sat at midnight
The night season , simply because it excludes the external , is prolific in such . The more of the marvellous any one may have experienced in the course of his history , the more sceptical ought he to become , for he is the more exposed to delusion . None have made more blunders in the course of their revelations than genuine seers . Was it any wonder that , as I sat at midnight beside the woman of a hundred years , who had voluntarily died for a time that she might discover what most of all things it concerned me to know , the ancient tale , on which , to her mind , my whole history turned , and which she had herself told me in this very cottage , should take visible shape to my excited brain and watching eyes ? I have one thing more to tell , which strengthens still further this view of the matter . As I walked home , before I had gone many hundred yards from the cottage , I suddenly came upon my own old Constancy . He was limping about , picking the best grass he could find from among the roots of the heather and cranberry bushes .