five o'clock in the morning
Then the noise of a plunging struggle and the muffled thud of something falling heavily upon the turf . -- Dr. Knott had been up all night , but his patient , Lord Denier 's second coachman , would pull through right enough ; so he started on his homeward journey in a complacent frame of mind . He reckoned it would save him a couple of miles , let alone the long hill from Farley Row up to Spendle Flats , if on his way back from Grimshott he went by Brockhurst House . It is stretching a point , he admitted , to drive under even your neighbour 's back windows at five o'clock in the morning . But the doctor being himself in an unusually amiable attitude , was inclined to accredit others with a like share of good temper . Moreover , the natural man in him cried increasingly loudly for food and bed . John Knott was not given to sentimental rhapsodies over the beauties of nature .