two hours
after midnight
For though he was firmly set on departure , and on seeking the sage aforesaid , yet his heart was drawn this way and that : and it came into his mind how the damsel would fare when the evil Lord came home to Utterbol ; and he could not choose but make stories of her meeting of the tyrant , and her fear and grief and shame , and the despair of her heart . So the minutes went slow to him , till he should be in some new place and doing somewhat toward bringing about the deliverance of her from thralldom , and the meeting of him and her . The Road To The Well At World 's End . An Adventure in the Wood Under the Mountains Now was the night worn to the time appointed , for it was two hours after midnight , so he stepped out of his tent clad in all his war gear , and went straight to the doddered oak , and found Redhead there with but one horse , whereby Ralph knew that he held to his purpose of going his ways to Utterbol : so he took him by the shoulders and embraced him , rough carle as he was , and Redhead kneeled to him one moment of time and then arose and went off into the night . But Ralph got a-horseback without delay and rode his ways warily across the highway and into the wood , and there was none to hinder him . Though it was dark but for the starlight , there was a path , which the horse , and not Ralph , found , so that he made some way even before the first glimmer of dawn , all the more as the wood was not very thick after the first mile , and there were clearings here and there . So rode Ralph till the sun was at point to rise , and he was about the midst of one of those clearings or wood-lawns , on the further side whereof there was more thicket , as he deemed , then he had yet come to ; so he drew rein and looked about him for a minute .