about noon
I had sent my man over to Waltham Cross on an affair of a horse that was to be sold there on the nineteenth day of June -LRB- as I very well remember , from what happened afterwards -RRB- ; and when he came back he asked if he might speak with me privately . When I had him alone in my room he told me he had news from a Catholic ostler at the _ Four Swans _ , with whom he had spoken , that a party had been asking after me there that very morning . `` I said to him , sir , What kind of a party was it ? And he told me that there were four men ; and that they went in to drink first and to dine , for they came there about noon . I asked him then if any of them had any mark by which he could be known ; and he laughed at that ; and said that one of them was branded in the hand , for he was pulling his glove on when he came into the yard afterwards , so that it was seen . '' I said nothing for a moment , when James said that , for I was considering whether so small a business of so many months ago was worth thinking of . `` And what then ? ''