midnight
`` Thank Heaven we are here at last , '' Donald Leslie said , `` for a harder night I have never spent . I think we must be in time . '' `` I think so , '' William Long said . `` Supposing the Royalist made the bay safely , she would have been there by midnight , but the sea would have been so high that I doubt if they would have launched a boat till morning . It was light by five , but they might wait for the gale to abate a little , and after landing they have eight miles to come . Of course , they might have passed here an hour ago , but a incline to think that they would not land till later , as with this wind blowing off shore , it would be no easy matter to row a boat in its teeth . '' The guide saying that there was a cottage a mile further up the valley , he was sent there with instructions to ask whether any one had been seen to pass that morning .