about nine o'clock
It was a young , leggy , mild looking mongrel , cross -- I should say -- between a brown retriever and an Irish terrier . There was froth about its lips , and its eyes were watery ; it looked indeed as if it might be in distemper . I was afraid of infection for this fellow of mine , and whenever it came too close shooed it away , till at last it slunk off altogether . Well , about nine o'clock , when I was settling down to write by the open window of my sitting-room -- still daylight , and very quiet and warm -- there began that most maddening sound , the barking of an unhappy dog . I could do nothing with that continual ` Yap yap ! ' going on , and it was too hot to shut the window ; so I went out to see if I could stop it . The men were all at the pub , and the women just finished with their gossip ; there was no sound at all but the continual barking of this dog , somewhere away out in the fields .