twelve
o’clock
They had the advantage , of course , of being sober . They advanced at a run , and their tramp was heard just as George was beginning to try the effect of his eloquence . Panic and scattering flight at once followed , not , however , before some dozen or so of the fugitives had recovered what little sense they ever had by virtue of sundry hard knocks on their skulls , and a dozen more or so had been captured . By twelve o'clock Cowfold was quiet and peaceable . Citizens were left to wonder how their town , lying usually so sleepily still , like a farmyard on a summer Sunday afternoon , could ever transform itself after this fashion . Men unknown and never before seen seemed suddenly to spring out of the earth , and as suddenly to disappear . Who were they ?