twelve
o'clock
There were a good many drunken fellows about the town , but there was an end of election demonstrations in the Brandon interest . Captain Lake was not going in for that race ; he would be on another errand by the time the writ came down . There was a ` stop press ' that evening in the county paper -- ` We have just learned that a body has been disinterred , early this afternoon , under very strange circumstances , in the neighbourhood of Gylingden ; and if the surmises which are afloat prove well-founded , the discovery will set at rest the speculations which have been busy respecting the whereabouts of a certain gentleman of large property and ancient lineage , who , some time since , mysteriously disappeared , and will , no doubt , throw this county into a state of very unusual excitement . We can state , upon authority , that the coroner will hold his inquest on the body , to-morrow at twelve o'clock , in the town of Gylingden . There was also an allusion to Captain Lake 's accident -- with the expression of a hope that it would ` prove but a trifling one , ' and an assurance ` that his canvass would not be prevented by it -- although for a few days it might not be a personal one . But his friends might rely on seeing him at the hustings , and hearing him too , when the proper time arrived . ' It was quite well known , however , in Gylingden , by this time , that Captain Lake was not to see the hustings -- that his spine was smashed -- that he was lying on an extemporised bed , still in his clothes , in the little parlour of Redman 's Farm -- cursing the dead mare in gasps -- railing at everybody -- shuddering whenever they attempted to remove his clothes -- hoping , in broken sentences , that his people would give Bracton and -- good licking .