four o'clock
Whether marked by lettered stone or grassy mound , it mattered little -- he knew where each rude forefather of the hamlet lay . Rich in the family lore of the neighbourhood , he could trace back ancestry and thread his way through the maze of relationship to the third and fourth generations . He could recount the sins which had hurried men to untimely graves , and point to the spot where their bones were rotting ; and he could tell of virtues that made the memory of the mouldering dust more fragrant than the sweetbriar and the rose that grew upon the graves . There was one rule which old Joseph would never break , and that was that there should be no interments after four o'clock . Plead with him , press him , threaten him , it was to no purpose ; flinch he would not for rich or for poor , for parson or for people . More than once he had driven the mourners back from the gates , and one winter 's afternoon , when the corpse had been brought a long distance , it was left for the night in a neighbouring barn . Upon this occasion a riot was with difficulty averted .