four o'clock
`` It is n't probable , '' he said to his sisters , `` that a boy of his age should be able to keep such a secret against four of us ; and then it is most improbable that he should have seen anything of the occurrence and not have come at once to his father . '' But the girls held to their own opinion , till at last they were told by Frank that they were two pig-headed nincompoops . Things were going on in this way , and Mr. Jones was still striving to find out evidence by which a case might be substantiated against Pat Carroll , when that gentleman , one winter afternoon , was using his eloquence upon Master Florian Jones . It was four o'clock , and the darkness of the night was now coming on very quickly . The scene was a cottage , almost in the town of Headford , and about two miles from the nearest part of the Morony estate . In this cottage Carroll was sitting at one side of a turf fire , while an old woman was standing by the doorway making a stocking . And in this cottage also was another man , whose face was concealed by an old crape mask , which covered his eyes and nose and mouth .