three in the morning
He was just `` dazed-like , '' as the schoolmistress would have said -- confused , perplexed , bewildered , getting only a glimpse of what might be the cause of it all , and the consequences . If he had known -- if it had come into his mind , that the sorrowful eyes which were looking at him out of the darkness -- the soft , brown eyes , like Crummie 's , which had met his first on the hilltop , might have power over him to make or to undo , as other eyes had wrought good or evil in the lives of other men , he would have laughed at the thought and scorned it . He had had a long day of it . Since three in the morning he had walked the thirty miles that lay between Nethermuir and Aberdeen , to say nothing of the rumble in Peter Gilchrist 's cart to the Stanin ' Stanes , and the walk home again with little Marjorie in his arms . No wonder that he was a little upset , he told himself . He was tired , and it was time he was in his bed . So with a glance at the moon which was showing her face from behind a cloud -- she had a queer look , he thought -- he turned homeward .