midnight
`` You 'll be chock full of cold lead if you fill this hull camp with them death dirges , '' warned one man who was bearing about all he could anyway . `` I wish to -- I just wish I was plugged full of lead -- and done for , '' was Billy 's unlooked-for reply ; and then , to the surprise of all , he bent his red curls over the fiddle and wept as only a homesick youngster can weep when the barriers of his fourteen years are down , and the flood has its way . That night , Billy in his bunk , sleepless and consumed with longing for home and the excitement of the bungalow element , planned desertion . At midnight he crept to the larder and packed enough food to last for a couple of days , at four o'clock he stole from the sleeping-shed , and , cheered by the unanimous snores that rang in his ears , he turned his freckled , determined face toward St. Angé and the one absorbing passion of his life . The outlook of the Solitude at four in the morning was not an altogether cheerful one even to ambitious youth . Indeed there was little , if any , outlook . Blackness around ; cold starlight overhead .