midnight
Their teeth and claws were always ready for your flesh , if you did not give them enough , and if they dared to strike . And they were cowards , too , for all their boasting . Not even Sir William could get them to face any enemy in the open . Their notion of war was midnight skulking and shooting from behind safe cover . Even in battle they were murderers , not warriors . In peace they were next to useless . There was a little colony of them in our orchard one summer which I watched with much interest .