Aylwin Part 27

Holywell grew to have a fascination for me, and in the following spring I left the fishing-inn beneath Snowdon, and took rooms in this interesting old town.

VIII

One day, near the rivulet that runs from St. Winifred's Well, I suddenly encountered Sinfi Lovell.

'Sinfi,' I said, 'she's dead, she's surely dead.'

'I tell ye, brother, she ain't got to die!' said Sinfi, as she came and stood beside me. 'Winnie Wynne's on'y got to beg her bread. She's alive.'

'Where is she?' I cried. 'Oh, Sinfi, I shall go mad!'

'There you're too fast for me, brother,' said she, 'when you ask me _where_ she is; but she's alive, and I ain't come quite emp'y-handed of news about her, brother.'

'Oh, tell me!' said I.

'Well,' said Sinfi, 'I've just met one of our people, Euri Lovell, as says that, the very mornin' after we seed her on the hills, he met her close to Carnarvon at break of day.'

'Then she _did_ go to Carnarvon,' I said. 'What a distance for those dear feet!'

'Euri knowed her by sight,' said Sinfi, 'but didn't know about her bein' under the cuss, so he jist let her pa.s.s, sayin' to hisself, "She looks jist like a crazy wench this mornin', does Winnie Wynne."

Euri was a-goin' through Carnarvon to Bangor, on to Conway and Chester, and never heerd a word about her bein' lost till he got back, six weeks ago.'

'I must go to Carnarvon at once,' said I.

'No use, brother,' said Sinfi. 'If _I_ han't pretty well worked Carnarvon, it's a pity. I've bin there the last three weeks on the patrin-chase, and not a patrin could I find. It's my belief as she never went into Carnarvon town at all, but turned off and went into Llanbeblig churchyard.'

'Why do you think so, Sinfi?'

''Cause her aunt, bein' a Carnarvon woman, was buried among her own kin in Llanbeblig churchyard.

Leastwise, you won't find a ghose of a trace on her at Carnarvon, and it'll be a long kind of a wild-goose chase from here; but if you will go, go you must.'

She could not dissuade me from starting for Carnarvon at once; and, as I would go, she seemed to take it as a matter of course that she must accompany me. Our journey was partly by coach and partly afoot.

My first impulse on nearing Carnarvon was to go--I could not have said why--to Llanbeblig churchyard.

Among a group of graves of the Davieses we easily found that of Winifred's aunt, beneath a newly-planted arbutus tree. After looking at the modest mound for some time, and wondering where Winifred had stood when the coffin was lowered--as I had wondered where she had stood at St. Winifred's Well--I roamed about the churchyard with Sinfi in silence for a time.

At last she said, 'I mind comin' here wonst with Winnie, and I mind her sayin': "There's no place I should so much like to be buried in as Llanbeblig churchyard. The graves of them as die unmarried do look so beautiful."'

'How did she know the graves of those who die unmarried?'

Sinfi looked over the churchyard and waved her hand.

'Wherever you see them beautiful primroses, and them shinin'

snowdrops, and them sweet-smellin' vi'lets, that's allus the grave of a child or else of a young Gorgie as died a maid; and wherever you see them laurel trees, and box trees, and 'butus trees, that's the grave of a pusson as ain't nuther child nor maid, an' the Welsh folk think n.o.body else on'y child'n an' maids ain't quite good enough to be turned into the blessed flowers o' spring.'

'Next to the sea,' I said, 'she loved the flowers of spring.'

'And _I_ should like to be buried here too, brother,' said Sinfi, as we left the churchyard.

'But a fine strong girl like you, Sinfi, is not very likely to die unmarried while there are Romany bachelors about.'

'There ain't a-many Romany chals,' she said, 'as du'st marry Sinfi Lovell, even supposing as Sinfi Lovell 'ud marry _them_, an' a Gorgio she'll never marry--an' never can marry. And to lay here aneath the flowers o 'spring, wi' the Welsh sun a-shinin' on 'em as it's a-shinin' now, that must be a sweet kind of bed, brother, and for anythink as I knows on, a Romany chi 'ud make as sweet a bed o'

vi'lets as the beautifullest Gorgie-wench as wur ever bred in Carnarvon, an' as shinin' a bunch o' snowdrops as ever the Welsh spring knows how to grow.'

At any other time this extraordinary girl's talk would have interested me greatly; now, nothing had any interest for me that did not bear directly upon the fate of Winifred.

Little dreaming how this quiet churchyard had lately been one of the battle-grounds of that all-conquering power (Destiny, or Circ.u.mstance?) which had governed Winnie's life and mine, I went with Sinfi into Carnarvon, and made inquiry everywhere, but without the slightest result. This occupied several days, during which time Sinfi stayed with some acquaintances encamped near Carnarvon, while I lodged at a little hotel.

'You don't ask me how you happened to meet me at Holywell, brother,'

said she to me, as we stood looking across the water at Carnarvon Castle, over whose mighty battlements the moon was fighting with an army of black, angry clouds, which a wild wind was leading furiously against her--'you don't ask me how you happened to meet me at Holywell, nor how long I've been back agin in dear old Wales, nor what I've been a-doin' on since we parted; but that's nuther here nor there. I'll tell you what I think about Winnie an' the chances o'

findin' her, brother, and that'll intrust you more.'

'What is it, Sinfi?' I cried, waking up from the reminiscences, bitter and sweet, the bright moon had conjured up in my mind.

'Well, brother, Winnie, you see, was very fond o' me.'

'She was, and good reason for being fond of you she had.'

'Well, brother, bein' very fond o' me, _that_ made her very fond o'

_all_ Romanies; and though she took agin me at fust, arter the cuss, as she took agin you because we was her closest friends (that's what Mr. Blyth said, you know, they allus do), she wouldn't take agin Romanies in general. No, she'd take to Romanies in general, and she'd go hangin' about the different camps, and she'd soon be snapped up, being so comely, and they'd make a lot o' money out on her jist havin' her with 'em for the "dukkerin'."'

'I don't understand you,' I said.

'Well, you know,' said Sinfi, 'anybody as is under the cuss is half with the sperrits and half with us, and so can tell the _real_ "dukkerin'." Only it's bad for a Romany to have another Romany in the "place" as is under the cuss; but it don't matter a bit about having a Gorgio among your breed as is under a cuss; for Gorgio cuss can't never touch Romany.'

'Then you feel quite sure she's not dead, Sinfi?'

'She's jist as live as you an' me somewheres, brother. There's two things as keeps _her_ alive: there's the cuss, as says she's got to beg her bread, and there's the dukkeripen o' the Golden Hand on Snowdon, as says she's got to marry you.'

'But, Sinfi, I mean that, apart from all this superst.i.tion of yours, you have reason to think she's alive? and you think she's with the Romanies?'

'I know she's alive, and I think she's with the Romanies. She _must_ be, brother, with the Shaws, or the Lees, or the Stanleys, or the Boswells, or some on 'em.'

'Then,' said I, 'I'll turn Gypsy; I'll be the second Aylwin to own allegiance to the blood of Fenella Stanley. I'll scour Great Britain till I find her.'

'You can jine _us_ if you like, brother. We're goin' all through the West of England with the gries. You're fond o' fishin' an' shootin', brother, an' though you're a Gorgio, you can't help bein' a Gorgio, and you ain't a mumply 'un, as I've said to Jim Burton many's the time; and if you can't give the left-hand body-blow like me, there ain't a-many Gorgios nor yit a-many Romanies as knows better nor you what their fistes wur made for, an' altogether, brother, Beng te ta.s.sa mandi if I shouldn't be right-on proud to see ye jine our breed. There's a coachmaker down in Chester, and he's got for sale the beautifullest livin'-waggin in all England. It's shiny orange-yellow with red window-blinds, an' if there's a colour in any rainbow as _can't_ be seed in the panels o' the front door, it's a kind o' rainbow I ain't never seed nowheres. He made it for Jericho Bozzell, the rich Griengro as so often stays at Raxton and at Gypsy Dell; but Rhona Bozzell hates a waggin and allus will sleep in a tent. They do say as the Prince o' Wales wants to buy that livin'-waggin, only he can't spare the balansers just now--his family bein' so big an' times bein' so bad. How much money ha' you got? Can you stan' a hundud an' fifty gold balansers for the waggin besides the fixins?

'Shift,' I said. 'I'm prepared to spend more than that in seeking Winnie.'

'Dordi, brother, you must be as rich as my dad, an' lie's the richest Griengro arter Jericho Bozzell. You an' me'll jist go down to Chester,' she continued, her eyes sparkling with delight at the prospect of bargaining for the waggon, 'an' we'll fix up sich a livin'-waggin as no Romany rei never had afore.'

'Agreed!' I said, wringing her hand.

'An' now you an' me's right pals,' said Sinfi.