eight o'clock
It seemed not to be very distant . Hope invigorated his weary limbs , and he dashed through the opposing wreaths as stoutly as if his toils had been only newly begun . Another blast was blown , and he continued to run upon the sound till it ceased , and it was not again repeated . He recollected that it was common for the farmers , in many parts of Scotland , to blow a horn at eight o'clock on the winter evenings , for the purpose of warning their servants to attend to the suppering of the horses ; and he hoped that , if he could keep to the proper direction , this might lead him to some hospitable farmhouse , where he would soon forget the horrors of the storm before a comfortable fire . He now proceeded more leisurely , striving not to deviate from the course which the horn had induced him to take ; and keeping a sharp look-out on all sides , and an intense attention to every sound , in the expectation that some cottage light might twinkle upon his eye , or some human voice reach his ear , in the intervals of the deafening blast . But still he could discover no sight nor sound of man ; and the shifting tempest , which attacked him from every direction , soon confounded all his ideas of time and distance . In some places , too , the snow had accumulated in such immense masses , that he could not pass through them ; and the circuits which he was obliged to make tended farther to confuse his mind .