Aylwin Part 57

'Sinfi,' I said, 'what were Winnie's favourite places among the hills? Where was she most in the habit of roaming when she stayed with your people?'

'If I ain't told you that often enough it's a pity, brother,' she said. 'What do _you_ think, Pharaoh?'

Pharaoh expressed his acquiescence in the satire by clapping his wings and crowing at me contemptuously.

'The place I think she liked most of all wur that very pool where she and you breakfasted together on that morning.'

'Were there no other favourite places?'

'Yes, there wur the Fairy Glen; she wur very fond of that. And there wur the Swallow Falls; she wur very fond of them. And there wur a place on the Beddgelert pathway, up from the Carnarvon road, about two miles from Beddgelert. There is a great bit of rock there where she used to love to sit and look across towards Anglesey. And talking about that place reminds me, brother, that our people and the Boswells and a lot more are camped on the Carnarvon road just where the pathway up Snowdon begins. And I wur told yesterday by a 'quaintance of mine as I seed outside the bungalow that daddy and Videy had joined them. Shouldn't we go and see 'em?'

This exactly fitted in with the thoughts and projects that had suddenly come to me, and it was arranged that we should start for the encampment next morning.

As we were leaving the bungalow the next day, I said to Sinfi, 'You are not taking your crwth.'

'Crwth! we sha'n't want that.'

'Your people are very fond of music, you know. Your father is very fond of a musical tea.'

'So he is. I'll take it,' said Sinfi.

IV

When we reached the camping-place on the Carnarvon road we found a very jolly party. Panuel had had some very successful dealings, and he was slightly market-merry. He said to Videy, 'Make the tea, Vi, and let Sinfi hev' hern fust, so that she can play on the Welsh fiddle while the rest on us are getting ourn. It'll seem jist like Chester Fair with Jim Burton sc.r.a.pin' in the dancin' booth to heel and toe.'

Sinfi soon finished her tea, and began to play some merry dancing airs, which set Rhona Boswell's limbs twittering till she spilt her tea in her lap. Then, laughing at the catastrophe, she sprang up saying, 'I'll dance myself dry,' and began dancing on the sward.

After tea was over the party got too boisterous for Sinfi's taste, and she said to me, 'Let's slip away, brother, and go up the pathway, and I'll show you Winnie's favourite place.'

This proposal met my wishes entirely, and under the pretence of going to look at something on the Carnarvon road we managed to escape from the party, Sinfi still carrying her crwth and bow. She then led the way up a slope green with gra.s.s and moss. We did not talk till we had pa.s.sed the slate quarry.

The evening was so fine and the scene was so lovely that Sinfi's very body seemed to drink it in and become intoxicated with beauty. After we had left the slate quarries behind, the panorama became more entrancing at every yard we walked. Cwellyn Lake and Valley, Moel Hebog, y Garnedd, the glittering sea, Anglesey, Holyhead Hill, all seemed to be growing in gold and glory out of ma.s.ses of sunset mist.

When at last we reached the edge of a steep cliff, with the rocky forehead of Snowdon in front, and the shining llyns of Cwm y Clogwyn below, Sinfi stopped.

'This is the place,' said she, sitting down on a mossy mound, 'where Winnie loved to come and look down.'

After Sinfi and I had sat on this mound for a few minutes, I asked her to sing and play one or two Welsh airs which I knew to be especial favourites of hers, and then, with much hesitancy, I asked her to play and sing the same song or incantation which had become a.s.sociated for ever with my first morning on the hills.

'You mean the Welsh dukkerin' gillie,' said Sinfi, looking, with an expression that might have been either alarm or suspicion, into my face.

'Yes.'

'You've been a-thinkin' all this while, brother, that I don't know why you asked me about Winnie's favourite places on Snowdon, and why you wanted me to take my crwth to the camp. But I've been a-thinkin'

about it, and I know now why you did, and I know why you wants me to play the Welsh dukkerin' gillie here. It's because you heerd me say that if I were to play that dukkerin' gillie on Snowdon in the places she was fond on, I could tell for sartin whether Winnie wur alive or dead. If she wur alive her livin' mullo 'ud follow the crwth. But I ain't a-goin' to do it.'

'Why not, Sinfi?'

'Because my mammy used to say it ain't right to make use o' the real dukkerin' for Gorgios, and I've heerd her say that if them as had the real dukkerin'--the dukkerin' for the Romanies--used it for the Gorgios, or if they turned it into a sport and a plaything, it 'ud leave 'em altogether. And that ain't the wust on it, for when the real dukkerin' leaves you it turns into a kind of a cuss, and it brings on the bite of the Romany Sap. [Footnote] Even now, Hal, I sometimes o' nights feels the bite here of the Romany Sap,' pointing to her bosom, 'and it's all along o' you, Hal, it's all along o' you, because I seem to be breaking the promise about Gorgios I made to my poor mammy.'

[Footnote: The Romany serpent, Conscience.]

'The Romany Sap? You mean the Romany conscience, I suppose, Sinfi: you mean the trouble a Romany feels when he has broken the Romany laws, when he has done wrong according to the Romany notions of right and wrong. But you are innocent of all wrong-doing.'

'I don't know nothin' about conscience,' said she, 'I mean the Romany Sap. Don't you mind when we was a-goin' up Snowdon arter Winifred that mornin'? I told you as the rocks, an' the trees, an' the winds, an' the waters cuss us when we goes ag'in the Romany blood an' ag'in the dukkerin' dook. The cuss that the rocks, an' the trees, an' the winds, an' the waters makes, an' sends it out to bite the burk [Footnote] o' the Romany as does wrong--that's the Romany Sap.'

[Footnote: Breast.]

'You mean conscience, Sinfi.'

'No, I don't mean nothink o' the sort; the Romanies ain't got no conscience, an' if the Gorgios has, it's precious little good as it does 'em, as far as I can see. But the Romanies has got the Romany Sap. Everything wrong as you does, such as killin' a Romany, or cheatin' a Romany, or playin' the lubbany with a Gorgio, or breakin'

your oath to your mammy as is dead, or goin' ag'in the dukkerin'

dook, an' sich like, every one o' these things turns into the Romany Sap.'

'You're speaking of conscience, Sinfi.'

'Every one o' them wrong things as you does seems to make out o' the burk o' the airth a sap o' its own as has got its own pertickler stare, but allus it's a hungry sap, Hal, an' a sap wi' b.l.o.o.d.y fangs.

An' it's a sap as follows the bad un's feet, Hal--follows the bad un's feet wheresomever they goes; it's a sap as goes slippin' thro'

the dews o' the gra.s.s on the brightest mornin', an' dodges round the trees in the sweetest evenin', an' goes wriggle, wriggle across the brook jis' when you wants to enjoy yourself, jis' when you wants to stay a bit on the steppin'-stuns to enjoy the sight o' the dear little minnows a-shootin' atween the water-creases. That's what the Romany Sap is.'

'Don't talk like that, Sinfi,' I said; 'you make me feel the sap myself.'

'It's a sap, Hal, as follows you everywheres, everywheres, till you feel as you must stop an' face it whatever comes; an' stop you do at last, an' turn round you must, an' bare your burk you must to the sharp teeth o' that air wenemous sap.'

'Well, and what then, Sinfi?'

'Well then, when you ha' given up to the thing its fill o' your blood, then the trees, an' the rocks, an' the winds, an' the waters seem to know, for everythink seems to begin smilin' ag'in, an' you're let to go on your way till you do somethin' bad ag'in. That's the Romany Sap, Hal, an' I won't deny as I sometimes feel its bite pretty hard here' (pointing to her breast) 'when I thinks what I promised my poor mammy, an' how I kep' my word to her, when I let a Gorgio come under our tents.' [Footnote]

[Footnote: To prevent misconceptions, it may be well to say that the paraphrase of Sinfi's description of the 'Romany Sap,' which appeared in the writer's reminiscences of George Borrow, was written long after the main portion of the present narrative.]

'You don't mean,' I said, 'that it is a real flesh-and-blood sap, but a sap that you think you see and feel.'

'Hal,' said Sinfi, 'a Romany's feelin's ain't like a Gorgio's. A Romany can feel the bite of a sap whether it's made o' flesh an'

blood or not, and the Romany Sap's all the wuss for not bein' a flesh-and-blood sap, for it's a cuss hatched in the airth; it's everythink a-cussin' on ye--the airth, an' the sky, an' the dukkerin'

dook.'

Her manner was so solemn, her grand simplicity was so pathetic, that I felt I could not urge her to do what her conscience told her was wrong. But soon that which no persuasion of mine would have effected the grief and disappointment expressed by my face achieved.

'Hal,' she said, 'I sometimes feel as if I'd bear the bite o' all the Romany saps as ever wur hatched to give you a little comfort.

Besides, it's for a true Romany arter all--it's for myself quite as much as for you that I'm a-goin' to see whether Winnie is alive or dead. If she's dead we sha'n't see nothink, and perhaps if she's in one o' them fits o' hern we sha'n't see nothink; but if she's alive and herself ag'in, I believe I shall see--p'raps we shall both see--her livin' mullo.'

She then drew the bow across the crwth. The instrument at first seemed to chatter with her agitation. I waited in breathless suspense. At last there came clearly from her crwth the wild air I had already heard on Snowdon. Then the sound of the instrument ceased save for the drone of the two bottom strings, and Sinfi's voice leapt out and I heard the words of what she called the Welsh dukkering gillie.

As I listened and looked over the wide-stretching panorama before me, I felt my very flesh answering to every vibration; and when the song stopped and I suddenly heard Sinfi call out, 'Look, brother!' I felt that my own being, physical and mental, had pa.s.sed into a new phase, and that resistance to some mighty power governing my blood was impossible.

'Look straight afore you, brother, and you'll see Winnie's face.

She's alive, brother, and the dukkeripen of the Golden Hand will come true, and mine will come true. Oh, mammy, mammy!'