about twelve
o'clock
Many of the women sobbed aloud , and the children were moved , as I was myself , and as I have often heard them in their manhood tell , as if the spirit of faith and fortitude had entered into the very bones and marrow of their bodies ; nor ever afterwards have I heard psalm sung with such melodious energy of holiness as that pious congregation of simple country folk sung the hundred and fortieth psalm before departing for their lowly dwellings on that solemn evening . It was on the Wednesday that my father came home from Edinburgh . On Friday the farmer lads and their fathers continued coming over to our house to hear the news , and all their discourse was concerning the manifest foretaste of papistry which was in the praying of the prayers , that an obdurate prince and an alien Arminian prelate were attempting to thrust into their mouths , and every one spoke of renewing the Solemn League and Covenant , which , in the times of the Reformation and the dangers of the Spanish Armada , had achieved such great things for THE TRUTH AND THE WORD . On Saturday , Mr Sundrum , our minister , called for my father about twelve o'clock . He had heard the news , and also that my father had come back . I was doing something on the green , I forget now what it was , when I saw him coming towards the door , and I ran into the house to tell my father , who immediately came out to meet him . Little passed in my hearing between them , for , after a short inquiry concerning how my father had fared in the journey , the minister took hold of him by the arm , and they walked together into the fields , where , when they were at some distance from the house , Mr Sundrum stopped , and began to discourse in a very earnest and lively manner , frequently touching the palm of his left hand with the fingers of his right , as he spoke to my father , and sometimes lifting both his hands as one in amaze , ejaculating to the heavens .