five o’clock
It was a sorrowful farewell . They were all crying ; the children hung about Agnes to the last ; and we left poor Mrs. Micawber in a very distressed condition , sobbing and weeping by a dim candle , that must have made the room look , from the river , like a miserable light-house . I went down again next morning to see that they were away . They had departed , in a boat , as early as five o'clock . It was a wonderful instance to me of the gap such partings make , that although my association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden stairs dated only from last night , both seemed dreary and deserted , now that they were gone . In the afternoon of the next day , my old nurse and I went down to Gravesend . We found the ship in the river , surrounded by a crowd of boats ; a favourable wind blowing ; the signal for sailing at her mast-head .