About midnight
What happened on the fatal night that left Kilgorman desolate no one was able rightly to tell ; for , except Biddy and Maurice Gorman , who chanced that night to have come over to see his brother , the sole occupants of the house had been Mrs Gorman and her child and my mother and her two infants . Terence Gorman at nightfall had taken the gig , with my father , to drive to Carndonagh , where next day he was to inquire into some poaching affray . That was at seven o'clock . About midnight my father , half crazy with fright , brought the gig back , and in it the dead body of his master . They had reached the gap in Ballinthere Hill , he said , going by the lower road , when a shot was suddenly fired from the roadside , grazing my father 's arm and lodging in the neck of Mr Gorman . It was so suddenly done , and the horse bolted so wildly forward at the report , that before my father could even look round the assassin had vanished . Mr Gorman was already dead .