nine
o'clock
I was not much displeased at this , for if he thought no nearer the truth than that he had broken into a coal-bin of the church , why , he was far enough from his mark for me . After finding this , however , I was anxious enough , lest any of them should return , not to go to bed again that night ; but all was still as death , and , to tell the truth , I fell asleep in my chair . I doubt whether my mother slept , or her frightened charge . I was at work in the passage early the next morning with some weather-stained boards I had , and before nine o'clock I had doubled all that piece of fence , from my wing where my hand-cart was to the church , and I had spiked the new boards on , which looked like old boards , as I said , with tenpenny nails ; so that he would be a stout burglar who would cut through them unless he had tools for his purpose and daylight to work by . As I was gathering up my tools to go in , a coarse , brutal-looking Irishman came walking up the alley and looked round . My work was so well done , and I had been so careful to leave no chips , that even then he could not have guessed that I had been building the fence anew , though I fancied he looked at it . He seemed to want to excuse himself for being there at all , and asked me , with an oath and in a broad Irish brogue , if there were no other passage through .