twelve o'clock
Here , in an absence of mind to which he was prone , Mr. Gilfil would sometimes forget to take off his spurs before putting on his surplice , and only become aware of the omission by feeling something mysteriously tugging at the skirts of that garment as he stepped into the reading-desk . But the Knebley farmers would as soon have thought of criticizing the moon as their pastor . He belonged to the course of nature , like markets and toll-gates and dirty bank-notes ; and being a vicar , his claim on their veneration had never been counteracted by an exasperating claim on their pockets . Some of them , who did not indulge in the superfluity of a covered cart without springs , had dined half an hour earlier than usual -- that is to say , at twelve o'clock -- in order to have time for their long walk through miry lanes , and present themselves duly in their places at two o'clock , when Mr. Oldinport and Lady Felicia , to whom Knebley Church was a sort of family temple , made their way among the bows and curtsies of their dependants to a carved and canopied pew in the chancel , diffusing as they went a delicate odour of Indian roses on the unsusceptible nostrils of the congregation . The farmers ' wives and children sat on the dark oaken benches , but the husbands usually chose the distinctive dignity of a stall under one of the twelve apostles , where , when the alternation of prayers and responses had given place to the agreeable monotony of the sermon , Paterfamilias might be seen or heard sinking into a pleasant doze , from which he infallibly woke up at the sound of the concluding doxology . And then they made their way back again through the miry lanes , perhaps almost as much the better for this simple weekly tribute to what they knew of good and right , as many a more wakeful and critical congregation of the present day . Mr. Gilfil , too , used to make his way home in the later years of his life , for he had given up the habit of dining at Knebley Abbey on a Sunday , having , I am sorry to say , had a very bitter quarrel with Mr. Oldinport , the cousin and predecessor of the Mr. Oldinport who flourished in the Rev. Amos Barton 's time .