'Suppose,' I said, 'that instead of being lost in the Welsh hills she
had been lost here!' I shuddered at the thought.
Again that picture in the Welsh pool came to me, the picture of
Winnie standing at a street corner, offering matches for sale. D'Arcy
then got talking about Sinfi Lovell and her strange superiority in
every respect to the few Gypsy women he had seen.
'She has,' said he, 'mesmeric power; it is only semiconscious, but it
is mesmeric. She exercises it partly through her gaze and partly
through her voice.'
He was still talking about Sinfi when a river-boy, who was whistling
with extraordinary brilliancy and gusto, met and passed us. Not a
word more of D'Arcy's talk did I hear, for the boy was whistling the
very air to which Winnie used to sing the Snowdon song
I met in a glade a lone little maid
At the foot of y Wyddfa the white.
I ran after the boy and asked him what tune he was whistling.
'What tune?' he said, 'blowed if I know.'
'Where did you hear it?' I asked.
'Well, there used to be a gal, a kind of a beggar gal, as lived not
far from 'ere for a little while, but she's gone away now, and she
used to sing that tune.
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