eight o'clock
Mrs Garnett packed her basket full of the soft , loamy soil ; the girls roamed up and down making up bouquets of wild roses , honeysuckle , and fragrant meadowsweet ; the boys were blissfully happy , risking life and limb in an exciting endeavour to travel from top to bottom of the bank without once touching grass . An occasional tree-trunk was permitted as a foothold , otherwise you swung yourself from one branch to another , or took flying leaps into space , and trusted to fate to catch hold of something before you fell . Russell 's hairbreadth escapes would have terrified his mother had she been there to see , but the boys were wise in their generation and had quietly worked their way round to the opposite bank before beginning their experiments . It took a considerable time to call them back and rally forces in time to catch the eight o'clock train , and it was a dishevelled and by no means aristocratic-looking party which climbed over the high stone stile leading into the high-road . It seemed hard luck that this last mile , when every one was feeling tired and a trifle flat , should have to be traversed along a dusty , uninteresting road , and the straggly line grew even farther and farther apart as the distance to the station decreased . Dan led the way , walking in the middle of the road , his head flung back with the old proud air of detachment . The two mothers plodded steadily in the rear .