About four
o'clock
I was not on Sultan , and when I rode out of Lichfield I hugged that simple fact to my heart . So much of my dream had at least not come true , and I gave the lie to more of it by leaving the high road and wandering devious ways till , within four or five miles of home , I left even the by-ways and kept to the fields . So keen was I on my little stratagems that I rode over the Upper Hanyards without once recalling the fact that it was now mine as it had been my father 's before me . About four o'clock on a December day , just over a year since leaving home , I leaped the mare over a hedge and was at the old gate . More of the dream was untrue . The winter sun was dropping down to the hill-tops like a great carbuncle set in gold , and the Hanyards was all aglow in its flaming rays . The gate was open , so that I could at least begin by pitching into Joe Braggs for his negligence , and the windows of the house-place shimmered a welcome because of the cheerful blaze within .