the hour of
nine in the morning
Neither Max nor I knew whether our journey had been a success or a failure . We rode leisurely back to the centre of the town , and asked a carter to direct us to Marcus Grote 's inn , The Mitre . We soon found it , and gave mine host the letter that we bore from Castleman . Although the hour of nine in the morning had not yet struck , Max and I eagerly sought our beds , and did not rise till late in the afternoon . The next morning we dismissed our squires , fearing they might talk . We paid the men , gave them each a horse , and saw them well on their road back to Switzerland . They were Swiss lads , and could not take themselves out of Burgundy fast enough to keep pace with their desires .