The others were long-skirted and clad gayer, and amongst
them were red and blue and green and white garments, and they were
clear to be seen for women. Just as the young man looked up again,
those of them who were sitting down rose up, and those that were
strolling drew nigh, and they joined hands together, and fell to
dancing on the grass, and the dog and another one with him came up to
the dancers and raced about and betwixt them; and so clear to see
were they all and so little, being far away, that they looked like
dainty well-wrought puppets.
The young man sat smiling at it for a little, and then rose up and
shouldered his venison, and went down into Wildlake's Way, and
presently was fairly in the Dale and striding along the Portway
beside the northern cliffs, whose greyness was gilded yet by the last
rays of the sun, though in a minute or two it would go under the
western rim. He went fast and cheerily, murmuring to himself
snatches of old songs; none overtook him on the road, but he overtook
divers folk going alone or in company toward Burgstead; swains and
old men, mothers and maidens coming from the field and the acre, or
going from house to house; and one or two he met but not many.
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