four o'clock in the afternoon
It was a very little hotel and of a very slight and loose construction ; the tread of a tall Mississippian made the staircase groan and the windows rattle in their frames . He was very hungry when he arrived , having not had a moment , in Boston , on his way through , to eat even the frugal morsel with which he was accustomed to sustain nature between a breakfast that consisted of a cup of coffee and a dinner that consisted of a cup of tea . He had had his cup of tea now , and very bad it was , brought him by a pale , round-backed young lady , with auburn ringlets , a fancy belt , and an expression of limited tolerance for a gentleman who could not choose quickly between fried fish , fried steak , and baked beans . The train for Marmion left Boston at four o'clock in the afternoon , and rambled fitfully toward the southern cape , while the shadows grew long in the stony pastures and the slanting light gilded the straggling , shabby woods , and painted the ponds and marshes with yellow gleams . The ripeness of summer lay upon the land , and yet there was nothing in the country Basil Ransom traversed that seemed susceptible of maturity ; nothing but the apples in the little tough , dense orchards , which gave a suggestion of sour fruition here and there , and the tall , bright goldenrod at the bottom of the bare stone dykes . There were no fields of yellow grain ; only here and there a crop of brown hay . But there was a kind of soft scrubbiness in the landscape , and a sweetness begotten of low horizons , of mild air , with a possibility of summer haze , of unregarded inlets where on August mornings the water must be brightly blue .