about four in
the afternoon
However this may be , though I was brave as a lion by day , and used indeed to frequent the churchyard , because there was the widest view of the sea to be obtained from it , yet no reward would have taken me thither at night . Nor was I myself without some witness to the tale , for having to walk to Ringstave for Dr. Hawkins on the night my aunt broke her leg , I took the path along the down which overlooks the churchyard at a mile off ; and thence most certainly saw a light moving to and fro about the church , where no honest man could be at two o'clock in the morning . Then banks came down with ruin and rout , Then beaten spray flew round about , Then all the mighty floods were out , And all the world was in the sea _ -- Jean Ingelow _ On the third of November , a few days after this visit to the Why Not ? , the wind , which had been blowing from the south-west , began about four in the afternoon to rise in sudden strong gusts . The rooks had been pitch-falling all the morning , so we knew that bad weather was due ; and when we came out from the schooling that Mr. Glennie gave us in the hall of the old almshouses , there were wisps of thatch , and even stray tiles , flying from the roofs , and the children sang : Blow wind , rise storm , Ship ashore before morn . It is heathenish rhyme that has come down out of other and worse times ; for though I do not say but that a wreck on Moonfleet beach was looked upon sometimes as little short of a godsend , yet I hope none of us were so wicked as to _ wish _ a vessel to be wrecked that we might share in the plunder . Indeed , I have known the men of Moonfleet risk their own lives a hundred times to save those of shipwrecked mariners , as when the _ Darius _ , East Indiaman , came ashore ; nay , even poor nameless corpses washed up were sure of Christian burial , or perhaps of one of Master Ratsey 's headstones to set forth sex and date , as may be seen in the churchyard to this day .