three o'clock
Posting ten men and a corporal to guard the charred remains of the camp , and two small bodies to patrol the road east and west of the house and to keep a portion of the defence busy in the courtlage , the lieutenant led the remainder of his force through an orchard divided from the south end of the house by a narrow lane , over which a barn abutted . Its high blank wall had been loopholed on both floors and was quite unassailable , but its roof was of thatch . And as he studied it , keeping his men in cover , a happy inspiration occurred to him . He sent back to the camp for an oil-can and a parcel of cotton wadding , and by three o'clock had opened a brisk fire of flaming bullets on the thatch . Within twenty minutes the marksmen had it well ignited . Behind and close above it rose a gable of the house itself , with a solitary window overlooking the ridge , and their hope was that the wind would carry the fire from one building to another . Thatch well sodden with winter 's rain does not blaze or crackle .