Sinfi's inquiries here—her inquiries everywhere that day—ended in nothing but blank and cruel disappointment.
Remembering that Winifred's very earliest childhood was passed near
Carnarvon, I proposed to the Gypsy that we should go thither at once.
After sleeping again at Llanberis, we went to Carnarvon, but soon returned to the other side of Snowdon, for at Carnarvon we could find no trace of her.
'Oh, Sinfi,' I said; as we stood watching the peculiar bright yellow trout in Lake Ogwen, 'she is starving—starving on the hills—while millions of people are eating, gorging, wasting food. I shall go mad!'
Sinfi looked at me mournfully, and said:
'It's a bad job, reia, but if poor Winnie Wynne's a-starvin' it ain't
the fault o' them as happens to ha' got the full belly. There ain't a
Romany in Wales, nor there ain't a Gorgio nuther, as wouldn't give
Winnie a crust, if wonst we could find her.'
'To think of this great, rich world,' I exclaimed (to myself, not to the Gypsy), 'choke-full of harvest, bursting with grain, while famishing on the hills for a mouthful is she—the one!'
'Reia,' said Sinfi, with much solemnity, 'the world's full o' vittles; what's wanted is jist a hand as can put the vittles and the mouths where they ought to be—cluss togither. That's what the hungry Romany says when he snares a hare or a rabbit.'
We walked on. After a while Sinfi said: 'A Romany knows more o' these here kinds o' things, reia, than a Gorgio does. It's my belief as Winnie Wynne ain't a-starvin' on the hills; she ain't got to starve; she's on'y got to beg her bread. She'll have to do that, of course; but beggin' ain't so bad as starvin', after all! There's some as begs for the love on it. Videy does.'
I knew by this time that it was useless to battle against Sinfi's conviction that the curse would have to be literally fulfilled, so I kept silence. While she was speaking I was suddenly struck by a thought that ought to have come before.