midnight
Oppressed and tortured by thoughts which he could not bring to bear on any probable event , he turned and turned ; but all his restlessness would produce no effect on guidwife Christian , who seemed as dead asleep as ever was he of the Cretan cave in the middle of the seventy years . Nor could he understand this : heretofore a slight cough , even slighter than that which brought the Doctor in the `` Devil on Two Sticks , '' used to awaken the faithful wife ; and now nothing would awaken her . He dodged , he cried ; but she would n't help to take off the nightmare , which , with its old characteristic of tailor-folded legs and grinning aspect , sat upon his chest , as it heaved , but could not throw off the imp . But what was more extraordinary , this strange conduct of Christian was the continuation of -- nay , a climax to -- her inexplicable conduct since ever that night when he caught up in his mind , as in a prism , that midnight vision which he had seen , and the fiery coruscations of which still careered through his brain . Honest Geordie had no guile ; and if he had had any , the new birth he had undergone , with the consequent baptism , would have taken it clean away , so that there was no chance of a suspicion of the part which guidwife Christian had played on the said occasion . Yet , wonder as he might , if he had known all , he would have wondered more how any woman , even with the advantage of a `` New Light , '' could have snored under the purpose she had revolved in her mind , and which she had so darkly revealed to her old master . Ah yes , that female member , of which so much has been said -- even that it contains on the subtle point thereof a little nerve which anatomists can not find in the corresponding organ in man -- can swim lightly _ tanquam suber _ , and yet never give an indication of the depths below .