nine o'clock
`` Well , '' I said , `` if by any mischance His Majesty doth not come to-day , I will get back to town . '' He looked at me ; but he kept any kind of irony out of his face . `` You had best do that , '' he said . * * * * * Now it must have been forty miles from Newmarket to the Rye ; and I had calculated that His Majesty would not start till nine o'clock at the earliest . He would have four horses and would change them at least three times ; but they would not be able to go out of a trot for most of the way , so that I need not look for any news of him till three o'clock at the earliest . From then till five o'clock would be the time . If he were not come by five , or at the very latest half-past , I should know that my design had miscarried .