Then above the apple-tree and the pear-tree two hundred feet above
Miranda lying asleep in the orchard bells thudded, intermittent, sullen,
didactic, for six poor women of the parish were being churched and the
Rector was returning thanks to heaven.
And above that with a sharp squeak the golden feather of the church tower
turned from south to east. The wind changed. Above everything else it
droned, above the woods, the meadows, the hills,
Cheap Cigarette, miles above Miranda
lying in the orchard asleep. It swept on, eyeless, brainless, meeting
nothing that could stand against it, until, wheeling the other way, it
turned south again. Miles below, in a space as big as the eye of a
needle, Miranda stood upright and cried aloud: 'Oh, I shall be late for
tea!'