ten o'clock
In short , he settled it wisely that the fishers of fish must yield to the habits of fish , which can not be corrected ; but the fishers of men -LRB- who can live without catching them -RRB- need not be up to all their hours , but may take them reasonably . His parishioners -- who could do very well without him , as far as that goes , all the week , and by no means wanted him among their boats -- joyfully left him to his own time of day , and no more worried him out of season than he worried them so . It became a matter of right feeling with them not to ring a big bell , which the rector had put up to challenge everybody 's spiritual need , until the stable clock behind the bell had struck ten and finished gurgling . For this reason , on St. Swithin 's morn , in the said year 1782 , the grannies , wives , and babes of Flamborough , who had been to help the launch , but could not pull the laboring oar , nor even hold the tiller , spent the time till ten o'clock in seeing to their own affairs -- the most laudable of all pursuits for almost any woman . And then , with some little dispute among them -LRB- the offspring of the merest accident -RRB- , they arrived in some force at the gate of Dr. Upround , and no woman liked to pull the bell , and still less to let another woman do it for her . But an old man came up who was quite deaf , and every one asked him to do it . In spite of the scarcity of all good things , Mrs. Cockscroft had thoroughly fed the little stranger , and washed him , and undressed him , and set him up in her own bed , and wrapped him in her woollen shawl , because he shivered sadly ; and there he stared about with wondering eyes , and gave great orders -- so far as his new nurse could make out -- but speaking gibberish , as she said , and flying into a rage because it was out of Christian knowledge .