ten o’clock in the evening
She knew best , you see , sir . I started directly , by the rector 's orders . ' Fifteen months have passed , and we are brought on to Midsummer Night , 1867 . The picture presented is the interior of the old belfry of Carriford Church , at ten o'clock in the evening . Six Carriford men and one stranger are gathered there , beneath the light of a flaring candle stuck on a piece of wood against the wall . The six Carriford men are the well-known ringers of the fine-toned old bells in the key of F , which have been music to the ears of Carriford parish and the outlying districts for the last four hundred years . The stranger is an assistant , who has appeared from nobody knows where .