four o'clock in the morning
There had not been a boxer in the neighbourhood like Robert Eccles , nor such a champion in all games , nor , when he set himself to it , such an invincible drinker . It was he who thrashed the brute , Nic Sedgett , for stabbing with his clasp-knife Harry Boulby , son of the landlady of the Pilot Inn ; thrashed him publicly , to the comfort of all Warbeach . He had rescued old Dame Garble from her burning cottage , and made his father house the old creature , and worked at farming , though he hated it , to pay for her subsistence . He vindicated the honour of Warbeach by drinking a match against a Yorkshire skipper till four o'clock in the morning , when it was a gallant sight , my boys , to see Hampshire steadying the defeated North-countryman on his astonished zigzag to his flattish-bottomed billyboy , all in the cheery sunrise on the river -- yo-ho ! ahoy ! Glorious Robert had tried , first the sea , and then soldiering . Now let us hope he 'll settle to farming , and follow his rare old father 's ways , and be back among his own people for good .