eleven o’clock precisely
Indeed , it needed no very great stretch of fancy to detect in it other resemblances to humanity . The bricks of which it was built had originally been a deep dark red , but had grown yellow and discoloured like an old man 's skin ; the sturdy timbers had decayed like teeth ; and here and there the ivy , like a warm garment to comfort it in its age , wrapt its green leaves closely round the time-worn walls . It was a hale and hearty age though , still : and in the summer or autumn evenings , when the glow of the setting sun fell upon the oak and chestnut trees of the adjacent forest , the old house , partaking of its lustre , seemed their fit companion , and to have many good years of life in him yet . The evening with which we have to do , was neither a summer nor an autumn one , but the twilight of a day in March , when the wind howled dismally among the bare branches of the trees , and rumbling in the wide chimneys and driving the rain against the windows of the Maypole Inn , gave such of its frequenters as chanced to be there at the moment an undeniable reason for prolonging their stay , and caused the landlord to prophesy that the night would certainly clear at eleven o'clock precisely , -- which by a remarkable coincidence was the hour at which he always closed his house . The name of him upon whom the spirit of prophecy thus descended was John Willet , a burly , large-headed man with a fat face , which betokened profound obstinacy and slowness of apprehension , combined with a very strong reliance upon his own merits . It was John Willet 's ordinary boast in his more placid moods that if he were slow he was sure ; which assertion could , in one sense at least , be by no means gainsaid , seeing that he was in everything unquestionably the reverse of fast , and withal one of the most dogged and positive fellows in existence -- always sure that what he thought or said or did was right , and holding it as a thing quite settled and ordained by the laws of nature and Providence , that anybody who said or did or thought otherwise must be inevitably and of necessity wrong . Mr Willet walked slowly up to the window , flattened his fat nose against the cold glass , and shading his eyes that his sight might not be affected by the ruddy glow of the fire , looked abroad .