Aylwin | Page 6

same as the Sinfi Lovell of _Aylwin_,'
and also whether 'the Rhona Boswell that figures in the prose story is
the same as the Rhona of _The Coming of Love_?' The evidence of the
reality of Rhona so impressed itself upon the reader that on the
appearance of Rhona's first letter in the _Athenæum_, where the poem
was printed in fragments, I got among other letters one from the sweet
poet and adorable woman Jean Ingelow, who was then very ill,--near
her death indeed,--urging me to tell her whether Rhona's love-letter was
not a versification of a real letter from a real Gypsy to her lover. As it
was obviously impossible for me to answer the queries individually, I
take this opportunity of saying that the Sinfi of Aylwin and the Sinfi
described in my introduction to Lavengro are one and the same
character--except that the story of the child Sinfi's weeping for the 'poor
dead Gorgios' in the churchyard, given in the Introduction, is really told
by the Gypsies, not of Sinfi, but of Rhona Boswell. Sinfi is the
character alluded to in the now famous sonnet describing 'the walking
lord of Gypsy lore,' Borrow, by his most intimate friend Dr. Gordon
Hake.
'And he, the walking lord of Gypsy lore! How often 'mid the deer that
grazed the Park, Or in the fields and heath and windy moor, Made
musical with many a soaring lark, Have we not held brisk commune
with him there, While Lavengro, then towering by your side, With rose
complexion and bright silvery hair, Would stop amid his swift and
lounging stride To tell the legends of the fading race--. As at the
summons of his piercing glance, Its story peopling his brown eyes and
face, While you called up that pendant of romance To Petulengro with
his boxing glory Your Amazonian Sinfi's noble story?'
Now that so many of the griengroes (horse-dealers), who form the
aristocracy of the Romany race, have left England for America, it is
natural enough that to some readers of Aylwin and The Coming of Love
my pictures of Romany life seem a little idealised. The _Times_, in a
kindly notice of _The Coming of Love_, said that the kind of Gypsies
there depicted are a very interesting people, 'unless the author has

flattered them unduly.' Those who best knew the Gypsy women of that
period will be the first to aver that I have not flattered them unduly. But
I have fully discussed this matter, and given a somewhat elaborate
account of Sinfi Lovell and Rhona Boswell, in the introduction to the
fifth edition of _The Coming of Love: Rhona Boswell's Story._

CONTENTS
CHAP.
1. THE CYMRIC CHILD 2. THE MOONLIGHT CROSS OF THE
GNOSTICS 3. WINIFRED'S DUKKERIPEN 4. THE LEADER OF
THE AYLWINIANS 5. HAROUN-AL-RASCHID THE PAINTER 6.
THE SONG OF Y WYDDFA 7. SINFI'S DUKKERIPEN 8. ISIS AS
HUMOURIST 9. THE PALACE OF NIN-KI-GAL 10. BEHIND THE
VEIL 11. THE IRONY OF HEAVEN 12. THE REVOLVING CAGE
OF CIRCUMSTANCE 13. THE MAGIC OF SNOWDON 14. SINFI'S
COUP DE THÉÂTRE 15. THE DAUGHTER OF SNOWDON'S
STORY 16. D'ARCY'S LETTER 17. THE TWO DUKKERIPENS 18.
THE WALK TO LLANBERIS APPENDICES

AYLWIN
THE RENASCENCE OF WONDER

I
THE CYMRIC CHILD
I
'Those who in childhood have had solitary communings with the sea
know the sea's prophecy. They know that there is a deeper sympathy
between the sea and the soul of man than other people dream of. They
know that the water seems nearer akin than the land to the spiritual
world, inasmuch as it is one and indivisible, and has motion, and
answers to the mysterious call of the winds, and is the writing tablet of
the moon and stars. When a child who, born beside the sea, and
beloved by the sea, feels suddenly, as he gazes upon it, a dim sense of
pity and warning; when there comes, or seems to come, a shadow
across the waves, with never a cloud in the sky to cast it; when there
comes a shuddering as of wings that move in dread or ire, then such a

child feels as if the bloodhounds of calamity are let loose upon him or
upon those he loves; he feels that the sea has told him all it dares tell or
can. And, in other moods of fate, when beneath a cloudy sky the
myriad dimples of the sea begin to sparkle as though the sun were
shining bright upon them, such a child feels, as he gazes at it, that the
sea is telling him of some great joy near at hand, or, at least, not far off.'
One lovely summer afternoon a little boy was sitting on the edge of the
cliff that skirts the old churchyard of Raxton-on-Sea.