Part 61 (1/2)

On the table was a basket filled with the materials for the breakfast.

Another breakfast was spread for us two on the table, and the teapot was steaming. Sinfi saw me look at the two breakfasts and smile.

'We've got a good way to walk before we get to the pool where we are goin' to breakfast,' she said, 'so I thought we'd take a snack before we start.'

As we went along I noticed that the air of Snowdon seemed to have its usual effect on Sinfi. In taking the path that led to Knockers' Llyn we saw before us Cwm-Dyli, the wildest of all the Snowdonian recesses, surrounded by frowning precipices of great height and steepness. We then walked briskly on towards our goal. When the three peaks that she knew so well--y Wyddfa, Lliwedd, and Crib Goch--stood out in the still grey light she stopped, set down her basket, clapped her hands, and said, 'Didn't I tell you the mornin' was a-goin' to be ezackly the same as then? No mists to-day. By the time we get to the llyn the colours o' the vapours, what they calls the Knockers' flags, will come out ezackly as they did that mornin' when you and me first went arter Winnie.'

All the way Sinfi's eyes were fixed on the majestic forehead of y Wyddfa and the bastions of Lliwedd which seemed to guard it as though the Great Spirit of Snowdon himself was speaking to her and drawing her on, and she kept murmuring 'The two dukkeripens.'

But still she said nothing about her wedding, though that some such mad idea as that suggested by Rhona possessed her mind was manifest enough.

'Here we are at last,' she said, when we reached the pool for which we were bound; and setting down her little basket she stood and looked over to the valley beneath.

The colours were coming more quickly every minute, and the entire picture was exactly the same as that which I had seen on the morning when we last saw Winifred on the hills, so unlike the misty panorama that Snowdon usually presents. Y Wyddfa was silhouetted against the sky, and looked as narrow and as steep as the sides of an acorn. Here we halted and set down our basket.

As we did so she said, 'Hark! the Knockers! Don't you hear them?

Listen, listen!'

I did listen, and I seemed to hear a peculiar sound as of a distant knocking against the rocks by some soft substance. She saw that I heard the noise.

'That's the Snowdon spirits as guards more copper mines than ever yet's been found. And they're dwarfs. I've seed 'em, and Winnie has.

They're little, fat, short folk, somethin' like the woman in Primrose Court, only littler. Don't you mind the gal in the court said Winnie used to call the woman Knocker? Sometimes they knock to show to some Taffy as has pleased 'em where the veins of copper may be found, and sometimes they knock to give warnin' of a dangerous precipuss, and sometimes they knock to give the person as is talkin' warnin' that he's sayin' or doin' somethin' as may lead to danger. They speaks to each other too, but in a v'ice so low that you can't tell what words they're a-speakin', even if you knew their language. My crwth and song will rouse every spirit on the hills.'

I listened again. This was the mysterious sound that had so captivated Winnie's imagination as a child.

The extraordinary l.u.s.tre of Sinfi's eyes indicated to me, who knew them so well, that every nerve, every fibre in her system, was trembling under the stress of some intense emotion. I stood and watched her, wondering as to her condition, and speculating as to what her crazy project could be.

Then she proceeded to unpack the little basket.

'This is for the love-feast,' said Sinfi.

'You mean betrothal feast,' I said. 'But who are the lovers?'

'You and the livin' mullo that you made me draw for you by my crwth down by Beddgelert--the livin' mullo o' Winnie Wynne.'

'At last then,' I said to myself, 'I know the form the mania has taken. It is not her own betrothal, but mine with Winnie's wraith, that is deluding her crazy brain. How well I remember telling her how I had promised Winnie as a child to be betrothed by Knockers' Llyn.

Poor Sinfi! Mad or sane, her generosity remains undimmed.'

Before the breakfast cloth could be laid--indeed before the basket was unpacked--she asked me to look at my watch, and on my doing so and telling her the time, she jumped up and said, 'It's later than I thought. We must lay the cloth arterwards.' She then placed me in that same crevice overlooking the tarn whence Winnie had come to me on that morning.

Knockers' Llyn, it will perhaps be remembered, is enclosed in a little gorge opening by a broken, ragged fissure at the back to the east. Leading to this opening there is on one side a narrow, jagged shelf which runs half-way round the pool. Sinfi's movements now were an exact repet.i.tion of everything she did on that first morning of our search for Winnie.

While I stood partially concealed in my crevice, Sinfi took up her crwth, which was lying on the rock.

'What are you going; to do, Sinfi?' I said.

'I'm just goin' to bring back old times for you. You remember that mornin' when my crwth and song called Winnie to us at this very llyn?