about one o'clock
To make it , my uncle had taken in a part of the heath , which came close up to the garden , leaving plenty of the heather and ling . The protecting fence enclosed a good bit of the heath just as it was , so that the wilderness melted away into the heath , and into the wide moor -- the fence , though contrived so as to be difficult to cross , being so low that one had to look for it . Everywhere the inner garden was surrounded with brick walls , and hedges of yew within them ; but immediately behind the house , the wall to the lane was not very high . One day in June I had gone into the garden about one o'clock , whether with or without object I forget . I had just seen my uncle start for Wittenage . Hearing a horse 's hoofs in the lane that ran along the outside of the wall , I looked up . The same moment the horse stopped , and the face of his rider appeared over the wall , between two stems of yew , and two great flowers of purple lilac , in shape like two perfect bunches of swarming bees .