about four o’clock in the
morning
` The Beacon was always laid in those days ready to light , in case the French landed at Pevensey ; and I walked the horse about and about it that lee-long summer night . The farmer thought he was bewitched -- well , he _ was _ , of course -- and began to pray and shout . _ I _ did n't care ! I was as good a Christian as he any fair-day in the County , and about four o'clock in the morning a young novice came along from the monastery that used to stand on the top of Beacon hill . ' ` What 's a novice ? ' said Dan . ` It really means a man who is beginning to be a monk , but in those days people sent their sons to a monastery just the same as a school .