How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The kitchen was small and full of firelight; red coals piled glowing up the chimney mouth. All the life of the room seemed in the white, warm hearth and the steel fender reflecting the red fire. The cloth was laid for tea; cups glinted in the shadows. At the back, where the lowest stairs protruded into the room, the boy sat struggling with a knife and a piece of whitewood. He was almost hidden in the shadow. It was half-past four. They had but to await the father's coming to begin tea. (1.36)
The clock helps the reader keep track of the rather considerable leaps in time that take place in a relatively short time period. This is the first mention of the time, which occurs after Elizabeth and John have headed back inside to wait for Walter and Annie to show up.
Quote #2
Her mother chid her for coming late from school, and said she would have to keep her at home the dark winter days.
"Why, mother, it's hardly a bit dark yet. The lamp's not lighted, and my father's not home."
''No, he isn't. But it's a quarter to five! Did you see anything of him?" (1.39-41)
This is the second time update in the story. As you can see, not much time has passed in the three paragraphs since we got the first timestamp.
Quote #3
She looked at the children. Their eyes and their parted lips were wondering. The mother sat rocking in silence for some time. Then she looked at the clock.
"Twenty minutes to six!" In a tone of fine bitter carelessness she continued: "Eh, he'll not come now till they bring him. There he'll stick! But he needn't come rolling in here in his pit-dirt, for I won't wash him. He can lie on the floor— Eh, what a fool I've been, what a fool! And this is what I came here for, to this dirty hole, rats and all, for him to slink past his very door. Twice last week—he's begun now—." (1.77-78)
With it now being twenty to six (our third time update), Elizabeth realizes that her husband is likely not coming home (without knowing the reason). Although she claims to be giving up on his arrival, her continued attention to the clock throughout the story tells a different tale . . .
Quote #4
While for an hour or more the children played, subduedly intent, fertile of imagination, united in fear of the mother's wrath, and in dread of their father's home-coming, Mrs Bates sat in her rocking-chair making a "singlet" of thick cream-coloured flannel, which gave a dull wounded sound as she tore off the grey edge. (1.80)
Even when Elizabeth isn't keeping a close eye on the clock, Lawrence is careful to give us a sense of how much time has elapsed. Apparently everyone was sitting there on pins and needles (but supposedly amusing themselves) for an hour. Yikes.
Quote #5
"It is time for bed," said the mother. (1.86)
The kids' bedtime releases them from the awkwardness/anxiety of sitting with their mother as she fumes/worries about her husband's absence.
Quote #6
The clock struck eight and she rose suddenly, dropping her sewing on her chair. She went to the stairfoot door, opened it, listening. Then she went out, locking the door behind her. (2.1)
Almost four hours after the story began, Elizabeth is giving into her anxiety and going out to look for her husband. Perhaps her attention to the clock suggests that there's something about the length of time he's been gone that gives her more cause to be concerned than she has been typically?
Quote #7
The house was quiet. Elizabeth Bates took off her hat and shawl, and rolled back the rug. When she had finished, she sat down. It was a few minutes past nine. She was startled by the rapid chuff of the winding-engine at the pit, and the sharp whirr of the brakes on the rope as it descended. Again she felt the painful sweep of her blood, and she put her hand to her side, saying aloud, "Good gracious!—it's only the nine o'clock deputy going down," rebuking herself. (2.37)
Elizabeth is still jumpy and counting the minutes/hours, noting that a sound in the distance indicates a deputy is going down into the mine as part of a regular check.
Quote #8
At a quarter to ten there were footsteps. One person! She watched for the door to open. It was an elderly woman, in a black bonnet and a black woollen shawl—his mother. (2.41)
In yet another time update, we learn that it's nearly 10. Elizabeth listens to the sound of an approaching person expectantly, but it turns out to be Walter's mother. This is when Elizabeth learns that something (we don't yet know what) has happened to Walter.
Quote #9
It was half-past ten, and the old woman was saying: "But it's trouble from beginning to end; you're never too old for trouble, never too old for that—" when the gate banged back, and there were heavy feet on the steps. (2.58)
Just a short time later, a man arrives to tell Elizabeth and her mother-in-law that Walter has passed. Apparently, the older woman spent at least 30 minutes contemplating how her son went bad, which probably wasn't the most entertaining thing for Elizabeth to listen to when she was already nervous.
Quote #10
"The doctor says 'e'd been dead hours. 'E saw 'im i' th' lamp-cabin." (2.63)
It's entirely possible that the clock references have been there not only to mark how long the family has been waiting, but also how long Walter's had been trapped. From what the men from the mine say, it seems that the incident that killed Walter must have occurred right around the time the story opened.