midnight
Yet a face not without moral loftiness and intellectual power ; rugged as a rock , but as a rock is made less rugged by a little vine creeping over it , so his was softened by a fine network of nerves that wrought out upon it a look of kindness ; betraying the first nature of passion , but disciplined to the higher nature of control ; youthful , but wearing those unmistakable marks of maturity which mean a fierce early struggle against the rougher forces of the world . On the whole , with the calm , self respecting air of one who , having thus far won in the battle of life , has a fiercer longing for larger conflict , and whose entire character rests on the noiseless conviction that he is a man and a gentleman . Deeper insight would have been needed to discover how true and earnest a soul he was ; how high a value he set on what the future had in store for him and on what his life would be worth to himself and to others ; and how , liking rather to help himself than to be helped , he liked less to be trifled with and least of all to be seriously thwarted . He was thinking , as his eyes rested on the watch , that if this were one of his ordinary days he would pursue his ordinary duties ; he would go up street to the office of Marshall and for the next hour read as many pages of law as possible ; then get his supper at his favourite tavern -- the Sign of the Spinning , Wheel -- near the two locust trees ; then walk out into the country for an hour or more ; then back to his room and more law until midnight by the light of his tallow dip . But this was not an ordinary day -- being one that he had long waited for and was destined never to forget . At dusk the evening before , the post-rider , so tired that he had scarce strength of wind to blow his horn , had ridden into town bringing the mail from Philadelphia ; and in this mail there was great news for him . It had kept him awake nearly all of the night before ; it had been uppermost in his mind the entire day in school .