six o'clock
They slept here and there -- once , on a rainy night , in real lodgings , once below a haystack . Frank said hardly a word to Gertie , and did little more than listen to the Major , who was already beginning to repeat himself ; but he was aware that the girl was watching him . The crisis came about under circumstances that might be expected -- on a rather sentimental kind of Sunday evening , in a village whose name I forget -LRB- perhaps it was Escrick -RRB- between Selby and York . Frank had made a small excursion by himself in the morning and had managed to hear mass ; they had dined well off cold bacon and beans , and had walked on in the afternoon some miles further ; and they came to the village a little after six o'clock . The Major had a blister , which he had exhibited at least four times to the company , and had refused to go further ; and as they came to the outskirts of the village , volunteered to go and look for shelter , if the two would wait for him at a stile that led across fields to the old church . The scene was rather like the setting of the last act in a melodrama of a theater on the Surrey side of the Thames -- the act in which the injured heroine , with her child , sinks down fainting as the folk are going to church in the old village on a June evening among the trees -- leading up to moonlight effects and reunion . There was no organ to play `` off , '' but the bells were an excellent substitute , and it was these that presently melted the heart of Gertie .