midnight
This was felt even by Michael Lambourne , however alien his habits were to receiving any impressions , excepting from things which addressed themselves immediately to his passions . `` This wood is as dark as a wolf 's mouth , '' said he to Tressilian , as they walked together slowly along the solitary and broken approach , and had just come in sight of the monastic front of the old mansion , with its shafted windows , brick walls overgrown with ivy and creeping shrubs , and twisted stalks of chimneys of heavy stone-work . `` And yet , '' continued Lambourne , `` it is fairly done on the part of Foster too for since he chooses not visitors , it is right to keep his place in a fashion that will invite few to trespass upon his privacy . But had he been the Anthony I once knew him , these sturdy oaks had long since become the property of some honest woodmonger , and the manor-close here had looked lighter at midnight than it now does at noon , while Foster played fast and loose with the price , in some cunning corner in the purlieus of Whitefriars . '' `` Was he then such an unthrift ? '' asked Tressilian . `` He was , '' answered Lambourne , `` like the rest of us , no saint , and no saver .