twenty minutes to four
These vans , so numerous hereabout , are a respectable , if somewhat lumbering , class of conveyance , much resorted to by decent travellers not overstocked with money , the better among them roughly corresponding to the old French _ diligences _ . The present one is timed to leave the town at four in the afternoon precisely , and it is now half-past three by the clock in the turret at the top of the street . In a few seconds errand-boys from the shops begin to arrive with packages , which they fling into the vehicle , and turn away whistling , and care for the packages no more . At twenty minutes to four an elderly woman places her basket upon the shafts , slowly mounts , takes up a seat inside , and folds her hands and her lips . She has secured her corner for the journey , though there is as yet no sign of a horse being put in , nor of a carrier . At the three-quarters , two other women arrive , in whom the first recognizes the postmistress of Upper Longpuddle and the registrar 's wife , they recognizing her as the aged groceress of the same village . At five minutes to the hour there approach Mr. Profitt , the schoolmaster , in a soft felt hat , and Christopher Twink , the master-thatcher ; and as the hour strikes there rapidly drop in the parish clerk and his wife , the seedsman and his aged father , the registrar ; also Mr. Day , the world-ignored local landscape-painter , an elderly man who resides in his native place , and has never sold a picture outside it , though his pretensions to art have been nobly supported by his fellow - villagers , whose confidence in his genius has been as remarkable as the outer neglect of it , leading them to buy his paintings so extensively -LRB- at the price of a few shillings each , it is true -RRB- that every dwelling in the parish exhibits three or four of those admired productions on its walls .