six o'clock
He had a comfortable income , derived from land in Somersetshire , upon which his mother , a widow lady , and his two unmarried sisters lived , and attended archery meetings in company of the curate . The disdain of Miss Eleanor Vernon had cured him of a taste for such simple joys , and now that , by travel , he had cured himself of Miss Eleanor , he was travelling on for his pleasure , or , as he told himself , to avoid the curate . Thus neatly he referred to his obligations to Church and State in Somersetshire . By six o'clock on this fine May morning he had already ridden far -- from Sahagun , indeed , where he had spent some idle days , lounging , and exchanging observations on the weather with the inhabitants . He had been popular , for he was perfectly simple , and without airs ; never asked what he did not want to know , and never refused to answer what it was obviously desired he should . But man can not live upon small talk ; and as he had taken up his rest in Sahagun in a moment of impulse -- when he saw that it possessed a church-dome covered with glazed green tiles -- so now he left it . `` High Heaven ! ''