An hour before noon
The sun was now high and hot , but he told me that when he looked back at the turn of the path the priest was at the gate in the full sun staring after him . Of his journey that day there is not much to relate . He went by unfrequented ways , walking sedately as his manner was , with devotion in his heart . An hour before noon a woman gave him dinner as she came back from taking it to her husband who burned charcoal in the forest , and asked him a kiss for payment when he had done his meal , sitting on a tree , with her standing by and looking upon him all the while . But he told her that he was a solitary , and that he had kissed no woman but his mother , who had died ten years before , so she appeared content , though she still looked upon him . Then as he stood up , thanking her for the dinner , she caught his hand and kissed that , and he reproved her gently and went on his way again . For many miles after that it was the same ; he saw no man , but only the beasts now and then , walking beneath the high branches in the sylvan twilight , over the dead leaves and the fern , and seeing now and again , as he expressly told me , for it seemed he had some lesson from it , the hot light that danced in the open spaces to right and left .