midnight
`` Well , did I get them off about right ? '' The dog with a private glance of sympathy up into the Judge 's face returned to his black goatskin rug under the Chief Justices ; and the Judge , turning off the burners in the chandelier and striking a match , groped his way in his sock feet to his bedroom -- to the bed with its one pillow . Out in the country next morning it was not yet break of dawn . The stars , thickly flung about , were flashing low and yellow as at midnight , but on the horizon the great change had begun . Not with colors of rose or pearl but as the mysterious foreknowledge of the morning , when a vast swift herald rushes up from the east and sweeps onward across high space , bidding the earth be in readiness for the drama of the sun . The land , heavy with life , lay wrapped in silence , steeped in rest . Not a bird in wet hedge or evergreen had drawn nimble head from nimble wing .