Chapter 15

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.

I shook her gently, and said, 'The Prince of the Mist.'

She started back to life. My idea had been a happy one. My words had at once sent her thoughts into the right direction for me.

'Pardon me, Prince,' said she, smiling; 'I had forgotten that you were here.'

'Winifred, I've warmed this hand, now give me the other.'

She stretched her other hand across her breast and gave it to me. This brought her entire body close to me, and I said, 'Winnie, you are cold all over. Won't you let the Prince of the Mist put his arms round you and warm you?'

'Oh, I should like it so much,' she said. 'But are you warm, Prince? are you really warm?--your mist is mostly very cold.'

'Quite warm, Winifred,' I said, as with my heart swelling in my breast, and with eyelids closing over my eyes from very joy, I drew her softly upon my breast once more.

'Yes--yes,' I murmured, as the tears gushed from my eyes and dropped upon the soft hair that I was kissing. 'If God will but let me have her _thus_! I ask for nothing better than to possess a maniac.'

As we sat locked in each other's arms the head of Sinfi appeared round the eastern cliff of the gorge where I had first seen Winifred. The Gypsy had evidently been watching us from there. I perceived that she was signalling to me that I was not to grasp Winifred. Then I saw Sinfi suddenly and excitedly point to the sky over the rock beneath which we sat. I looked up. The upper sky above us was now clear of morning mist, and right over our heads, Winifred's and mine, there hung a little morning cloud like a feather of flickering rosy gold. I looked again towards the corner of jutting rock, but Sinfi's head had disappeared.

'Dear Prince,' said Winifred, 'how delightfully warm you are! How kind of you! But are not your arms a little too tight, dear Prince? Poor Winnie cannot breathe. And this thump, thump, thump, like a--like a--fire-engine--_ah_!'

Too late I knew what my folly had done. The turbulent action of my heart had had a sympathetic effect upon hers. It seemed as if her senses, if not her mind, had remembered another occasion, when, as she was lying in my arms, the beating of my heart had disturbed her. In one lightning-flash her real life and all its tragedy broke mercilessly in upon her. The idea of the 'Prince of the Mist' fled. She started up and away from me. The awful mimicry of her father's expression spread over her face. With a yell of 'Fy Nhad,' and then a yell of 'Father!' she darted round the pool, and then, bounding up the rugged path like a chamois, disappeared behind a corner of jutting rock.

At the same moment the head of the Gypsy girl reappeared round the eastern cleft of the gorge. Sinfi came quickly up to me and whispered, 'Don't follow.'

'I will,' I said.

'No, you won't,' said she, seizing my wrist with a grip of iron. 'If you do she's done for. Do you know where she is running to? A couple of furlongs up that path there's another that branches off on the right; it ain't more nor a futt-an'-a-half wide along a precipuss more nor a hundred futt deep. She knows it well. She'll make for that. The cuss is on her wuss nor ever, judgin' from the gurn and the flash of her teeth.'

I waited for two or three seconds in the wildest impatience.

'Let's follow her now,' I said.

'No, no,' she whispered, 'not yet, 'less you want to see her tumble down the cliff.' After a few minutes Sinfi and I went up the main pathway. Winnie seemed to have slackened her pace when she was out of sight, for we saw her just turning away on the right at the point indicated by Sinfi. 'Give her time to get along that path,' said she, 'and then she'll be all right.'

In a state of agonised suspense I stood there waiting. At last I said:

'I must go after her. We shall lose her--I know we shall lose her.'

Sinfi demurred a moment, then acceded to my wish, and we went up the main pathway and peered round the corner of the jutting rock where Winifred had last been visible. There, along a ragged shelf bordering a yawning chasm--a shelf that seemed to me scarce wide enough for a human foot--Winifred was running and balancing herself as surely as a bird over the abyss.

'Mind she doesn't turn round sharp and see you,' said the Gypsy. 'If she does she'll lose her head and over she'll fall!'

I crouched and gazed at Winifred as she glided along towards a vast mountain of vapour that was rolling over the chasm close to her. She stood and looked into the floating mass for a moment, and then passed into it and was lost from view.

VI

'_Now_ I can follow her,' said Sinfi; 'but you mustn't try to come along here. Wait till I come back. I suppose you've given her all the breakfiss. Give me a drop of brandy out o' your flask.'

I gave her some brandy and took a long draught of the burning liquor myself, for I was fainting.

'I shall go with you,' I said.

'Dordi,' said the Gypsy, 'how quickly you'd be a-layin' at the bottom there!' and she pointed down into the gulf at our feet.

'I shall go with you,' I said.

'No, you won't,' said the Gypsy doggedly; ''cause _I_ sha'n't go. I shall git round and meet her. I know where we shall strike across her slot. She'll be makin' for Llanberis.'

'I let her escape,' I moaned. 'I had her in my arms once; but you signalled to me not to grip her.'

'If you had ha' grabbed her,' said the Gypsy, 'she'd ha' pulled you along like a feather--she's so mad strong. You go hack to the llyn.'

The Gypsy girl passed along the shelf and was soon lost in the veil of vapour.

I returned to the llyn and threw myself down upon the ground, for my legs sank under me, but the dizziness of fatigue softened the effect of my distress. The rocks and peaks were swinging round my head. Soon I found the Gypsy bending over me.

'I can't find her,' said she. 'We had best make haste and strike across her path as she makes for Llanberis. I have a notion as she's sure to do that.'

As fast as we could scramble along those rugged tracks we made our way to the point where the Gypsy expected that Winifred would pass. We remained for hours, beating about in all directions in search of her,--Sinti every now and then touching her crwth with the bow,--but without any result.

'It's my belief she's gone straight down to Llanberis,' said Sinfi; 'and we'd best lose no time, but go there too.'

We went right to the top of the mountain and rested for a little time on y Wyddfa, Sinfi taking some bread and cheese and ale in the cabin there. Then we descended the other side. I had not sense then to notice the sunset-glories, the peaks of mountains melting into a sky of rose and light-green, over which a phalanx of fiery clouds was filing; and yet I see it all now as I write, and I hear what I did not seem to hear then, the musical chant of a Welsh guide ahead of us, who was conducting a party of happy tourists to Llanberis.

When we reached the village, we spent hours in making searches and inquiries, but could find no trace of her. Oh, the appalling thought of Winifred wandering about all night famishing on the hills! I went to the inn which Sinfi pointed out to me, while she went in quest of some Gypsy friends, who, she said, were stopping in the neighbourhood. She promised to come to me early in the morning, in order that we might renew our search at break of day.

When I turned into bed after supper I said to myself: 'There will be no sleep for me this night.' But I was mistaken. So great was my fatigue that sleep came upon me with a strength that was sudden and irresistible; when the servant came to call me at sunrise, I felt as though I had but just gone to bed. It was, no doubt, this sound sleep, and entire respite from the tension of mind I had undergone, which saved me from another serious illness.

I found the Gypsy already waiting for me below, preparing for the labours before her by making a hearty meal on salt beef and ale.

'Reia,' said she, pointing to the beef with her knife, 'we sha'n't get bite nor sup, 'cept what we carry, either inside or out, for twelve hours,--perhaps not for twenty-four. Before I give up this slot there ain't a path, nor a hill, nor a rock, nor a valley, nor a precipuss as won't feel my fut. Come! set to.'

I took the Gypsy's advice, made as hearty a breakfast as I could, and we left Llanberis in the light of morning. It was not till we had reached and passed a place called Gwastadnant Gate that the path along which we went became really wild and difficult. The Gypsy seemed to know every inch of the country.

We reached a beautiful lake, where Sinfi stopped, and I began to question her as to what was to be our route.

'Winnie know'd,' said she, 'some Welsh folk as fish in this 'ere lake. She might ha' called 'em to mind, poor thing, and come off here. I'm a-goin' to ask about her.'

Sinfi's inquiries here--her inquiries everywhere that day--ended in nothing but blank and cruel disappointment.

Remembering that Winifred's very earliest childhood was passed near Carnarvon, I proposed to the Gypsy that we should go thither at once.

After sleeping again at Llanberis, we went to Carnarvon, but soon returned to the other side of Snowdon, for at Carnarvon we could find no trace of her.

'Oh, Sinfi,' I said; as we stood watching the peculiar bright yellow trout in Lake Ogwen, 'she is starving--starving on the hills--while millions of people are eating, gorging, wasting food. I shall go mad!'

Sinfi looked at me mournfully, and said:

'It's a bad job, reia, but if poor Winnie Wynne's a-starvin' it ain't the fault o' them as happens to ha' got the full belly. There ain't a Romany in Wales, nor there ain't a Gorgio nuther, as wouldn't give Winnie a crust, if wonst we could find her.'

'To think of this great, rich world,' I exclaimed (to myself, not to the Gypsy), 'choke-full of harvest, bursting with grain, while famishing on the hills for a mouthful is she--the one!'

'Reia,' said Sinfi, with much solemnity, 'the world's full o' vittles; what's wanted is jist a hand as can put the vittles and the mouths where they ought to be--cluss togither. That's what the hungry Romany says when he snares a hare or a rabbit.'

We walked on. After a while Sinfi said: 'A Romany knows more o' these here kinds o' things, reia, than a Gorgio does. It's my belief as Winnie Wynne ain't a-starvin' on the hills; she ain't got to starve; she's on'y got to beg her bread. She'll have to do that, of course; but beggin' ain't so bad as starvin', after all! There's some as begs for the love on it. Videy does.'

I knew by this time that it was useless to battle against Sinfi's conviction that the curse would have to be literally fulfilled, so I kept silence. While she was speaking I was suddenly struck by a thought that ought to have come before.

'Sinfi,' I said, 'didn't you know an English lady named Dalrymple, who lodged with Mrs. Davies for some years?'

'Yis,' said Sinfi, 'and I did think o' her. She went to live at Carnarvon. But supposin' that Winnie had gone to the English lady--supposin' that she know'd where to find her--the lady 'ud never ha' let her go away, she was so fond on her. It was Miss Dalrymple as sp'ilt Winnie, a-givin' her lady-notions.'

However, I determined to see Miss Dalrymple, and started alone for Carnarvon at once. By making inquiries at the Carnarvon post-office I found Miss Dalrymple, a pale-faced, careworn lady of extraordinary culture, who evinced the greatest affection for Winifred. She had seen nothing of her, and was much distressed at the fragments of Winifred's story which I thought it well to give her. When she bade me good-bye, she said, 'I know something of your family. I know your mother and aunt. The sweet girl you are seeking is in my judgment one of the most gifted young women living. Her education, as you may be aware, she owes mainly to me. But she took to every kind of intellectual pursuit by instinct. Reared in a poor Welsh cottage as she was, there is, I believe, almost no place in society that she is not fitted to fill.'

On leaving Carnarvon I returned to Sinfi Lovell.

But why should I weary the reader by a detailed account of my wanderings and searchings with my strange guide that day, and the next, and the next? Why should I burthen him with the mental agonies I suffered as Sinfi and I, during the following days, explored the country for miles and miles--right away beyond the Cross Foxes, as far as Dolgelley and the region of Cader Idris? At last, one evening, when I and Rhona Boswell and some of her family were walking down Snowdon towards Llanberis, Sinfi announced her conviction that Winifred was no longer in the Snowdon region at all, perhaps not even in Wales at all.

'You mean, I suppose, that she is dead,' I said.

'Dead?' said Sinfi, the mysterious sibylline look returning immediately to her face, that had just seemed so frank and simple. 'She ain't got to _die_; she's only got to beg. But I shall ha' to leave you now. I can't do you no more good. And besides, my daddy's goin' into the Eastern Counties with the Welsh ponies, and so is Jasper Bozzell and Rhona. Videy and me are goin' too, in course.'

With deep regret and dismay I felt that I must part from her. How well I remember that evening. I feel as now I write the delicious summer breeze of Snowdon blowing on my forehead. The sky, which for some time had been growing very rich, grew at every moment rarer in colour, and glassed itself in the llyns which shone with an enjoyment of the beauty like the magic mirrors of Snowdonian spirits. The loveliness indeed was so bewitching that one or two of the Gypsies--a race who are, as I had already noticed, among the few uncultivated people that show a susceptibility to the beauties of nature--gave a long sigh of pleasure, and lingered at the llyn of the triple echo, to see how the soft iridescent opal brightened and shifted into sapphire and orange, and then into green and gold. As a small requital of her valuable services I offered her what money I had about me, and promised to send as much more as she might require as soon as I reached the hotel at Dolgelley, where at the moment my portmanteau was lying in the landlord's charge.

'_Me_ take money for tryin' to find my sister, Winnie Wynne?' said Sinfi, in astonishment more than in anger. 'Seein', reia, as I'd jist sell everythink I've got to find her, I should like to know how many gold balansers [sovereigns] 'ud pay me. No, reia, Winnie Wynne ain't in Wales at all, else I'd never give up this patrin-chase. So fare ye well;' and she held out her hand, which I grasped, reluctant to let it go.

'Fare ye well, reia,' she repeated, as she walked swiftly away; 'I wonder whether we shall ever meet agin.'

'Indeed, I hope so,' I said.

Her sister Videy, who with Rhona Boswell was walking near us, was present at the parting--a bright-eyed, dark-skinned little girl, a head shorter than Sinfi. I saw Videy's eyes glisten greedily at sight of the gold, and, after we had parted, I was not at all surprised, though I knew her father, Panuel Lovell, a frequenter of Raxton fairs, to be a man of means, when she came back and said, with a coquettish smile,

'Give the bright balansers to Lady Sinfi's poor sister, my rei; give the balansers to the poor Gypsy, my rei.'

Rhona, however, instead of joining Videy in the prayer for backsheesh, ran down the path in the footsteps of Sinfi.

What money I had about me I was carrying loose in my waistcoat pocket, and I pulled it out, gold and silver together. I picked out the sovereigns (five) and gave them to her, retaining half-a-sovereign and the silver for my use before returning to the hotel at Dolgelley. Videy took the sovereigns and then pointed, with a dazzling smile, to the half-sovereign, saying, 'Give Lady Sinfi's poor sister the posh balanser [half-sovereign], my rei.'

I gave her the half-sovereign,' when she immediately pointed to a half-crown in my hand, and said, 'Give the poor Gypsy the posh-courna, my rei.'

So grateful was I to the very name of Lovell, that I was hesitating whether to do this, when I was suddenly aware of the presence of Sinfi, who had returned with Rhona. In a moment Videy's wrist was in a grip I had become familiar with, and the money fell to the ground. Sinfi pointed to the money and said some words in Romany. Videy stooped and picked the coins up in evident alarm. Sinfi then said some more words in Romany, whereupon Videy held out the money to me. I felt it best to receive it, though Sinfi never once looked at me; and I could not tell what expression her own honest face wore, whether of deadly anger or mortal shame. The two sisters walked off in silence together, while Rhona set up a kind of war-dance behind them, and the three went down the path.

In a few minutes Sinfi again returned and, pointing in great excitement to the sunset sky, cried, 'Look, look! The Dukkeripen of the trúshul.' [Footnote] And indeed, the sunset was now making a spectacle such as might have aroused a spasm of admiration in the most prosaic breast. As I looked at it and then turned to look at Sinfi's noble features, illumined and spiritualised by a light that seemed more than earthly, a new feeling came upon me as though y Wyddfa and the clouds were joining in a prophecy of hope.

[Footnote: Cross.]

VII

After losing Sinfi I hired some men to assist me in my search. Day after day did we continue the quest; but no trace of Winifred could be found. The universal opinion was that she had taken sudden alarm at something, lost her foothold, and fallen down a precipice, as so many unfortunate tourists had done in North Wales. One day I and one of my men met, on a spur of the Glyder, the tourist of the flint implements with whom I had conversed at Bettws y Coed. He was alone, geologising or else searching for flint implements on the hills. Evidently my haggard appearance startled him. But when he learnt what was my trouble he became deeply interested. He told me that one day after our meeting at 'The Royal Oak,' Bettws y Coed, he had met a wild-looking girl as he was using his geologist's hammer on the mountains. She was bareheaded, and had taken fright at him, and had run madly in the direction of the most dangerous chasm on the range; he had pursued her, hoping to save her from destruction, but lost sight of her close to the chasm's brink. The expression on his face told me what his thoughts were as to her fate. He accompanied me to the chasm. It was indeed a dreadful place. We got to the bottom by a winding path, and searched till dusk among the rocks and torrents, finding nothing. But I felt that in wild and ragged pits like those, covered here and there with rough and shaggy brushwood, and full of wild cascades and deep pools, a body might well be concealed till doomsday.

My kind-hearted companion accompanied me for some miles, and did his best to dispel my gloom by his lively and intelligent talk. We parted at Pen y Gwryd. I never saw him again. I never knew his name. Should these lines ever come beneath his eyes he will know that though the great ocean of human life rolls between his life-vessel and mine, I have not forgotten how and where once we touched.