twelve o'clock
It was like my usual luck that , instead of writing a note to this effect , I thought it would be good for my liver to walk across the hills to Tory Cottage and tell Flurry so in person . It was a bright , blustery morning , after a muggy day . The feeling of spring was in the air , the daffodils were already in bud , and crocuses showed purple in the grass on either side of the avenue . It was only a couple of miles to Tory Cottage by the way across the hills ; I walked fast , and it was barely twelve o'clock when I saw its pink walls and clumps of evergreens below me . As I looked down at it the chiming of Flurry 's hounds in the kennels came to me on the wind ; I stood still to listen , and could almost have sworn that I was hearing again the clash of Magdalen bells , hard at work on May morning . The path that I was following led downwards through a larch plantation to Flurry 's back gate . Hot wafts from some hideous caldron at the other side of a wall apprised me of the vicinity of the kennels and their cuisine , and the fir-trees round were hung with gruesome and unknown joints .