nine o'clock
For , in the breasts of many , revenge for the misery and alarm of the past winter took a deeper and more ferocious form than Daniel had thought of when he made his proposal of a rescue . To him it was an adventure like many he had been engaged in in his younger days ; indeed , the liquor he had drunk had given him a fictitious youth for the time ; and it was more in the light of a rough frolic of which he was to be the leader , that he limped along -LRB- always lame from old attacks of rheumatism -RRB- , chuckling to himself at the apparent stillness of the town , which gave no warning to the press-gang at the Rendezvous of anything in the wind . Daniel , too , had his friends to summon ; old hands like himself , but ` deep uns ' , also , like himself , as he imagined . It was nine o'clock when all who were summoned met at the church steps ; and by nine o'clock , Monkshaven , in those days , was more quiet and asleep than many a town at present is at midnight . The church and churchyard above them were flooded with silver light , for the moon was high in the heavens : the irregular steps were here and there in pure white clearness , here and there in blackest shadow . But more than half way up to the top , men clustered like bees ; all pressing so as to be near enough to question those who stood nearest to the planning of the attack . Here and there , a woman , with wild gestures and shrill voice , that no entreaty would hush down to the whispered pitch of the men , pushed her way through the crowd -- this one imploring immediate action , that adjuring those around her to smite and spare not those who had carried off her ` man ' , -- the father , the breadwinner .