noon
So saying , Ganlesse turned his back and walked toward the house . On the threshold he turned about once more , and seeing that Peveril had not yet moved from the spot , he again smiled and beckoned to him ; but Julian , recalled by that sign to recollection , spurred his horse and set forward on his journey . It was not long ere his local acquaintance with the country enabled him to regain the road to Martindale , from which he had diverged on the preceding evening for about two miles . But the roads , or rather the paths , of this wild country , so much satirised by their native poet , Cotton , were so complicated in some places , so difficult to be traced in others , and so unfit for hasty travelling in almost all , that in spite of Julian 's utmost exertions , and though he made no longer delay upon the journey than was necessary to bait his horse at a small hamlet through which he passed at noon , it was nightfall ere he reached an eminence , from which , an hour sooner , the battlements of Martindale Castle would have been visible ; and where , when they were hid in night , their situation was indicated by a light constantly maintained in a lofty tower , called the Warder 's Turret ; and which domestic beacon had acquired , through all the neighbourhood , the name of Peveril 's Polestar . This was regularly kindled at curfew toll , and supplied with as much wood and charcoal as maintained the light till sunrise ; and at no period was the ceremonial omitted , saving during the space intervening between the death of a Lord of the Castle and his interment . When this last event had taken place , the nightly beacon was rekindled with some ceremony , and continued till fate called the successor to sleep with his fathers . It is not known from which circumstance the practice of maintaining this light originally sprung .