About eight o'clock
But that was before he built the little wall at the bottom of the garden . Slightly raised above the church , on ground held together by old elms , the white vicarage of Warpington stands , blinking ever through its trees at the church like a fond wife at her husband . Indeed , so like had she become to him that she had even developed a tiny bell-tower near the kitchen chimney , with a single bell in it , feebly rung by a female servant on saints ' days and G.F.S. gatherings . About eight o'clock on this particular morning in July the Drone could hear , if it wanted to hear , which apparently no one else did , the high , unmodulated voice in which Mr. Gresley was reading the morning service to Mrs. Gresley and to a young thrush , which was hurling its person , like an inexperienced bicyclist , now against Lazarus and his grave-clothes , now against the legs of John the Baptist , with one foot on a river 's edge and the other firmly planted in a distant desert , and against all the other Scripture characters in turn which adorned the windows . The service ended at last , and , after releasing his unwilling congregation by catching and carrying it , beak agape , into the open air , Mr. Gresley and his wife walked through the church-yard -- with its one melancholy Scotch fir , embarrassed by its trouser of ivy -- to the little gate which led into their garden . They were a pleasing couple , seen at a little distance . He , at least , evidently belonged to a social status rather above that of the average clergyman , though his wife may not have done so .