eight o'clock
The company sat together before the great hall-fire , to take the dessert , since there would have been no room in the parlour for all who wished to hear . -LRB- He heard the tale of Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert , traitor , apostate and sworn man of her Grace , later , when he had come down again from the chapel-room , and the servants had gone . -RRB- But now it was of less tragic matters , and more triumphant , that they talked : he told of his adventures since he had landed in August ; of his riding in Lancashire and Yorkshire , and of the fervour that he met with there -LRB- in one place , he said , he had reconciled the old minister of the parish , that had been made priest under Mary thirty years ago , and now lay dying -RRB- ; but he said nothing at that time of what he had seen of her Grace of Scotland , and Chartley : and the rest , on the other hand , talked of what had passed in Derby , of all that Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Garlick had done ; of the arrest and banishment of the latter , and his immediate return ; of the hanging of Mr. Francis Ingolby , in York , which had made a great stir in the north that summer , since he was the son of Sir Francis , of Ripley Castle ; as well as of the deaths of many others -- Mr. Finglow in August ; Mr. Sandys , in the same month , in Gloucester ; and of Mr. Lowe , Mr. Adams and Mr. Dibdale , all together at Tyburn , the news of which had but just come to Derbyshire ; and of Mistress Clitheroe , that had been pressed to death in York , for the very crime which Mistress Marjorie Manners was perpetrating at this moment , namely , the assistance and harbourage of priests ; or , rather , for refusing to plead when she had been arrested for that crime , lest she should bring them into trouble . And then at last they began to speak of Mary in Fotheringay and at that a maid came in to say that it was eight o'clock , and would his Reverence come up , as a few had to travel home that night and to come again next day ... * * * * * It was after nine o'clock before he came downstairs again , to find the gentlefolk alone in the little parlour that opened from the hall . It gave him a strange thrill of pleasure to see them there in the firelight ; the four of them only -- Mr. John in the midst , with the three ladies ; and an empty chair waiting for the priest . He would hear their confessions presently when the servants were gone to bed . A great mug of warm ale stood by his place , to comfort him after his long ride and his spiritual labours .