twelve o’clock
But Alfred Charlesworth did not forgive the butty these public-house sayings . Consequently , although Morel was a good miner , sometimes earning as much as five pounds a week when he married , he came gradually to have worse and worse stalls , where the coal was thin , and hard to get , and unprofitable . Also , in summer , the pits are slack . Often , on bright sunny mornings , the men are seen trooping home again at ten , eleven , or twelve o'clock . No empty trucks stand at the pit-mouth . The women on the hillside look across as they shake the hearthrug against the fence , and count the wagons the engine is taking along the line up the valley . And the children , as they come from school at dinner-time , looking down the fields and seeing the wheels on the headstocks standing , say : `` Minton 's knocked off .