a quarter to eight
When I had reached the farm and looked round the low , dark room with its one window , a foot from the ground and two from the ceiling , I only thought that I should be out-of-doors all the time . It amused me that I could touch the ceiling with my head by standing on tiptoe , and I laughed at the framed `` presentation plates '' from old Christmas numbers on the walls . These things are merely curious when the sun is shining and it is high May , and one is free to do the desired work after twenty years in a galley . At a quarter to eight that evening I saw the sun set behind the hills . As I wandered reflectively down the lane that goes towards Challis Court , a blackbird was singing ecstatically in a high elm ; here and there a rabbit popped out and sat up , the picture of precocious curiosity . Nature seemed to be standing in her doorway for a careless half-hour 's gossip , before putting up the shutters to bar the robbers who would soon be about their work of the night . It was still quite light as I strolled back over the Common , and I chose a path that took me through a little spinney of ash , oak , and beech , treading carefully to avoid crushing the tender crosiers of bracken that were just beginning to break their way through the soil .