a quarter to
five
`` You 've had a lovely walk , with a lovely comrade , in lovely weather , '' said Adrian . `` The weather is simply brazen , '' Anthony declared . Judged by the standards of a cit , countrymen , I believe , are generally early risers ; but even for a countryman , Anthony , next morning , rose at an unlikely hour . The tall clock in the hall , accenting with its slow sardonic tick the silence of the sleeping house , marked a quarter to five , as he undid the heavy old-fashioned fastenings of the door , the oaken bar , the iron bolts and chains , and let himself out . He let himself out ; but then he stood still for a minute on the terrace , arrested by the exquisite shock of the wonderful early air : the wonderful light , keen air , a fabric woven of elfin filaments , the breathings of green lives : an aether distilled of secret essences , in the night , by the earth and the sea , -- for there was the sea 's tang , as well as the earth 's balm , there was the bitter-sweet of the sea and the earth at one . He stood for a minute , stopped by the exquisite shock of it ; and then he set forth for an aimless morning ramble . The dew clung in big iridescent crystals to the grass , where the sheep were already wide-awake and eager at their breakfasts ; it gleamed like sprinkled rubies on the scarlet petals of the poppies , and like fairies ' draughts of yellow wine in the enamelled hollows of the buttercups ; on the brown earth of the pathways , where the long shadows were purple , it lay white like hoar-frost .