midnight
It looked to him highly disreputable : the coat was covered with mud , and the hat was all manner of shapes , with a gap between the side and crown . Lenny was puzzled , till it suddenly occurred to him that the gate through which the boy had passed was in the direct path across the park from a small town , the inhabitants of which were in very bad odour at the Hall , -- they had immemorially furnished the most daring poachers to the preserves , the most troublesome trespassers on the park , the most unprincipled orchard robbers , and the most disputatious asserters of various problematical rights of way , which , according to the Town , were public , and , according to the Hall , had been private since the Conquest . It was true that the same path led also directly from the squire 's house , but it was not probable that the wearer of attire so equivocal had been visiting there . All things considered , Lenny had no doubt in his mind but that the stranger was a shop-boy or ` prentice from the town of Thorndyke ; and the notorious repute of that town , coupled with this presumption , made it probable that Lenny now saw before him one of the midnight desecrators of the stocks . As if to confirm the suspicion , which passed through Lenny 's mind with a rapidity wholly disproportionate to the number of lines it costs me to convey it , the boy , now standing right before the stocks , bent down and read that pithy anathema with which it was defaced . And having read it , he repeated it aloud , and Lenny actually saw him smile , -- such a smile ! so disagreeable and sinister !