a quarter to one in the morning
On Saturday evening he was removed from the train by the merest accident , and left the railway station in such a maze of meditation that he ignored the road to Kilbogie altogether , although its sign post was staring him in the face , and continued his way to Drumtochty . It was half-past nine when Jamie Soutar met him on the high road through our Glen , still travelling steadily west , and being arrested by his appearance , beguiled him into conversation , till he elicited that Saunderson was minded to reach Kilbogie . For an hour did the wanderer rest in Jamie 's kitchen , during which he put Jamie 's ecclesiastical history into a state of thorough repair -- making seven distinct parallels between the errors that had afflicted the Scottish Church and the early heretical sects -- and then Jamie gave him in charge of a ploughman who was courting in Kilbogie and was not averse to a journey that seemed to illustrate the double meaning of charity . Jeremiah was handed over to his anxious hosts at a quarter to one in the morning , covered with mud , somewhat fatigued , but in great peace of soul , having settled the place of election in the prophecy of Habakkuk as he came down with his silent companion through Tochty woods . Nor was that all he had done . When they came out from the shadow and struck into the parish of Kilbogie -- whose fields , now yellow unto harvest , shone in the moonlight -- his guide broke silence and enlarged on a plague of field-mice which had quite suddenly appeared and had sadly devastated the grain of Kilbogie , Saunderson awoke from study and became exceedingly curious , first of all demanding a particular account of the coming of the mice , their multitude , their habits , and their determination . Then he asked many questions about the moral conduct and godliness of the inhabitants of Kilbogie , which his companion , as a native of Drumtochty , painted in gloomy colours , although indicating that even in Kilbogie there was a remnant .