noon
When the cock crew somewhere , it startled Nettie . She went like a spectre across the misty fields , looking down into the ditches and all the inequalities of the way . On the other side lay the canal , not visible , except by the line of road that wound beside it , from the dead flat around . She bent her steps in that direction , thinking of a certain mean little tavern which , somehow , when she saw it , she had associated with Fred -- a place where the men at the door looked slovenly and heated , like Fred himself , and lounged with their hands in their pockets at noon of working-days . Some instinct guided Nettie there . But she had no need to go so far . Before she reached that place the first sounds of life that she had yet heard attracted Nettie 's attention .