[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 nobody's got no right to see arter her only me, and that's why I'm about here now, if you must know; but nobody's got no right to see arter her only me, and nobody 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 superstitious 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.'