the hour of ten
They looked with great dismay upon the character of the night in which their campaign was to commence . The valorous Peter , who had sustained his own courage by repeated applications to a little bottle , which he never failed to carry about him in all the more bustling and enterprising occasions of life , endeavoured , but with partial success , to maintain the ardour of his band . Seated in the servants ' hall of the Manor-house , in a large arm-chair , Jacobina on his knee , and his trusty musket , which , to the great terror of the womankind , had never been uncocked throughout the day , still grasped in his right hand , while the stock was grounded on the floor ; he indulged in martial harangues , plentifully interlarded with plagiarisms from the worshipful translations of Messrs. Sternhold and Hopkins , and psalmodic versions of a more doubtful authorship . And when at the hour of ten , which was the appointed time , he led his warlike force , which consisted of six rustics , armed with sticks of incredible thickness , three guns , one pistol , a broadsword , and a pitchfork , -LRB- a weapon likely to be more effectively used than all the rest put together ;-RRB- when at the hour of ten he led them up to the room above , where they were to be passed in review before the critical eye of the Squire , with Jacobina leading the on-guard , you could not fancy a prettier picture for a hero in a little way , than mine host of the Spotted Dog . His hat was fastened tight on his brows by a blue pocket-handkerchief ; he wore a spencer of a light brown drugget , a world too loose , above a leather jerkin ; his breeches of corduroy , were met all of a sudden half way up the thigh , by a detachment of Hessians , formerly in the service of the Corporal , and bought some time since by Peter Dealtry to wear when employed in shooting snipes for the Squire , to whom he occasionally performed the office of game-keeper ; suspended round his wrist by a bit of black ribbon , was his constable 's baton ; he shouldered his musket gallantly , and he carried his person as erect as if the least deflexion from its perpendicularity were to cost him his life . One may judge of the revolution that had taken place in the village , when so peaceable a man as Peter Dealtry was thus metamorphosed into a commander-in-chief . The rest of the regiment hung sheepishly back ; each trying to get as near to the door , and as far from the ladies , as possible .