midnight
His friends notwithstanding gave him credit for great imperturbability ; but in such willfully undemonstrative men the evil burrows the more insidiously that it is masked by a constrained exterior . Godfrey , being an Englishman , and with land of his own , could not fail to be fond of horses . For his own use he kept two -- an indulgence disproportioned to his establishment ; for , although precise in his tastes as to equine toilet , he did not feel justified in the keeping of a groom for their use only . Hence it came that , now and then , strap and steel , as well as hide and hoof , would get partially neglected ; and his habits in the use of his horses being fitful -- sometimes , it would be midnight even , when he scoured from his home , seeking the comfort of desert as well as solitary places -- it is not surprising if at times , going to the stable to saddle one , he should find its gear not in the spick-and-span condition alone to his mind . It might then well happen there was no one near to help him , and there be nothing for it but to put his own hands to the work : he was too just to rouse one who might be nowise to blame , or send a maid to fetch him from field or barn , where he might be more importantly engaged . One night , meaning to start for a long ride early in the morning , he had gone to the stable to see how things were ; and , soon after , it happened that Letty , attending to some duty before going to bed , caught sight of him cleaning his stirrups : from that moment she took upon herself the silent and unsuspected supervision of the harness-room , where , when she found any part of the riding-equipments neglected , she would draw a pair of housemaid 's gloves on her pretty hands , and polish away like a horse-boy . Godfrey had begun to remark how long it was since he had found anything unfit , and to wonder at the improvement somewhere in the establishment , when , going hastily one morning , some months before the date of my narrative , into the harness-room to get a saddle , he came upon Letty , who had imagined him afield with the men : she was energetic upon a stirrup with a chain-polisher .