midnight
`` A truce to your idle terrors , Adam , '' said Wyat . `` Take these packets , '' he added , giving him Henry 's despatches , `` and guard them as you would your life . I am going on an expedition of some peril to-night , and do not choose to keep them about me . Bid the grooms have my steed in readiness an hour before midnight . '' `` I hope your worship is not about to ride into the forest at that hour ? '' said Adam , trembling . `` I was told by the stout archer , whom the king dubbed Duke of Shoreditch , that he and the Duke of Richmond ventured thither last night , and that they saw a legion of demons mounted on coal-black horses , and amongst them Mark Fytton , the butcher , who was hanged a few days ago from the Curfew Tower by the king 's order , and whose body so strangely disappeared .