midnight
He had fallen from his chair in a fit , and lay there , battling for each gasp of breath , with every shrivelled vein and sinew starting in its place , as if it were bent on bearing witness to his age , and sternly pleading with Nature against his recovery . It was frightful to see how the principle of life , shut up within his withered frame , fought like a strong devil , mad to be released , and rent its ancient prison-house . A young man in the fullness of his vigour , struggling with so much strength of desperation , would have been a dismal sight ; but an old , old , shrunken body , endowed with preternatural might , and giving the lie in every motion of its every limb and joint to its enfeebled aspect , was a hideous spectacle indeed . They raised him up , and fetched a surgeon with all haste , who bled the patient and applied some remedies ; but the fits held him so long that it was past midnight when they got him -- quiet now , but quite unconscious and exhausted -- into bed . ` Do n't go , ' said Jonas , putting his ashy lips to Mr Pecksniff 's ear and whispered across the bed . ` It was a mercy you were present when he was taken ill . Some one might have said it was my doing . '