midnight
Finally , to the great joy of nervous people , the last sensation came -- Perry Whaley had left Chester to be a preacher . Judge Whaley now grew old rapidly , and meek and careless of his attire . In an old pair of slippers , glove-less and abstracted , he crossed the court-house green , no longer the first gentleman in the county in courteous accost and lofty tone . He read his Bible in the seclusion of his own house , and fishermen on the river coming in after midnight saw the lamp-light stream through the chinks of his shutters , and said : `` He has never been the same since Perry went away . '' But he read in the religious papers of the genius and power of the absent one , roving like a young hermit loosened , and with a tongue of flame over the length and breadth of the country , producing extraordinary excitement and adding thousands to his humble denomination . On Christmas Day the Judge was sitting in his great room reading the same mystic book , and listening , with a wistfulness that had never left him , to every infrequent footfall in the street . There came a knock at the door .