eleven o’clock at night
he wrote in such a flurry . My heart warmed to my new lady when I read this ; I was almost afraid it was too good news to be true ; but the girls fell to scouring , and it was well they did , for we soon saw his marriage in the paper , to a lady with I do n't know how many tens of thousand pounds to her fortune : then I watched the post-office for his landing ; and the news came to my son of his and the bride being in Dublin , and on the way home to Castle Rackrent . We had bonfires all over the country , expecting him down the next day , and we had his coming of age still to celebrate , which he had not time to do properly before he left the country ; therefore a great ball was expected , and great doings upon his coming , as it were , fresh to take possession of his ancestors ' estate . I never shall forget the day he came home : we had waited and waited all day long till eleven o'clock at night , and I was thinking of sending the boy to lock the gates , and giving them up for that night , when there came the carriages thundering up to the great hall door . I got the first sight of the bride ; for when the carriage door opened , just as she had her foot on the steps , I held the flam -LSB- S -RSB- full in her face to light her , at which she shut her eyes , but I had a full view of the rest , of her , and greatly shocked I was , for by that light she was little better than a blackamoor , and seemed crippled , but that was only sitting so long in the chariot . `` You 're kindly welcome to Castle Rackrent , my lady , '' says I -LRB- recollecting who she was -RRB- ; `` did your honour hear of the bonfires ? '' His honour spoke never a word , nor so much as handed her up the steps -- he looked to me no more like himself than nothing at all ; I know I took him for the skeleton of his honour : I was not sure what to say next to one or t ' other , but seeing she was a stranger in a foreign country , I thought it but right to speak cheerful to her , so I went back again to the bonfires .