twelve o'clock
`` Sure ! '' ejaculated the widow . `` Hae I no tasted his _ red whisky _ ; and has it no burned my throat till I maun ask Marion there to quench the fire wi ' a spark o ' human-liquor ? '' The fire in the two terror-struck women 's throats was soon extinguished by the `` spark '' they demanded ; and a conversation , composed of twenty voices at once , commenced , the essence of which was , that , on the occasion of the last Hogmanay , a man dressed in a peculiar manner , with a green doublet , and hose of the same colour , a cravat , and a blue bonnet , had , just as twelve o'clock pealed from the monastery clock , made his appearance in the town , and conducted himself in such a manner as to excite much wonder among the inhabitants . Everything about him was mysterious ; no person in that quarter had ever seen him before ; there was nobody along with him ; he came exactly at twelve ; his face was so much shaded by a peculiar manner of wearing his bonnet and cravat that no one could say he had ever got a proper view of his features ; he carried with him a bottle of liquor , which the people , from ignorance of its character , denominated _ red whisky _ , and which he distributed freely to all and sundry , without his stock ever running out , or being exhausted : his manners were free , boisterous , and hilarious ; and he possessed the extraordinary power of making people love him _ ad libitum _ . He came as he went , without any one knowing more of him than that he was the very prince of good fellows ; so exquisite a tosspot , that he seemed equal to the task -LRB- perhaps no difficult one -RRB- of making the whole town of Christ 's Kirk drunk by the extraordinary spirit of his example ; and so spirit-stirring a conjurer of odd thoughts and unrivalled humour , that melancholy itself laughed a gaunt laugh at his jokes ; and gizzened gammers and giddy hizzies were equally delighted with his devilry and his drink . Arriving in the midst of frolic as high as ordinary mortal spirits might be supposed able to sublime human exultation , he effected such an increase of the corrybantic power of the laughing and singing genius of Hogmanay , that `` Never in Scotland had been seen Sic dancing nor deray ; Nowther at Falkland on the green , Nor Peebles at the play . ''