eight o'clock
Then the tramp , tramp again . As the outside gangs passed through the gate , each officer in charge received his rifle , bayonet , belt , and cartridge-box from the armorer at the lodge . The stone-dressing gang passed close under the window , and Hugh Ritson reeled back as one of the men -- a stalwart fellow in a blue cap , who was walking abreast of a misshapen creature with a face full of ferocity -- lifted his eyes upward from the file . At eight o'clock the governor appeared at his receiving-office . He was a slight man with the face and figure of a greyhound . His military frock-coat was embossed with Crimean medals , and he was redolent of the odor of Whitehall . He received Hugh Ritson 's papers with a curious mixture of easy courtesy and cold dignity -- a sort of combination of the different manners in which he was wont to bow to a secretary of state and condemn a convict to the chain and bread and water .