twelve o'clock
Nor were these mimes limited to the urchin caste ; for , in these days , wisdom had not got so conceited as to be ashamed of innocent mirth ; and gaucy queens and stalwarth chiels exhibited their superiority only in acting a higher mask , and singing a loftier strain . The gossips did not hesitate to suspend the honeyed topic , to give sage counsel on the subject of the masking `` bulziements ; '' and anon they turned a side look at the minor actors , the imps of devilry , who passed along with their smoking horns often made of the stem or `` runt '' of a winter cabbage , wherewith that night they would inevitably smoke out of `` house and hauld '' every devil 's lamb of every gossip that did not open her hand and `` deal her bread '' to the guysers . Both parties , gossips and urchins , understood each other -- like two belligerent powers asserting mutual rights , and contemplating each other with that look of half-concealed contention and defiance , which only tended to make the attack more inevitable . The evening set in , and the witching hour -- the keystone of night 's black arch , twelve o'clock -- was approaching . To go to bed on such an occasion , would have been held no better than for a jolly toper to shirk his bicker , a lover to eschew the trysting thorn , or a warrior to fly the scene of his country 's glory ; neither would it have been safe , for no good guyser of the old school would take the excuse of being in bed in lieu of the buttered pease-bannock -- the true hogmanay cake , to which he was entitled , by `` the auld use and wont '' of Scotland ; and far better breathe the smoke of the `` smeikin horn '' on foot , and with the means of self-defence at command , than lie choked in bed , and `` deaved '' by the stock and horn , the squalling bagpipe , and the eternal -- `` Hery , Hary , Hubblischow , See ye not quha is come now ! '' ringing in one 's ears during the whole night . The young were out ; the old were in ; but all were equally up and doing the honours of the occasion .