midnight
Ah ! how sweet to get into a warm bed safe and sound , after having fancied that from such a white figure hovering round dry bones he had heard -- for Geordie had read plays -- `` I am that body 's spirit , Doomed for a certain time to walk the night ; And for the day confined , to fast in fires , Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away . '' How delightful to Geordie was that snore of wife Christian , as she still lay on the liver side , perhaps dreaming of seraphim ! The adventure of that midnight hour dated the beginning of a change on George Gourlay . One might have said of him , with the older playwright who never pictured a ghost , _ quod scis nescis _ ; for then never a word scarcely would he speak to man or beast , nay , not even to a woman , who has a power of breaking the charm of that silence in others of which their sex are themselves incapable -- even , we say , wife Christian . There are many Trophonian caves in the world about us , only known to ourselves , out of which , when we come , we are mute , because we have seen something different from the objects of the sunlight ; yea , if , as the Indians say , the animals are the dumb of earth , these are the dumb of heaven . Certain at least it is , that while Geordie did not hesitate before that night to use his voice in asking an extravagant price for an old lock , or even damning him who below made more noise than nails , he never now used that tongue in such dishonesties and irreverences .