Fertility

When Lucy woke, the room was already light. The curtains were not drawn and the pane of the open casement reflected a gleam of sun which she could lose and find by moving her head on the pillow.

A wood pigeon was calling in the elms. But it was some other sound, she knew, that had woken her — a sharp sound, a part of the dream which had drained away, as she woke, like water out of a washbasin. Perhaps the dog had barked.

But now everything was quiet and there was only the flash of sun from the windowpane and the sound of the wood pigeon, like the first strokes of a paint brush on a big sheet of paper when you were still not sure how the picture was going to go.

The morning was fine. Would there be any mushrooms yet? Was it worth getting up now and going down the field to see? It was still too dry and hot — not good mushroom weather. The mushrooms were like the blackberries — both wanted a drop of rain before they’d be any good.

Soon there’d be damp mornings …

WATERSHIP DOWN (1972) by Richard George Adams