two o'clock in the
morning
My surprise and perplexity were great on discovering , by touch more than vision , Miss Isabella 's springer , Fanny , suspended by a handkerchief , and nearly at its last gasp . I quickly released the animal , and lifted it into the garden . I had seen it follow its mistress up-stairs when she went to bed ; and wondered much how it could have got out there , and what mischievous person had treated it so . While untying the knot round the hook , it seemed to me that I repeatedly caught the beat of horses ' feet galloping at some distance ; but there were such a number of things to occupy my reflections that I hardly gave the circumstance a thought : though it was a strange sound , in that place , at two o'clock in the morning . Mr. Kenneth was fortunately just issuing from his house to see a patient in the village as I came up the street ; and my account of Catherine Linton 's malady induced him to accompany me back immediately . He was a plain rough man ; and he made no scruple to speak his doubts of her surviving this second attack ; unless she were more submissive to his directions than she had shown herself before . ` Nelly Dean , ' said he , ` I ca n't help fancying there 's an extra cause for this .