ten o'clock
I was fourteen that Christmas : -- all Veryan parish knows the date of the famous `` Black Winter , '' when the _ Johann _ brig came ashore on Kibberick beach , with a dozen foreigners frozen stiff and staring on her fore-top , and Lawyer Job , up at Ruan , lost all his lambs but two . There was neither rhyme nor wit in the season ; and up to St. Thomas 's eve , when it first started to freeze , the folk were thinking that summer meant to run straight into spring . I mind the ash being in leaf on Advent Sunday , and a crowd of martins skimming round the church windows during sermon-time . Each morning brought blue sky , warm mists , and a dew that hung on the brambles till ten o'clock . The frogs were spawning in the pools ; primroses were out by scores , and monthly roses blooming still ; and Master shot a goat-sucker on the last day in November . All this puzzled the sheep , I suppose , and gave them a notion that their time , too , was at hand . At any rate the lambs fell early ; and when they fell , it had turned to perishing cold .