two o'clock
`` Did you not hear me say that Simon Braley would never be taken alive ? '' With that , she turned and walked away , leaving him to stare after her until she entered the kitchen door . He was conscious of a sense of horror that began to send a chill through his veins . The Paul Revere tied up at the landing shortly after two o'clock . The usual crowd of onlookers thronged the bank , attention being temporarily diverted from an important game of `` horseshoes '' that was taking place in the sugar grove below Trentman 's shanty . Pitching horseshoes was the daily fair-weather pastime of the male population of the town . At one time or another during the course of the day , practically every man in the place came down to the grove to shy horseshoes at the stationary but amazingly elusive pegs .