twelve
o’clock at night
That was a blow ! I fell away that time . When I came to , master had stopped the blood with some fur off his hat . I had to go on with my work immediately ; master said I should do my stint if I worked till twelve o'clock at night . Many 's the ash stick he has broken on my body ; sometimes the weals remained on me for a-week ; he cut my eyelid open once with a nutstick ; cut a regular hole in it , and it bled all over the files I was working at . He has pulled my ears sometimes that I thought they must come off in his hand . But all this was a mere nothin to this here cut ; that was serous ; and if I had n't got thro ' that they do say there must have been a crowner 's quest ; though I think that gammon , tor old Tugsford did for one of his prentices , and the body was never found .