four o’clock
How long will men try to be wiser than Him who maketh men ? '' `` I do not understand thee , '' quoth the Abbot . And no more he did . It was four o'clock on a May morning , when Hereward set out to see the world , with good armor on his back , good weapon by his side , good horse between his knees , and good money in his purse . What could a lad of eighteen want more , who under the harsh family rule of those times had known nothing of a father 's , and but too little of a mother 's , love ? He rode away northward through the Bruneswald , over the higher land of Lincolnshire , through primeval glades of mighty oak and ash , holly and thorn , swarming with game , which was as highly preserved then as now , under Canute 's severe forest laws . The yellow roes stood and stared at him knee-deep in the young fern ; the pheasant called his hens out to feed in the dewy grass ; the blackbird and thrush sang out from every bough ; the wood-lark trilled above the high oak-tops , and sank down on them as his song sank down .