eleven o'clock in the morning
Far and near there was not a tree visible , nor a touch of colour to tell of the saving grace of flowers . The brown mares swung the car along with something resembling enthusiasm ; Letterbeg was the end of their stage ; it was the end of ours also . Numb with long sitting we dropped cumbrously to earth from the high footboard , and found ourselves face to face with the problem of how to spend the next three hours . It was eleven o'clock in the morning , too early for lunch , though , apparently , quite the fashionable hour in Letterbeg for bottled porter , judging by the squeak of the corkscrew and the clash of glasses that issued from the dark interior of the house in front of which we had been shed by the mail-car . This was a long cottage with a prosperous slate roof , and a board over its narrow door announcing that one Jas . Heraty was licensed for the retail of spirits and porter . The mail-car rolled away ; as it crawled over the top of a hill and sank out of sight a last wave of the priestly hand seemed to include us .