about three o'clock
in the afternoon
He bought his ration of buns and ginger biscuits at a baker 's shop whence various ragamuffin boys were preparing to distribute the householders ' bread , and took his way up the Gallows Hill to the Burgh Muir almost with regret at leaving so pleasant a habitation . A chronicle of ripe vintages must pass lightly over small beer . I will not dwell on his leisurely progress in the bright weather , or on his luncheon in a coppice of young firs , or on his thoughts which had returned to the idyllic . I take up the narrative at about three o'clock in the afternoon , when he is revealed seated on a milestone examining his map . For he had come , all unwitting , to a turning of the ways , and his choice is the cause of this veracious history . The place was high up on a bare moor , which showed a white lodge among pines , a white cottage in a green nook by a burnside , and no other marks of human dwelling . To his left , which was the east , the heather rose to a low ridge of hill , much scarred with peat-bogs , behind which appeared the blue shoulder of a considerable mountain .