One o'clock
After placing the little creature with its mother , he stood and carefully examined the sky , to ascertain the time of night from the altitudes of the stars . The Dog-star and Aldebaran , pointing to the restless Pleiades , were half-way up the Southern sky , and between them hung Orion , which gorgeous constellation never burnt more vividly than now , as it soared forth above the rim of the landscape . Castor and Pollux with their quiet shine were almost on the meridian : the barren and gloomy Square of Pegasus was creeping round to the north-west ; far away through the plantation Vega sparkled like a lamp suspended amid the leafless trees , and Cassiopeia 's chair stood daintily poised on the uppermost boughs . `` One o'clock , '' said Gabriel . Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there was some charm in this life he led , he stood still after looking at the sky as a useful instrument , and regarded it in an appreciative spirit , as a work of art superlatively beautiful . For a moment he seemed impressed with the speaking loneliness of the scene , or rather with the complete abstraction from all its compass of the sights and sounds of man . Human shapes , interferences , troubles , and joys were all as if they were not , and there seemed to be on the shaded hemisphere of the globe no sentient being save himself ; he could fancy them all gone round to the sunny side .