three o'clock
Harthover Place was really a grand place , even for the rich North country ; with a park full of deer , which Tom believed to be monsters who were in the habit of eating children ; with miles of game-preserves , in which Mr. Grimes and the collier lads poached at times , on which occasions Tom saw pheasants , and wondered what they tasted like ; with a noble salmon-river , in which Mr. Grimes and his friends would have liked to poach ; but then they must have got into cold water , and that they did not like at all . In short , Harthover was a grand place , and Sir John a grand old man , whom even Mr. Grimes respected ; for not only could he send Mr. Grimes to prison when he deserved it , as he did once or twice a week ; not only did he own all the land about for miles ; not only was he a jolly , honest , sensible squire , as ever kept a pack of hounds , who would do what he thought right by his neighbours , as well as get what he thought right for himself ; but , what was more , he weighed full fifteen stone , was nobody knew how many inches round the chest , and could have thrashed Mr. Grimes himself in fair fight , which very few folk round there could do , and which would not have been right for him to do , as a great many things are not which one both can do , and would like very much to do . So Mr. Grimes touched his hat to him when he rode through the town . Now , I dare say , you never got up at three o'clock on a midsummer morning . Some people get up then because they want to catch salmon ; and some because they want to climb Alps ; and a great many more because they must , like Tom . But , I assure you , that three o'clock on a midsummer morning is the pleasantest time of all the twenty-four hours , and all the three hundred and sixty-five days ; and why every one does not get up then , I never could tell , save that they are all determined to spoil their nerves and their complexions by doing all night what they might just as well do all day . But Tom , instead of going out to dinner at half-past eight at night , and to a ball at ten , and finishing off somewhere between twelve and four , went to bed at seven , when his master went to the public-house , and slept like a dead pig ; for which reason he was as piert as a game-cock -LRB- who always gets up early to wake the maids -RRB- , and just ready to get up when the fine gentlemen and ladies were just ready to go to bed .