seven in the morning
These gave up the farmhouse , with its feudality of cothouses , to a taciturn bachelor shepherd or two , who squatted promiscuously in the once voluble kitchen . The morning of the first Sabbath of February dawned bitterly over the scattered clachan of Cauldshields . It had been snowing since four o'clock on Saturday night , and during those hours no dog had put its nose outside the door . At seven in the morning , had any one been able to see across the street for the driving snow , he would have seen David Grier look out for a moment in his trousers and shirt , take one comprehensive glance , and vanish within . That glance had settled David 's church attendance for the day . He was an `` Auld Kirk , '' and a very regular hearer , having been thirty years in the service of the laird ; but in the moment that he looked out into the dim white chaos of whirling snow , David had settled it that there would be no carriage down from the `` Big House '' that day . `` The drifts will be sax fit in the howes o ' the muir-road , '' he said , as he settled himself to sleep till midday , with a solid consciousness that he had that day done all that the most exacting could require of him .