Another subject upon which I loved to hear her talk was that of the ‘Knockers’ of Snowdon, the guardians of undiscovered copper mines, who sometimes by knocking on the rocks gave notice to individuals they favoured of undiscovered copper, but these favoured ones were mostly children who chanced to wander up Snowdon by themselves.  She had, she said, not only heard but seen these Knockers.  They were thick-set dwarfs, as broad as they were long.  One Knocker, an elderly female, had often played with her on the hills.  Knockers’ Llyn, indeed, was very much on Winifred’s mind.  When a golden cloud, like the one on which she was singing her song at the time I first saw her, shone over a person’s head at Knockers’ Llyn, it was a sign of good fortune.  She was sure that it was so, because the Welsh people believed it, and so did the Gypsies.

Not a field or a hedgerow was unfamiliar to us.  We were most learned in the structure of birds’ nests, in the various colours of birds’ eggs, and in insect architecture.  In all the habits or the wild animals of the meadows we were most profound little naturalists.

Winifred could in the morning, after the dews were gone, tell by the look of a buttercup or a daisy what kind of weather was at hand, when the most cunning peasant was deceived by the hieroglyphics of the sky, and the most knowing seaman could ‘make nothing of the wind.’

Her life, in fact, had been spent in the open air.

There were people staying at the Hall, and they and Frank engrossed all my mother’s attention.  At least, she did not appear to notice my absence from home.

My brother Frank, however, was not so unobservant (he was two years older than myself).  Early one morning, before breakfast, curiosity led him to follow me, and he came upon us in Graylingham Wood as we were sitting under a tree close to the cliff, eating the wild honey we had found in the Wilderness.

He stood there swinging a ground-ash cane, and looking at her in a lordly, patronising way, the very personification no doubt of boyish beauty.  I became troubled to see him look so handsome.  The contrast between him and a cripple was not fair, I thought, as I observed an expression of passing admiration on little Winifred’s face.  Yet I thought there was not the pleased smile with which she had first greeted me, and a weight of anxiety was partially removed, for it had now become quite evident to me that I was as much in love as any swain of eighteen—­it had become quite evident that without Winifred the poor little shattered sea-gull must perish altogether.  She was literally my world.

Frank came and sat down with us, and made himself as agreeable as possible.  He tried to enter into our play, but we were too slow for him; he soon became restless and impatient.  ‘Oh bother!’ he said, and got up and left us.

I drew a sigh of relief when he was gone.

‘Do you like my brother, Winifred?’ I said.