midnight
Still others keep coming up . Like wildfire the news has spread that the mother of the murdered man is herself stricken down . This , acting as a fresh stimulus to sympathy , brings back such of the searchers as had gone home ; many starting from beds to which they had betaken themselves after the day 's fatigue . It is past midnight , and the crowd collected around the cottage is greater than ever . As one after another arrives upon the ground they step across the threshold , enter the chamber of death , and look upon the corpse , whose pale face seems to make mute appeal to them for justice . After gazing on it for an instant , their anger with difficulty subdued in the solemn presence of death , each comes out muttering a resolve there shall be both justice and vengeance , many loudly vociferating it with the added emphasis of an oath . It does not need what Simeon Woodley has in store to incite them to action .