midnight
`` Tackle 'em , Captin ! '' `` Politely , Captain ! '' As Van Dorn urged his way to the head of the line , Levin looked out silently upon the flat country of forest and a few poor farms , drained imperfectly by some ditches of the Choptank . He supposed it might be almost midnight , from the position of those brilliant constellations which shone down equally upon his mother and himself -- she in her innocence and he in his anxiety -- and shone , also , perhaps , upon his poor father 's grave in isle or ocean . Within an hour blood was to be shed , no doubt , and rapine done , and he knew not the road to escape by nor the hole to hide in . Yet in that hour he had to make his choice , -- to fight for liberty , or go to the jail , the whipping-post , or , perhaps , the gallows . Levin considered ruefully his vagrant past , and how little could be said in extenuation of him in a court of justice , except by his mother 's faith , which was no more evidence than a negro 's oath .