Part 23 (1/2)

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 friends.h.i.+p 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.'