midnight
Can it be the severely virtuous Father Clement who advises his child to aim at , or even to think of , the possession of a throne and a bed which can not become vacant but by an act of crying injustice to the present possessor ? Can it be the wise reformer of the church who wishes to rest a scheme , in itself so unjust , upon a foundation so precarious ? Since when is it , good father , that the principal libertine has altered his morals so much , to be likely to court in honourable fashion the daughter of a Perth artisan ? Two days must have wrought this change ; for only that space has passed since he was breaking into my father 's house at midnight , with worse mischief in his mind than that of a common robber . And think you that , if Rothsay 's heart could dictate so mean a match , he could achieve such a purpose without endangering both his succession and his life , assailed by the Douglas and March at the same time , for what they must receive as an act of injury and insult to both their houses ? Oh ! Father Clement , where was your principle , where your prudence , when they suffered you to be bewildered by so strange a dream , and placed the meanest of your disciples in the right thus to reproach you ? ''