five o'clock
The blackness grew grey and paler grey , and miles and miles of monotonous gum saplings lay between the train and sky . Up burst the sun , and the world grew soft and rosy like a baby waked from sleep . Then the grey gathered again , the pink , quivering lights faded out , and the rain came down -- torrents of it , beating against the shaking window-glass , whirled wildly ahead by a rough morning wind , flying down from the mountains . Such a crushed , dull-eyed , subdued-looking eight they were as they tumbled out on the Curlewis platform when five o'clock came . Judy coughed at the wet , early , air , and was hurried into the waiting-room and wrapped in a rug . Then the train tossed out their trunks and portmanteaux and rushed on again , leaving them desolate and miserable , looking after it , for it seemed no one had come to meet them . The sound of wet wheels slushing through puddles , the crack of a whip , the even falling of horses ' feet , and they were all outside again , looking beyond the white railway palings to the road .