midnight
Since those days , no doubt , it had grown to be suspected that , in consequence of an unfortunate overdoing of a work praiseworthy in itself , the proceedings against the witches had proved far less acceptable to the Beneficent Father than to that very Arch Enemy whom they were intended to distress and utterly overwhelm . It is not the less certain , however , that awe and terror brooded over the memories of those who died for this horrible crime of witchcraft . Their graves , in the crevices of the rocks , were supposed to be incapable of retaining the occupants who had been so hastily thrust into them . Old Matthew Maule , especially , was known to have as little hesitation or difficulty in rising out of his grave as an ordinary man in getting out of bed , and was as often seen at midnight as living people at noonday . This pestilent wizard -LRB- in whom his just punishment seemed to have wrought no manner of amendment -RRB- had an inveterate habit of haunting a certain mansion , styled the House of the Seven Gables , against the owner of which he pretended to hold an unsettled claim for ground-rent . The ghost , it appears , -- with the pertinacity which was one of his distinguishing characteristics while alive , -- insisted that he was the rightful proprietor of the site upon which the house stood . His terms were , that either the aforesaid ground-rent , from the day when the cellar began to be dug , should be paid down , or the mansion itself given up ; else he , the ghostly creditor , would have his finger in all the affairs of the Pyncheons , and make everything go wrong with them , though it should be a thousand years after his death .