five
o'clock in the morning
He bore it very philosophically ; indeed , I think it was only on Whitmonday that he felt it at all , as it seemed strange and unnatural to go to bed quite sober on that day , as he did on all other days of the year . On all other occasions he was a thoroughly sober man , perhaps , however , more from necessity than choice , as the beer supplied by Farmer Benson in the hayfield was of a quality on which , as the men said , you got ` no forrarder ' if you drank a hogshead , and Gray had no money to spare from the necessaries of life to spend on luxury , even the luxury of getting drunk . He was in one way better off than his neighbours from a worldly point of view , in that he had not a large family as most of them were blessed with ; for children are a blessing , a gift and heritage that cometh of the Lord , even when they cluster round a cold hearth and a scanty board . But Gray had only two sons , the elder of whom , Tom , we have seen at Zoe 's christening , and who had been at work four years , having managed at twelve to scramble into the fifth standard , and at once left school triumphantly , and now can neither read nor write , having clean forgotten everything drummed into his head , but earns three shillings and sixpence a week going along with Farmer Benson 's horses , from five o'clock in the morning till six in the evening , the long wet furrows and heavy ploughed land having made havoc of his legs , as such work does with most plough-boys . The younger boy , Bill , is six years younger and still at school , and having been a delicate child , or as his mother puts it , ` enjoying bad health , ' is not promising for farm-work , and , being fond of his book and a favourite at school , his mother cherishes hopes of his becoming a school-teacher in days to come . But such is the perversity of human nature , that though many a Downside mother with a family of little steps envied Mrs Gray her compact family and the small amount of washing attached to it , that ungrateful woman yearned after an occupant for the old wooden cradle , and treasured up the bits of baby things that had belonged to Tom and Bill , and nursed up any young thing that came to hand and wanted care , bringing up a motherless blind kitten with assiduous care and patience , as if the supply of that commodity was not always largely in excess of the demand , and lavishing more care on a sick lamb or a superfluous young pig than most of the neighbours ' babies received . So when one evening in May , Gray came in holding a bundle in his arms and poked it into her lap as she sat darning the holes in Tom 's stockings -LRB- she was not good at needlework , but she managed , as she said , to ` goblify ' the holes -RRB- , he knew pretty well that it was into no unwilling arms that he gave the baby .