midnight
No answer to Oscar 's question could possibly present itself until we reached the rectory . Between this and then , there was nothing for it but to keep patience and to keep hope . I refrain from encumbering this part of my narrative with any detailed account of the little accidents , lucky and unlucky , which alternately hastened or retarded our journey home . Let me only say that , before midnight on the eighteenth , Oscar and I drove up to the rectory gate . Mr. Finch himself came out to receive us , with a lamp in his hand . He lifted his eyes -LRB- and his lamp -RRB- devotionally to the sky when he saw Oscar . The two first words he said , were : -- `` Inscrutable Providence ! ''