If they moved, it was to fetch something from the hut, or to catch a straying child, or to cross the space with a jar balanced on their heads; if they spoke, it was to cry some harsh unintelligible cry.

Voices rose when a child was beaten, and fell again; voices rose in song, which slid up a little way and down a little way, and settled again upon the same low and melancholy note.

Seeking each other, Terence and Rachel drew together under a tree.

Peaceful, and even beautiful at first, the sight of the women, who had given up looking at them, made them now feel very cold and melancholy.
"Well," Terence sighed at length, "it makes us seem insignificant, doesn't it ?" Rachel agreed.

So it would go on for ever and ever, she said, those women sitting under the trees, the trees and the river.