Fragrance was broadcast there, the clean fragrance of nature
at her most alone. Crows whirred overhead; their hoarse plaint, with its
hint of desolation, made a kind of emptiness in the wood, and he went
on, step by step, as in a dream, wrapt, expectant. Was she here? Could
Rackby's will detain her here, a presence so swift, mischievous, and
aerial? Such a spirit could not be held in the hollow of a man's hand.
He remembered how in his youth a man had tried to keep wild foxes on
this same island, for breeding purposes, but they had whisked their
brushes in his face and swum ashore.
The green dusk was multiplied many times now by tiny spruces, no thicker
than a man's thumb, which grew up in racks and created a dense
blackness, its edges pierced by quivering shafts of the sun, some of
which, as if by special providence, fell between all the outer
saplings, and struck far in. A certain dream sallowness was manifested
in that sunlit glimpse. The air was quiet. Minutest things seemed to
marshal themselves as if alone and unobserved, so that it was strange to
spy them out.
"She is not here," he thought. His footfall was nothing on the soft
mold. Portly trunks of the hemlocks began to bar his way. The thick
shade entreated secrecy; he stood still, and saw his dryad, a green
apparition, kneeling at the foot of a beech tree, and looking down.
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