens was hid away as by a thick-pall. The darkness was positively benumbing to the faculties, and added, if possible, to the misery I was in on account of Winifred. Suddenly my progress was arrested. I had fallen violently against something. A human body, a woman! I thrust out my hand and seized a woman's damp arm.

'Winifred,' I cried, 'it's Henry.'

'I thought as much.' said the voice of the Gypsy girl I had met at the wayside inn, and she seized me by the throat with a fearful grip.

'You've been to the cottage and skeared her away, and now she's seed you there she'll never come back; she'll wander about the hills till she drops down dead, or falls over the brinks.'

'O G.o.d!' I cried, as I struggled away from her. 'Winifred! Winifred!

There was silence between us then.

'You seem mighty fond on her, young man,' said the Gypsy at length, in a softened voice, 'and you don't strike out at me for grabbin'

your throat.'

'Winifred! Winifred!' I said, as I thought of her on the hills on a night like this.

'You seem mighty fond on her, young man,' repeated the girl's voice in the darkness.

But I could afford no words for her, so cruelly was misery lacerating me.

'Reia,' said the Gypsy, 'did I hurt your throat just now? I hope I didn't; but you see she was the only one of 'em ever I liked, Gorgio or Gorgie, 'cept Mrs. Davies, lad or wench. I know'd her as a child, and arterwards, when a fine English lady, as poor as a church-mouse, tried to spile her, a-makin' _her_ a fine lady too, I thought she'd forget all about me. But not she. I never once called at Mrs.

Davies's house with my crwth, as she taught me to play on, but out Winnie would come with her bright eyes an' say, "Oh, I'm so glad!"

She meant she was glad to see me, bless the kind heart on her. An'

when I used to see her on the hills, she'd come runnin' up to me, and she'd put her little hand in mine, she would, an' chatter away, she would, as we went up an' up. An' one day, when she heard me callin'

one o' the Romany chies sister, she says, "Is that your sister?" an'

when I says, "No; but the Romany chies call each other sister," then says she, pretending not to know all about our Romany ways, "Sinfi, I'm very fond on you, may _I_ call you sister?" An' she had sich ways; an' she's the only Gorgio or Gorgie, 'cept Mrs. Davies, as I ever liked, lad or wench.'

The Gypsy's simple words came like a new message of comfort and hope, but I could not speak.

'Young man,' she continued, 'are you there?' and she put out her hand to feel for me.

I took hold of the hand. No words pa.s.sed; none were needed. Never had I known friendship before. After a short time I said,

'What shall we do, Sinfi?'

'I shall wait a bit, till the stars are out,' said she. 'I know they're a-comin' out by the feel o' the wind. Then I shall walk up a path as Winnie knows. The sun'll be up ready for me by the time I get to the part I wants to go to. You know, young man, I _must_ find her.

She'll never come back to the cottage no more, now she's been skeared away from it.'

'But I must accompany you,' I said.

'No, no, you mustn't do that,' said the Gypsy; 'she might take fright and fall and be killed. Besides,' said she, 'Winifred Wynne's under a cuss; it's bad luck to follow up anybody under a cuss.'

'But you are following her,' I said.

'Ah, but that's different. "Gorgio cuss never touched Romany," as my mammy, as had the seein' eye, used to say.'

'But,' I exclaimed vehemently, 'I _want_ to be cursed with her. I have followed her to be cursed with her. I mean to go with you.'

'Young man,' said she, 'are there many o' your sort among the Gorgios?'

'I don't know and I don't care,' said I.

''Cause,' said she, 'that sayin' o' yourn is a fine sight liker a Romany chi's nor a Romany chal's. It's the chies as sticks to the dials, cuss or no cuss. I wish the chals 'ud stick as close to the chies.'

After much persuasion, however, I induced the Gypsy to let me accompany her, promising to abide implicitly by her instructions.

Even while we were talking the rain had ceased, and patches of stars were shining brilliantly. These patches got rapidly larger. Sinfi Lovell proposed that we should go to the cottage, dry our clothes, and furnish ourselves with a day's provisions, which she said a certain cupboard in the cottage would supply, and also with her crwth, which she appeared to consider essential to the success of the enterprise.

'She's fond o' the crwth,' she said. 'She allus wanted Mrs. Davies to larn her to play it, but her aunt never would, 'cause when it's played by a maid on the hills to the Welsh dukkerin' gillie, [Footnote 1] the spirits o' Snowdon and the livin' mullos [Footnote 2] o' them as she's fond on will sometimes come and show themselves, and she said Winnie wasn't at all the sort o' gal to feel comfable with spirits moving round her. She larnt me it, though. It's only when the crwth is played by a maid on the hills that the spirits can follow it.'

[Footnote 1: _Dukkerin gillie_, incantation song.]

[Footnote 2: _Livin' mullos_, wraiths.]

We did as Shift suggested, and afterwards began our search. She proposed that we should go at once to Knockers' Llyn, where she had seen Winifred the day before sitting and talking to herself. We proceeded towards the spot.

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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, '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.'