three o'clock
By a fatal intervention of Providence , the sport , on this my first day in the hunting-field , was such as I could have enjoyed from a bath-chair . The hunting-field was , on this occasion , a relative term , implying long stretches of unfenced moorland and bog , anything , in fact , save a field , the hunt itself might also have been termed a relative one , being mainly composed of Mr. Knox 's relations in all degrees of cousinhood . It was a day when frost and sunshine combined went to one 's head like iced champagne ; the distant sea looked like the Mediterranean , and for four sunny hours the Knox relatives and I followed nine couple of hounds at a tranquil footpace along the hills , our progress mildly enlivened by one or two scrambles in the shape of jumps . At three o'clock I jogged home , and felt within me the newborn desire to brag to Peter Cadogan of the Quaker 's doings , as I dismounted rather stiffly in my own yard . I little thought that the result would be that three weeks later I should find myself in a railway carriage at an early hour of a December morning , in company with Flurry Knox and four or five of his clan , journeying towards an unknown town , named Drumcurran , with an appropriate number of horses in boxes behind us and a van full of hounds in front . Mr. Knox 's hounds were on their way , by invitation , to have a day in the country of their neighbours , the Curranhilty Harriers , and with amazing fatuity I had allowed myself to be cajoled into joining the party . A northerly shower was striking in long spikes on the glass of the window , the atmosphere of the carriage was blue with tobacco smoke , and my feet , in a pair of new blucher boots , had sunk into a species of Arctic sleep .