about midnight
`` The old lady was on my side and helped things along . I had everything fixed even to the moon which was shinin ' jes ' bright enough to carry us to the Justice 's without a lantern , some three miles away , an ' into the nex ' county . `` I 'll never forgit how the night looked as I rode over after her , how the wild-flowers smelt , an ' the fresh dew on the leaves . I remember that I even heard a mockin ' - bird wake up about midnight as I tied my hoss to a lim ' in the orchard nearby , an ' slipped aroun ' to meet Kathleen at the bars behin ' the house . It was a half mile to the house an ' I was slippin ' through the sugar-maple trees along the path we 'd both walked so often befo ' when I saw what I thought was Kathleen comin ' towards me . I ran to meet her . It wa 'n' t Kathleen , but her mother -- an ' she told me to git in a hurry , that the old man knew all , had locked Kathleen up in the kitchen , turned the brindle dog loose in the yard , an ' was hidin ' in the woods nigh the barn , with his gun loaded with bird-shot , an ' that if I went any further the chances were I 'd not sit down agin for a year .