"
One evening, directly after the parson's visit, feeling unable to bear
herself after another display from her husband, she took Annie and the
baby and went out. Morel had kicked William, and the mother would never
forgive him.
She went over the sheep-bridge and across a corner of the meadow to the
cricket-ground. The meadows seemed one space of ripe, evening light,
whispering with the distant mill-race. She sat on a seat under the
alders in the cricket-ground, and fronted the evening. Before her, level
and solid, spread the big green cricket-field, like the bed of a sea of
light. Children played in the bluish shadow of the pavilion. Many rooks,
high up, came cawing home across the softly-woven sky. They stooped in
a long curve down into the golden glow, concentrating, cawing, wheeling,
like black flakes on a slow vortex, over a tree clump that made a dark
boss among the pasture.
A few gentlemen were practising, and Mrs. Morel could hear the chock
of the ball, and the voices of men suddenly roused; could see the white
forms of men shifting silently over the green, upon which already the
under shadows were smouldering.
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