two o'clock
Winter 1684-5 was , like the last , cold , frosty , and stormy . The ice was on lake and muir from new year 's day till the month of March . Curling was then , as it is still , the great winter amusement in the south and west of Scotland . The ploughman lad rose by two o'clock of a frosty morning , had the day 's fodder threshed for the cattle , and was on the ice , besom in hand , by nine o'clock . The farmer , after seeing things right in the stable and the byre , was not long behind his servant . The minister left his study and his M.S. , his concordance , and his desk , for the loch , and the rink , and the channel-stane . Even the laird himself was not proof against the temptation , but often preferred full twelve hours of rousing game on the ice , to all the fascinations of the drawing or the billiard-room , or the study .