I.
The scent of hay came through the open window of her room. Clearer and finer than the hay smell of the Essex fields.
She shut her eyes to live purely in that one sweet sense; and opened them to look at the hill, the great hill heaved up against the east.
You had to lean far out of the window to see it all. It came on from the hidden north, its top straight as a wall against the sky. Then the long shoulder, falling and falling. Then the thick trees. A further hill cut the trees off from the sky.
Roddy was saying something. Sprawling out from the corner of the window-seat, he stared with sulky, unseeing eyes into the little room.
"Roddy, what did you say that hill was?"
"Greffington Edge. You aren't listening."
His voice made a jagged tear in the soft, quiet evening.
"And the one beyond it?"
"Sarrack. Why can't you listen?"