nine
in the morning
In neighbourliness , then , and for the sake of his haveage , Nicky-Nan 's first welcome home had been kindly enough . His savings were few , but they bought him a small share in a fishing-boat , besides enabling him to rent the tenement in the Doctor 's House , and to make it habitable with a few sticks of furniture . Also he rented a potato-patch , beyond the coastguard 's hut , around the eastward cliff , and tilled it assiduously . Being a man who could do with a very little sleep , he would often be found hard at work there by nine in the morning , after a long night 's fishing . Thus , though always on the edge of poverty , he had managed his affairs -- until four years ago , when the trouble began with his leg . At first he paid little heed to it , since it gave him no pain and little more than a passing discomfort . It started , in fact , as a small hard cyst low down at the back of the right thigh , incommoding him when he bent his knee .