Never had the sight and the sound of them been so horribly distasteful to him. They were still a long way off, and he thought he could dodge them, at any rate avoid meeting them face to face, if he hurried on to the second footpath and dived into the wood there. But then it seemed as if he had stupidly miscalculated the distance, or that his legs were failing him, or that the girls came sweeping down the road at an impossibly rapid pace; so that they were right upon him just as he reached the stile. He drew aside, and, feeling that it was too late now to turn his back, watched them as they passed.
The mistresses must have issued a sudden order of silence, for they all went by without so much as a whisper. There were fifty of them, but they seemed to be thousands. Dressed in their light blue summer cloaks, golden-haired, brown-haired, a very few black-haired, they passed two by two, with the little ones first, and bigger and bigger girls behind--an ascending scale of size, so that he had the illusion of seeing a girl grow up under his eyes, change in a minute instead of in years from the small sexless imp that is like an amusing toy, to the full-breasted creature that is so nearly a woman as to be dangerous to herself and to everybody else.
Not one of them spoke, but all of them, little and big, looked at him--very shyly, and yet with intense interest. He stood staring after them, and presently their tuneful young voices sounded again, filled the air with virginal music. He swung his leg over the stile, and went along the path through the trees where he had followed Norah yesterday.
He had not intended to leave the highroad, but it was as if that dead man's girls had driven him into the wood to get away from their shyly questioning eyes. He might meet them again if he stayed out there. In here he could be alone with his thoughts.
To-day there was plenty of sunlight, and instead of turning off the path he went straight on to the main ride. This too was bright with sunshine, a splendid broad avenue that was shut close on either side by the thickly planted firs; the mossy track seeming soft as a bed, and the sky like an immensely high canopy of delicate blue gauze. A heron crossed quickly but easily, making only three flaps of its powerful wings before it disappeared; there was an unceasing hum of insects; and two wood-cutters came by and wished Dale good afternoon and touched their weather-stained hats.