five o'clock
Just before dawn she heard the men stirring in the yard ; and the flashes of their lanterns spread every now and then through her window-blind . She remembered that her father had told her not to be disturbed if she noticed them , as they would be rising early to send off four loads of hurdles to a distant sheep-fair . Peeping out , she saw them bustling about , the hollow-turner among the rest ; he was loading his wares -- wooden-bowls , dishes , spigots , spoons , cheese-vats , funnels , and so on -- upon one of her father 's wagons , who carried them to the fair for him every year out of neighborly kindness . The scene and the occasion would have enlivened her but that her husband was still absent ; though it was now five o'clock . She could hardly suppose him , whatever his infatuation , to have prolonged to a later hour than ten an ostensibly professional call on Mrs. Charmond at Middleton ; and he could have ridden home in two hours and a half . What , then , had become of him ? That he had been out the greater part of the two preceding nights added to her uneasiness .