THE WALK TO LLANBERIS

When, on coming to rejoin us, Winnie learnt that Sinfi had left for Capel Curig, she seemed at first somewhat disconcerted, I thought.  Her training, begun under her aunt, and finished under Miss Dalrymple, had been such that she was by no means oblivious of Welsh proprieties; and, though I myself was entirely unable to see in what way it was more eccentric to be mountaineering with a lover than with a Gypsy companion, she proposed that we should follow Sinfi.

‘I have seen your famous living-waggon,’ she said.  ’It goes wherever the Lovells go.  Let us follow her.  You can stay at Bettws or Capel Curig, and I can stay with Sinfi.’

I told her how strong was Sinfi’s wish that we should not do so.  Winnie soon yielded her point, and we began leisurely our descent westward, along that same path which Sinfi and I had taken on that other evening, which now seemed so far away, when we walked down to Llanberis with the setting sun in our faces.  If my misery could then only find expression in sighs and occasional ejaculations of pain, absolutely dumb was the bliss that came to me now, growing in power with every moment, as the scepticism of my mind about the reality of the new heaven before me gave way to the triumphant acceptance of it by my senses and my soul.

The beauty of the scene—­the touch of the summer breeze, soft as velvet even when it grew boisterous, the perfume of the Snowdonian flowerage that came up to meet us, seemed to pour in upon me through the music of Winnie’s voice which seemed to be fusing them all.  That beloved voice was making all my senses one.

‘You leave all the talk to me,’ she said.  But as she looked in my face her instinct told her why I could not talk.  She knew that such happiness and such bliss as mine carry the soul into a region where spoken language is not.

Looking round me towards the left, where the mighty hollow of Cwm Dyli was partly in sunshine and partly in shade, I startled Winnie by suddenly calling out her name.  My thoughts had left the happy dream of Winifred’s presence and were with Sinfi Lovell.  As I looked at the tall precipices rising from the chasm right up to the summit of Snowdon, I recalled how Sinfi, notwithstanding her familiarity with the scene, appeared to stand appalled as she gazed at the jagged ridges of Crib-y-Ddysgyl, Crib Goch, Lliwedd, and the heights of Moel Siabod beyond.  I recalled how the expression of alarm upon Sinfi’s features had made me almost see in the distance a starving girl wandering among the rocks, and this it was that made me now exclaim ‘Winnie!’ With this my lost power of speech returned.

We went to the ruined huts where Sinfi had on that memorable day lingered by the spring, and Winnie began to scoop out the water with her hand and drink it.  She saw how I wanted to drink the water out of the little palm, and she scooped some out for me, saying, ’It’s the purest, and sweetest, and best water on Snowdon.’