five o’clock
The last forty miles of my journey I was obliged to post , chiefly by cross-roads , little known , and less frequented , and presenting scenery often extremely interesting and pretty . The picturesqueness of the landscape was enhanced by the season , the beginning of September , at which I was travelling . I had never been in this part of the world before ; I am told it is now a great deal less wild , and , consequently , less beautiful . At the inn where I had stopped for a relay of horses and some dinner -- for it was then past five o'clock -- I found the host , a hale old fellow of five-and-sixty , as he told me , a man of easy and garrulous benevolence , willing to accommodate his guests with any amount of talk , which the slightest tap sufficed to set flowing , on any subject you pleased . I was curious to learn something about Barwyke , which was the name of the demesne and house I was going to . As there was no inn within some miles of it , I had written to the steward to put me up there , the best way he could , for a night . The host of the `` Three Nuns , '' which was the sign under which he entertained wayfarers , had not a great deal to tell .