six o'clock
Those long silences , those solitary communings ; were _ mind-building _ all the time . So , when I came away from home and settled in Chelsea , and heard men talk , I felt that I , too , had something to say . In like manner my snowscape takes me back to the time when I was a mechanic , engine-building near Aylesbury . We lived half a mile from the works , at an old inn , and we began at six o'clock . In winter time , I remember , we would snuggle into the big back kitchen , with its huge cauldron of pig-meat swinging over the open fire , and its barrels containing evil things like stoats and ferrets , to put on our boots ; and when we opened the door , two feet of snow would fall in upon the floor . How well I remember that silent trudge up the bleak Birmingham Road to the works ! There were always two broad ruts in the white roadway -- the mail-coach had passed silently , at two o'clock .