One of the monthly cheese-fairs was going on
in the Linen Hall. Among the rows of Welsh carts standing in front of
the 'Old Yacht Inn,' Sinfi introduced me to a 'Griengro' (one of the
Gypsy Locks of Gloucestershire), of whom I bought a bay mare of
extraordinary strength and endurance.
IX
It was, then, to find Winifred that I joined the Gypsies. And yet I
will not deny that affinity with the kinsfolk of my ancestress
Fenella Stanley must have had something to do with this passage in my
eccentric life. That strain of Romany blood which, according to my
mother's theory, had much to do with drawing Percy Aylwin and Rhona
Boswell together, was alive and potent in my own veins.
But I must pause here to say a few words about Sinfi Lovell. Some of
my readers must have already recognised her as a famous character in
bohemian circles. Sinfi's father was a 'Griengro,' that is to say, a
horse-dealer. She was, indeed, none other than that 'Fiddling Sinfi'
who became famous in many parts of England and Wales as a violinist,
and also as the only performer on the old Welsh stringed instrument
called the 'crwth,' or cruth.
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