'Oh,' said she with a smile, 'Badoura has been a mere puppet in the
play. She had no idea she was going to meet her prince. Sinfi was
suddenly seized with a desire that she and I should come back, and
visit the dear old places we knew together. I was nothing loth, as
you may imagine, but I could not understand what had made her set
her heart upon it. When we reached Carnarvonshire I found that
Sinfi's people were all encamped near to Bettws y Coed, and we went
and stayed there. We visited all the places in the neighbourhood that
were associated with her childhood and mine.'
'You went to Fairy Glen?' I said.
'Yes; we went there the night before last and saw it in the
moonlight.'
'I was there, and I saw you.'
'Ah! Then the man sitting on the boulder at the bottom was you! How
wonderful! Sinfi was there on the step round the corner; she must
have seen you. I know now why she suddenly hurried me away. She had
told me that she wanted to see the Glen by moonlight'
'Then you did not know that you would meet me here?'
'My dear Henry, do you suppose that if I had known, I could have been
induced to take part in anything so theatrical? When I saw you
standing here my amazement and joy were so great that I forgot the
strange way in which I stood exhibited.'
I felt that the longer she chatted about such matters as these the
more opportunities I should get of learning how much and how little
she knew of her own story, so I said,
'But tell me how Sinfi contrived to trick you.'
'Well, this morning was the time fixed for our visiting Llyn
Coblynau, as we call Knockers' Lynn, which was my favourite place as
a child. We were to see it when the colours of the morning were upon
it. Then we were to go right to the top of Snowdon and take a mid-day
meal at the hut there, and in the evening go down to Llanberis and
sleep there. To-morrow morning we were to go to dear old Carnarvon
and see again the beloved sea. I find now that her plan was to bring
you and me together in this sensational way.'
'Will she join us?' I asked.
'I know no more than you what will be Sinfi's next whim. At the last
moment yesterday I was surprised to find that I was not to come with
her here, as she was not to sleep in the camp last night because she
had promised to see a friend at Capel Curig. And now, shall I tell
you how she inveigled me into taking my part in this Snowdon play she
was getting up? She told me that she had the greatest wish to
discover how the "Knockers' echoes," as they are called, would sound
if, in the early morning, she were to play her crwth in one spot and
I were to answer it from another spot with a verse of a Welsh song.
It seemed a pretty idea, and it was agreed that when I reached the
llyn I was to go round it to the opening at the east, pass through
the crevice, and wait there till I heard her crwth.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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