about four o'clock
So stands the Thracian herdsman with his spear Full in the gap , and hopes the hunted bear ; And hears him in the rustling wood , and sees His course at distance by the bending trees ; And thinks -- Here comes my mortal enemy , And either he must fall in fight or I. DRYDEN 'S _ Palamon and Arcite _ . Nay , never shake thy gory locks at me ; Thou canst not say I did it ! _ Macbeth _ . It was on a fine summer morning , somewhere about four o'clock , when I wakened from my night 's rest , and was about thinking to bestir myself , that I heard the sound of voices in the kail-yard stretching south from our back windows . I listened -- and I listened -- and I better listened -- and still the sound of the argle-bargling became more distinct , now in a fleeching way , and now in harsh angry tones , as if some quarrelsome disagreement had taken place . I had not the comfort of my wife 's company in this dilemmy ; she being away , three days before , on the top of Tammie Trundle the carrier 's cart , to Lauder , on a visit to her folks there ; her mother -LRB- my gudemother like -RRB- having been for some time ill with an income in her leg , which threatened to make a lameter of her in her old age , the two doctors there -- not speaking of the blacksmith , and sundry skeely old women -- being able to make nothing of the business ; so nobody happened to be with me in the room saving wee Benjie , who was lying asleep at the back of the bed , with his little Kilmarnock on his head , as sound as a top . Nevertheless , I looked for my clothes ; and , opening one half of the window shutter , I saw four young birkies , well dressed -- indeed three of them customers of my own -- all belonging to the town ; two of them young doctors , one of them a writer 's clerk , and the other a grocer .