five o'clock in
the morning
Charles put in an inquiry as to the condition of his horse . `` Hard ridden , sir , as I never knew your Honour bring home Black Bess in such a pickle before . '' After a couple of young men had been called who could speak to some outbreaks of dislike to poor Peregrine , in which all had shared , the case for the prosecution was completed . Cowper , in a speech that would be irregular now , but was permissible then , pointed out that the jealousy , dislike , and Jacobite proclivities of the Archfield family had been fully made out , that the coincidence of visits to the castle at that untimely hour had been insufficiently explained , that the condition of the remains in the vault was quite inconsistent with the evidence of the witness , Mistress Woodford , unless there were persons waiting below unknown to her , and that the prisoner had been absent from Fareham from four or five o'clock in the morning till nearly three in the afternoon . As to the strange story she had further told , he -LRB- Mr. Cowper -RRB- was neither superstitious nor philosophic , but the jury would decide whether conscience and the sense of an awful secret were not sufficient to conjure up such phantoms , if they were not indeed spiritual , occurring as they did in the very places and at the very times when the spirit of the unhappy young man , thus summarily dismissed from the world , his corpse left in an unblessed den , would be most likely to reappear , haunting those who felt themselves to be most accountable for his lamentable and untimely end . The words evidently told , and it was at a disadvantage that the prisoner rose to speak in his own defence and to call his witnesses . `` My lord , '' he said , `` and gentlemen of the jury , let me first say that I am deeply grieved and hurt that the name of my poor young wife has been brought into this matter .