ds to one another, crossing, meeting, parting, winding
about and about with the purposeless and untirable frivolity of moths.
They seemed neither happy nor unhappy, they made no sound; it looked
to the lad as if they had been so drifting from the beginning, and
would so drift to the end of things temporal. Their loose hair
streamed out in the wind, their light gossamer gowns streamed the same
way, whipped about their limbs as close as wet muslin. They were
bare-footed, bare-armed, and bare-headed. They all had beauty, but it
was not of earthly cast. He saw one with hair like pale silk, and one,
ruddy and fierce in the face, with snaky black hair which, he thought,
flew out beyond her for a full yard's measure. Another had
hazel-brown hair and a sharp little peering face; another's was colour
of ripe corn, and another's like a thunder-cloud, copper-tinged. About
and about they went, skimming the tops of the grasses, and Andrew
King, his heart hammering at his ribs, watched them at their play. So
by chance one saw him, and screamed shrilly, and pointed at him.

Then they came about him like a swarm of bees, angry at first, humming
a note like that of the telegraph wire on a mountain road, but, as he
stood his ground, curiosity prevailed among them and they pried
closely at him. They touched him, felt his arms, his knees, handled
his clothing, peered into his eyes. All this he endured, though he was
in a horrible fright. Then one, the black-haired girl with a bold,
proud face, came and stood closely before him and looked him full into
his eyes. He gave her look for look. She put a hand on each shoulder
and kissed him. After that there was a tussle among them, for each
must do what her sister had done. They took a kiss apiece, or maybe
more; then, circling round him, they swept him forward on the wind,
past Silent Water, over the Edge, out on the fells, on and on and on,
and never stopped till they reached Knapp Forest, that dreadful place.

There in the hushed aisles and glades they played with this new-found
creature, played with him, fought for him, and would have loved him if
he had been minded for such adventuring. Two in particular he marked
as desiring his closer company--the black-haired and bold was one, and
the other was the sharp-faced and slim with eyes of a mouse and
hazel-brown hair. He called her the laughing girl and thought her the
kindest of them all. But they were all his friends at this time.
Andrew Kin