about three o'clock in the afternoon
There was a noggin , a piggin , a churn , a homemade chair ; there was a quilt from a grandmother and a pioneer cradle -- a mere trough scooped out of a walnut log . An old pioneer sent the antlers of a stag for a hat-rack , and a buffalo rug for the young pair to lie warm under of bitter , winter nights ; his wife sent a spinning-wheel and a bundle of shingles for johnny-cakes . Some of the merchants gave packages of Philadelphia groceries ; some of the aristo-cratic families parted with heirlooms that had been laboriously brought over the mountains -- a cup and saucer of Sevres , a pair of tall brass candlesticks , and a Venus - mirror framed in ebony . It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when John Gray jumped on the back of a strong trusty horse at the stable of the Indian Queen , leaned over to shake the hands of the friends who had met there to see him off , and turned his horse 's head in the direction of the path that led to the Wilderness Road . But when he had gone about a mile , he struck into the forest at right angles and rode across the country until he reached that green woodland pathway which led from the home of the Falconers to the public road between Lexington and Frankfort . He tied his horse some distance away , and walking back , sat down on the roots of an oak and waited . It was a day when the beauty of the earth makes itself felt like ravishing music that has no sound .