nearly nine at night
`` Crimes , hunted , the gallows . '' They were ugly words ; in the ears of an innocent man , perhaps all the uglier ; for if some judicial error were in act against him , who should set a limit to its grossness or to how far it might be pushed ? Not John , indeed ; he was no believer in the powers of innocence , his cursed experience pointing in quite other ways ; and his fears , once wakened , grew with every hour and hunted him about the city streets . It was perhaps nearly nine at night ; he had eaten nothing since lunch , he had drunk a good deal , and he was exhausted by emotion , when the thought of Houston came into his head . He turned , not merely to the man as a friend , but to his house as a place of refuge . The danger that threatened him was still so vague , that he knew neither what to fear nor where he might expect it ; but this much at least seemed undeniable , that a private house was safer than a public inn . Moved by these counsels , he turned at once to the Caledonian Station , passed -LRB- not without alarm -RRB- into the bright lights of the approach , redeemed his portmanteau from the cloak-room , and was soon whirling in a cab along the Glasgow road .