midnight
`` He would always see to the fastenings of the house with his own eyes , '' Mrs. Tadman said ; `` but up to last autumn he used to go upstairs with me and the servants . It 's a new thing for him to sit up drinking his glass of grog in the parlour by himself . '' The new habit seemed to grow upon Mr. Whitelaw more rapidly after that visit of the stranger 's . He took to sitting up till midnight -- an awful hour in a farm-house ; and Ellen generally found the spirit-bottle empty in the morning . Night after night , he went to bed soddened with drink . Once , when his kinswoman made some feeble remonstrance with him about this change in his habits , he told her savagely to hold her tongue -- he could afford to drink as much as he pleased -- he was n't likely to come upon _ her _ to pay for what he took . As for his wife , she unhappily cared nothing what he did .