midnight
And all by the help of a few shillings dealt out to him this winter for the first time by Reuben , who gave them to him with a queer deprecating look and an injunction to keep the matter secret from Hannah . As to the use the lad made of them , Reuben was as ignorant as he was of all other practical affairs outside his own few acres . Spring came round again and the warm days of June . At Easter time David had made no further attempts to meet with Jenny Crum on her midnight wanderings . The whole tendency of his winter 's mental growth , as well perhaps of the matters brutally raised and crudely sifted in Jerry Timmins 's parlour , had been towards a harder and more sceptical habit of mind . For the moment the supernatural had no thrill in it for an intelligence full of contradictions . So the poor witch , if indeed she ` walked , ' revisited her place of pain unobserved of mortal eye .