six o'clock in the
morning
In the east a sullen sky was all blotched with crimson , some pine-trees on the heights were struck against it , intensely black , intensely melancholy , perhaps because they led the mind to dwell on wild , remote , and solitary places , the savagery of old forests , the cruel destiny of man , who has come after and must go before the dead things of the wood . There was no wind ; the landscape swooned in frost . `` My faith ! 't is an odd and dolorous world at six o'clock in the morning , '' thought Count Victor ; `` I wish I were asleep in Cammercy and all well . '' A young fallow-deer stood under an oak-tree , lifting its head to gaze without dismay , almost a phantom ; every moment the dawn spread wider ; at last the sea showed , leaden in the bay , mists revealed themselves upon Ben Ime . Of sound there was only the wearying plunge of the cascades and the roll of the shallows like tumbril-wheels on causeway as the river ran below the arches . `` Far yet , monsieur ? ''