three
o'clock
The air was as clear as crystal . Joe had been gone since dawn with Henry Price . The wind had been blowing hard from the north for a dozen hours , and , as the saying is , had kicked up a sea . On the shoal the waves were rolling heavily , and since three o'clock the tide had been running against the wind , and the seas had been broken every way . But to Henry Price , and with that boat , rough seas , from March to November , were only what a rude mountain road would be to you or me . If his wife , toward afternoon , shading her eyes at the south door , ever felt anxious about him , it was a woman 's foolish fear ; it was only because she thought with concern of that -- internal neuralgia was it ? -- which her husband brought back from the war ; which seized him at rare intervals and enfeebled him for days .