four in the afternoon
I was born in October . It had been raining heavily all day long . The rain was beating hard against the front of our house and running in rivers down the window-panes . Towards four in the afternoon the wind rose and then the yellow leaves of the chestnuts in the long drive rustled noisily , and the sea , which is a mile away , moaned like a dog in pain . In my father 's room , on the ground floor , Father Dan sat by the fire , fingering his beads and listening to every sound that came from my mother 's room , which was immediately overhead . My father himself , with his heavy step that made the house tremble , was tramping to and fro , from the window to the ingle , from the ingle to the opposite wall . Sometimes Aunt Bridget came down to say that everything was going on well , and at intervals of half an hour Doctor Conrad entered in his noiseless way and sat in silence by the fire , took a few puffs from a long clay pipe and then returned to his charge upstairs .