three o'clock in the afternoon
Owing to the social isolation and unpopularity of the man , the proceedings against him would be likely to excite very little sympathy or agitation of any kind , and having thus got the machinery of the law once more into operation , it would be easy enough to proceed thereafter , without fear or favor , against all classes of debtors and evil-doers in the good old way . Moreover , it had long been the intention of those having the interest of Zion at heart to `` freeze out '' David by this very process , and to that end considerable sanctified shrewdness had been expended in getting him into debt . So that by enforcing the sale in his case , two birds would , so to speak , be killed with one stone , and the political and spiritual interests of the parish be coincidently furthered , making it altogether an undertaking on which the blessing of Heaven might be reasonably looked for . At three o'clock in the afternoon the sale took place . Everything worked as the Squire had expected . It being the general popular supposition that there were to be no more sheriffs ' sales , there were no persons present at the auction save the officers of the law and the gentlemen who were to bid . Only here and there an astonished face peered out of a window at the proceedings , and a knot of loafers , who had been boozing away the afternoon , stood staring in the door of the tavern .