midnight
`` I have tried many things , skunk-cabbage , wormwood , and a thousand things ; for it is truly a pity that the chief benefit of the thing should be lost for so little . But the only effect was , to spoil the good taste of the stuff , and , two or three times , to poison myself , so that I broke out all over blotches , and once lost the use of my left arm , and got a dizziness in the head , and a rheumatic twist in my knee , a hardness of hearing , and a dimness of sight , and the trembles ; all of which I certainly believe to have been caused by my putting something else into this blessed drink besides the good New England rum . Stick to that , Seppy , my dear . '' So saying , Aunt Keziah took yet another sip of the beloved liquid , after vainly pressing Septimius to do the like ; and then lighting her old clay pipe , she sat down in the chimney-corner , meditating , dreaming , muttering pious prayers and ejaculations , and sometimes looking up the wide flue of the chimney , with thoughts , perhaps , how delightful it must have been to fly up there , in old times , on excursions by midnight into the forest , where was the Black Man , and the Puritan deacons and ladies , and those wild Indian ancestors of hers ; and where the wildness of the forest was so grim and delightful , and so unlike the common-placeness in which she spent her life . For thus did the savage strain of the woman , mixed up as it was with the other weird and religious parts of her composition , sometimes snatch her back into barbarian life and its instincts ; and in Septimius , though further diluted , and modified likewise by higher cultivation , there was the same tendency . Septimius escaped from the old woman , and was glad to breathe the free air again ; so much had he been wrought upon by her wild legends and wild character , the more powerful by its analogy with his own ; and perhaps , too , his brain had been a little bewildered by the draught of her diabolical concoction which she had compelled him to take . At any rate , he was glad to escape to his hill-top , the free air of which had doubtless contributed to keep him in health through so long a course of morbid thought and estranged study as he had addicted himself to .