eight o'clock
`` If you please , sir , '' said Bennet the footman , `` I saw Master Gordon quite early this morning , maybe about six o'clock ; he telled me he was going down to look after the ship . '' Family prayer was concluded and breakfast began , and still Aleck did not appear . As he had no watch , it was not surprising that he should mistake the time to a certain extent ; but we all wondered he should be so very late , and at last my father began to feel uneasy . `` He must have been a long way off not to have heard the eight o'clock bell , '' he said ; `` yet he 's a careful boy ; it seems unlikely he should come to any harm . '' `` Run out on the lawn , Willie , '' suggested my mother , `` and take a good look round ; perhaps he may be in sight . '' But although I put a liberal interpretation upon the direction , and not only ran out upon the lawn , but also down the drive for a little way , and up the overhanging bank , from which we could got a sight far off towards the White-Rock Cove , I could see nothing of my cousin , and returned breathless to the dining-room without the tidings that my parents expected . The post had come in whilst I was out , and my father was engaged in the perusal of a letter from Uncle Gordon , reading little bits of it aloud to my mother as he went on .