about midnight
The night was warm and clear , the moon and stars all threw their mellow light from a serene , unclouded sky , and the repose of nature in the short nights of this delightful season , resembles that of a young virgin of sixteen -- still , light , and glowing . Their way , for the most part of their journey , lay through a solitary mountain-road ; and , as they did not undertake the enterprise without a good stock of poteen , their light-hearted songs and choruses awoke the echoes that slept in the mountain glens as they went along . The adventure , it is true , had as much of frolic as of seriousness in it ; and merely as the means of a day 's fun for the boys , it was the more eagerly entered into . It was about midnight when they left home , and as they did not wish to arrive at the village to which they were bound , until the morning should be rather advanced , the journey was as slowly performed as possible . Every remarkable object on the way was noticed , and its history , if any particular association was connected with it , minutely detailed , whenever it happened to be known . When the sun rose , many beautiful green spots and hawthorn valleys excited , even from these unpolished and illiterate peasants , warm bursts of admiration at their fragrance and beauty . In some places , the dark flowery heath clothed the mountains to the tops , from which the gray mists , lit by a flood of light , and breaking into masses before the morning breeze , began to descend into the valleys beneath them ; whilst the voice of the grouse , the bleating of sheep and lambs , the pee-weet of the wheeling lap-wing , and the song of the lark threw life and animation the previous stillness of the country , sometimes a shallow river would cross the road winding off into a valley that was overhung , on one side , by rugged precipices clothed with luxurious heath and wild ash ; whilst on the other it was skirted by a long sweep of greensward , skimmed by the twittering swallow , over which lay scattered numbers of sheep , cows , brood mares , and colts -- many of them rising and stretching themselves ere they resumed their pasture , leaving the spots on which they lay of a deeper green .