the hour of four
Therefore when in the pit think over other subjects , history , geography , what you will , but leave calculations alone except when you have your books before you . '' It was Saturday afternoon , a time at which Stokebridge was generally lively . The men , -LRB- dinner over , and the great weekly wash done , -RRB- usually crowded the public-houses , or played bowls and quoits on a piece of waste land known as `` the common , '' or set off upon a spree to Birmingham or Wolverhampton , or sat on low walls or other handy seats , and smoked and talked . But upon this special Saturday afternoon no one settled down to his ordinary pursuits , for the men stood talking in groups in the street , until , as the hour of four approached , there was a general move towards the common . Hither , too , came numbers of men from the colliery villages round , until some four or five thousand were gathered in front of an old `` waste tip '' at one corner of the common . Presently a group of some five or six men came up together , made their way through the throng , and took their stand on the edge of the tip , some twenty feet above the crowd . These were the delegates , the men sent by the union to persuade the colliers of Stokebridge and its neighbourhood to join in a general strike for a rise of wages .