eight o'clock
Every night all the year round the little valley of Longdean echoed to that mournful clang . Perhaps it was for this reason that a wandering poet christened the place as the House of the Silent Sorrow . For seven years this had been going on now , until nobody but strangers noticed it . From half-past seven till eight o'clock that hideous bell rang its swinging , melancholy note . Why it was nobody could possibly tell . Nobody in the village had ever been beyond the great rusty gates leading to a dark drive of Scotch firs , though one small boy bolder than the rest had once climbed the lichen-strewn stone wall and penetrated the thick undergrowth beyond . Hence he had returned , with white face and staring eyes , with the information that great wild dogs dwelt in the thickets .