nine in the morning
Stoke glanced at his watch and took up his bag -- a new bag hurriedly bought in Falmouth -- stuffed full of a few necessities pressed upon him by kind persons at St. Keverne when he stood among them in the clothes in which he had swum ashore , which had dried upon him during a long November night . There was just time to catch the night mail to Penzance . Heaven was kind to him and gave him no time to think . The coach leaves Penzance at nine in the morning for a two hours ' climb over bare moorland to St. Just -- a little grey , remote town on the western sea . The loneliness of the hills is emphasized here and there by the ruin of an abandoned mine . St. Just itself , the very acme of remoteness , is yearly diminishing in importance and population , sending forth her burrowing sons to those places in the world where silver and copper and gold lie hid . The coastguard captain was awaiting Stoke 's arrival in the little deserted square where the Penzance omnibus deposits its passengers .