about twelve o'clock
at night
`` Na -- ye needna stir aboot the kail-pot in that way -- ye 'll find naething there but a fine bit o ' the dead braxy I gat frae the guidman o ' Gilchristland , for helping the mistress wi ' her kirn , that wadna mak butter ; but there are folks that ye dinna suspect , and that are maybe no that far off either , wha could very weel tell ye gin they liked whar yer braw gimmer yows gang till . '' Being pushed to be more particular , they were seemingly compelled at last to intimate that auld Isbel Kirk , she and her friend , Nanny Nivison , could give an account of the stolen sheep , if they liked . The guidman would not credit such allegations ; but the old women persisted in their averment , and even offered to give the guidman of Barmoor occular demonstration of the guilt of the twa _ saunts _ , as they called them . A few days passed , and still a lamb or an old sheep would disappear -- they melted away gradually , and the guidman began to think that his flocks must be bewitched , and that the devil himself must keep a kitchen somewhere about the Chaise Craig , over which Archy Tait had often seen the _ old gentleman _ driving six-in-hand about twelve o'clock at night . Returning , therefore , one morning to the M'Dermots , and renewing the conversation respecting Isbel Kirk and Nanny Nivison , it was agreed that one of the Irish sisterhood should walk over to Isbel 's with him next forenoon , and that she would give him evidence of the fate of his flocks . Isbel was sitting before her door , in the sunshine of a fine spring morning , when the guidman and Esther M'Dermot arrived . She welcomed them kindly into her small but clean and neat cottage ; and , with all the despatch which her blindness would permit of , dusted for their use an old-fashioned chair , and a round stool , which served the double purpose of stool and table .