midnight
All facts were against such a supposition , except one : that , on the following morning , she observed dryly , that the dip she had left in the kitchen had burnt away of its own special accord . Vain thoughts all . Geordie was simply `` born again ; '' and old women do not speak to infants , until , at least , they can hear . Nor did this mood promise amendment even up to that night , when a rap having come to the door , Geordie started , while guidwife Christian went undismayed to open the same ; for , moody as she was , she was not affected by evening raps as he was , and had been since that eventful midnight . But if the sturdy blacksmith was afraid before she obeyed the call , he was greatly more so after she had opened the door , and when she led into the parlour an old man , with hair more than usually grey even for his years , with a staff in his hand , bearing up , as he came in , a tall , wasted body -- so wasted , that he might have been supposed to have waited all this time for a leg of that goose which had been so very long at the fire . The grief of years had eaten up his face , and only left untouched the corrugations itself had made . Yet withal he was a gentleman ; for his bow to Geordie was just that which the grandees of the Wynd made to each other as they passed and repassed .