I turned round. A Gypsy girl, dressed in fine Gypsy costume, very dark but very handsome, was sitting on a settle drinking from a pot of ale, and nursing an instrument of the violin kind, which she was fondling as though it were a baby. She was quite young, not above eighteen years of age, slender, graceful--remarkably so, even for a Gypsy girl. Her hair, which was not so much coal-black as blue-black, was plaited in the old-fashioned Gypsy way, in little plaits that looked almost as close as plaited straw, and as it was of an unusually soft and fine texture for a Gypsy, the plaits gave it a l.u.s.tre quite unlike that which unguents can give. As she sat there, one leg thrown over the over, displaying a foot which, even in the heavy nailed boots, would have put to shame the finest foot of the finest English lady I have ever seen, I could discern that she was powerful and tall; her bosom, gently rising and falling beneath the layers of scarlet and yellow and blue handkerchiefs, which filled up the s.p.a.ce the loose-fitting gown of bright merino left open, was of a breadth fully worthy of her height. A silk handkerchief of deep blood-red colour was bound round her head, not in the modern Gypsy fashion, but more like an Oriental turban. From each ear was suspended a ma.s.sive ring of red gold. Round her beautiful, towering, tanned neck was a thrice-twisted necklace of half-sovereigns and amber and red coral. She looked me full in the face. Then came a something in the girl's eyes the like of which I had seen in no other Gypsy's eyes, though I had known well the Gypsies who used to camp near Rington Manor, not far from Raxton, for my kinsman Percy Aylwin, the poet, had lately fallen in love with Winnie's early friend, Rhona Boswell. It was not exactly an 'uncanny' expression, yet it suggested a world quite other than this. It was an expression such as one might expect to see in a 'budding spae-wife,' or in a Roman Sibyl. And whose expression was it that it now reminded me of?

But the remarkable thing was that this expression was intermittent; it came and went like the shadows the fleeting clouds cast along the sunlit gra.s.s. Then it was followed by a look of steady self-reliance and daring. This last variation of expression was what now suddenly came into her eyes as she said, scrutinising me from head to foot:

'Reia, you make a good git-up for a Romany-chal. Can you rokkra Romanes? No, I see you can't. I should ha' took you for the right sort. I should ha' begun the Romany rokkerpen with you, only you ain't got the Romany glime in your eyes. It's a pity he ain't got the Romany glime, ain't it, Jim?'

She turned to a young Gypsy fellow who was sitting at the other end of the settle, drinking also from a pot of ale, and smoking a cutty pipe.

'Don't ax me about no mumply Gorgio's eyes,' muttered the man, striking the leather legging of his right leg with a silver-headed whip he carried. 'You're allus a-takin' intrust in the Gorgios, and yet you're allus a-makin' believe as you hate 'em.'

'You say Winifred Wynne is back again?' I cried in an eager voice.

'That's jist what I _did_ say, and I ain't deaf, my rei. How she managed to get back here puzzles me, poor thing, for she's jist for all the world like Rhona's daddy's daddy, Opi Bozzell, what buried his wits in his dead wife's coffin. She's even skeared at _me_.'

'Why, you don't mean to say Winnie's back!' cried the landlord. 'To think that I shouldn't have heard about Winnie Wynne bein' back. When did you see her, Sinfi?'

'I see her fust ever so many nights ago. I was comin' down this road, when what do I see but a gal a-kicking at the door of Mrs. Davies's emp'y house, and a-sobbin' she was jist fit to break her heart, and I sez to myself, as I looked at her--"Now, if it was possible for that 'ere gal to be Winifred Wynne, she'd be Winifred Wynne, but as it ain't possible for her to be Winifred Wynne, it _ain't_ Winifred Wynne, and any mumply Gorgie [Footnote] as _ain't_ Winifred Wynne may kick and sob for a blue moon for all me."'

[Footnote: Gorgio, a man who is not a Gypsy. Gorgie, a woman who is not a Gypsy.]

'But it was Winnie Wynne, I s'pose?' said the landlord, in a state now of great curiosity.

'It was Winnie Wynne,' replied the Gypsy, handing her companion her empty beer-pot, and pointing to the landlord as a sign that the man was to pa.s.s it on to him to be refilled. 'Up I goes to her, and I says, "Why, sister, who's bin a-meddlin' with you? I'll tear the windpipe out o' anybody wot's been a-meddlin' with you."'

When the girl used the word 'sister' a light broke in upon me.

'Are you Sinfi Lovell?' I cried.

'That jist my name, my rei; but as I said afore, I ain't deaf. Jist let Jim pa.s.s my beer across and don't interrup' me, please.'

'Don't rile her, sir,' whispered the landlord to me; 'she's got the real witch's eye, and can do you a mischief in a twink, if she likes.

She's a good sort, though, for all that.'

'What are you two a-whisperin' about me?' said the girl in a menacing tone that seemed to alarm the landlord.

'I was only tellin' the gentleman not to rile you, because you was a fightin' woman,' said the man.

The Gypsy looked appeased and even gratified at the landlord's explanation.

'But what did Winnie Wynne do then, Sinfi?' asked the landlord.

'She turns round sharp,' said the Gypsy; 'she looks at me as skeared as the eyes of a hotchiwitchi [Footnote] as knows he's a-bein'

uncurled for the knife. "_Father!_" she cries, and away she bolts like a greyhound; and I know'd at oust as she wur under a cuss. Now, you see, Mr. Blyth, that upset me, _that_ did, for Winnie Wynne was the only one on 'em, Gorgio or Gorgie, ever I liked. No offence, Mr.

Blyth, it isn't your fault you was born one; but,' continued the girl, holding up the foaming tankard and admiring the froth as it dropped from the rim upon her slender brown hand on its way to the floor, 'Winnie Wynne was the only one on 'em, Gorgio or Gorgie, ever I liked, and that upset me, _that_ did, to see that 'ere beautiful cretur a-grinnin' and jabberin' under a cuss. The Romanies is gittin'

too fond by half o' the Gorgios, and will soon be jist like mumply Gorgios themselves, speckable and silly; but Gorgio or Gorgie, she was the only one on 'em ever I liked, was Winnie Wynne; and when she turned round on me like _that_, with them kind eyes o' hern (such kind eyes _I_ never seed afore) lookin' like _that_ at me (and I know'd she was under a cuss)--I tell you,' she said, still addressing the beer, 'that it's made me fret ever since--that's what it's done!'

[Footnote: Hedgehog.]

About the truth of this last statement there could be no doubt, for her face was twitching violently in her efforts to keep down her emotion.

'And did you follow her?' said the landlord.

'Not I; what was the good?'

'But what did you do, Sinfi?'

'What did I do? Well, don't you mind me comin' here one night and buyin' a couple of blankets off you, and some bread and meat and things?'

'In course I do, Sinfi, and you said you wanted them for the vans.'

The Gypsy smiled and said, 'I knowed she was bound to come back, so I pulls up the window and in I gets, and then opens the door and off I comes to you, as bein' the nearest neighbour, for the blankets and things, and I puts 'em in the house, and I leaves the door uncatched, and I hides myself behind the house, and, sure enough, back she comes, poor thing! I hears her kick, kick, kickin' at the door, and then I hears her go in when she finds it give way. So I waits a good while, till I thinks she's eat some o' the vittles and gone to sleep maybe, and then round the house I creeps, and in the door I peeps, and soon I hears her breathin' soft, and then I shuts the door and goes away to the place.' [Footnote]

[Footnote: Camping-place.]

'But why didn't you tell _us_ all this, Sinfi?' asked the landlord.

'My wife would ha' went and seen arter her, and we wouldn't ha'

touched a farthin' for they blankets and things, not we, Sinfi, not we.'

'Ah, you _would_, though,' said the girl, ''cause I'd ha' _made_ you take it. Winnie Wynne was the only one on 'em, Gorgio or Gorgie, ever I liked, and n.o.body's got no right to see arter her only me, and that's why I'm about here _now_, if you _must_ know; but n.o.body's got no right to see arter her only me, and n.o.body sha'n't nuther.

They might go and skear her to run up the hills, and she might dash herself all to flactions in no time.'

'Don't take on so, Sinfi,' said the landlord. 'When they are in that way they allus turns agin them as they was fond on.'

'Then you noticed as she was fond o' me, Mr. Blyth,' said the girl with great earnestness.

'Of course she was fond on you, Sinfi; everybody knows that.'

'Yes,' said the girl, now much affected, '_every_ body knowed it, _every_ body knowed as she was fond o' me. And to see her look at me like _that_--it was a cruel sight, Mr. Blyth, I can tell you. Such a look you never see'd in all your life, Mr. Blyth.'

'Then I take it she's in the house now?' said the landlord.

'She goes prowlin' about all day among the hills, as if she was a-lookin' for somebody; and she talks to somebody as she calls the Tywysog o'r Niwl, an' I know that's Welsh for the "Prince o' the Mist"; but back she comes at night. She talks to herself a good deal; and she sings to herself the Welsh gillies what Mrs. Davies larnt her in a v'ice as seems as if she wur a-singin' in her sleep, but it's very sweet to hear it. Yesterday I crep' near her when she was a-sittin' down lookin' at herself in that 'ere llyn where the water's so clear, "Knockers' Llyn," as they calls it, where her and me and Rhona Boswell used to go. And I heard her say she was "cussed by Henry's feyther." And then I heard her talk to somebody agin, as she called the Prince of the Mist; but it's herself as she's a-talkin'

to all the while.'

'Cursed by Henry's father! What curse could any superst.i.tious mystic call down upon the head of Winifred? The heaven that would answer a call of that kind would be a heaven for zanies and tomfools!' I shouted, in a paroxysm of rage against the entire besotted human race. '_That_ for the curse!' I cried, snapping my fingers. '_I_ am Henry, and I am come to share the curse, if there is one.'

'Young man,' interposed the landlord, 'such blas-pheemous langige as that must not be spoke here; I ain't a-goin' to have _my_ good beer turned to vinegar by blasphemin' them as owns the thunder, I can tell you.'

But the effect of my words upon the Gypsy was that of a spark in a powder-mine.

'Henry?' she said, 'Henry? are _you_ the fine rei as she used to talk about? Are you the fine cripple as she was so fond on? Yes, Beng te ta.s.sa mandi if you ain't Henry his very self.'

'Don't,' remonstrated the landlord, 'don't meddle with the gentleman, Sinfi. He ain't a cripple, as you can see.'

'Well, cripple or no cripple, he's _Henry_. I half thought it as soon as he began askin' about her. Now, my fine Gorgio, what do you and your fine feyther mean by cussin' Winnie Wynne? You've jist about broke her heart among ye. If you want to cuss you'd better cuss me;'

and she sprang up in an att.i.tude that showed me at once that she was a skilled boxer.

The male Gypsy rose and b.u.t.toned his coat over his waistcoat. I thought he was going to attack me. Instead of this, he said to the landlord:

'_She's_ in for a set-to agin. She's sure to quarrel with me if I interferes, so I'll just go on to the place and not spile sport.

Don't let her kill the chap, though, Mr. Blyth, if you can anyways help it. Anyhows, _I_ ain't a-goin' to be called in for witness.'