about
one o'clock
As it is , it is a chance if we reach Culverton before morning . Come , lead out my horse , and bring what food you have with you , for I 'm starving . ' `` Before five minutes had passed we were safe out of the cottage and in the high-road -- I , mounted on my faithful and partly refreshed horse , eating ravenously of the scraps of bread and meat my companions had left , while they trudged along in the snow one on either side . `` In this manner we progressed for an hour or so in silence , until about one o'clock there appeared on the side of a distant hill a twinkling light . I knew it at once . It had guided me home often and often before now , and it was doing so again . But in what strange company ! ''