midnight
Prayers for the modification of the weather are often treated as a permissible subject for mirth , and Mrs. Kirby availed herself of the convention ; even Frederica and Mrs. St. George , stricken though they were , smiled wanly . At about this time , that imposing spectacle , once described by Mrs. Twomey as `` The Big Doctor and little Danny Aherne walking the streets of Cluhir like two paycocks , '' was vouchsafed to the town rather more frequently than was usually the case . Dr. Aherne had sent a patient , who was no less a person than the priest of the parish of Pribawn , to the private ward of the Infirmary in Cluhir , where he would , among other advantages , receive daily visits from Dr. Mangan . Father Sweeny was suffering from a broken leg , and other damages ; a midnight drive to a dying parishioner had ended , disastrously , in an unguarded road-side ditch , and Dr. Aherne had thought it best to consign a patient of such importance to the care of hands less occupied , as well as of higher renown , than his own . Thus it was that the Big Doctor and his kinsman saw more of each other than is often possible for men whose work is as widespread and incessant as is that of Irish Dispensary Doctors . On this windy June morning they had met in the dreary yard of the Workhouse , to which the Infirmary was attached , and together they paced the long , whitewashed , slate-paven passages that led to the Infirmary , pausing at intervals to talk of matters quite unconnected with their patients , but , if the frequency of the pauses , filled by the sibilant whispers of the little doctor , and the deep growls of the big one , was any criterion , none the less absorbing . `` His name 's been accepted , '' ended the Big Doctor , after the lengthiest of these , `` and it would be no harm for you to be slipping in a word , now and again , with the people through the country , according as you 'd get the chance , Danny . ''