about two o'clock in the afternoon
Here the captain of a merchantman agreed to let him work his passage to Bristol , whence he again walked and begged into London . Without taking rest or food , Shamus proceeded to London Bridge , often put out of his course by wrong directions , and as often by forgetting and misconceiving true ones . It was with old London Bridge that Shamus had to do -LRB- not the old one last pulled down , but its more reverend predecessor -RRB- , which , at that time , was lined at either side by quaintly fashioned houses , mostly occupied by shopkeepers , so that the space between presented perhaps the greatest thoroughfare then known in the Queen of Cities . And at about two o'clock in the afternoon , barefooted , ragged , fevered , and agitated , Shamus mingled with the turbid human stream , that roared and chafed over the as restless and as evanescent stream which buffeted the arches of old London Bridge . In a situation so novel to him , so much more extraordinary in the reality than his anticipation could have fancied , the poor and friendless stranger felt overwhelmed . A sense of forlornness , of insignificance , and of terror seized upon his faculties . From the stare or the sneers or the jostle of the iron-nerved crowd he shrank with glances of wild timidity , and with a heart as wildly timid as were his looks .