midnight
The careless reference of the youth had made the thoughts of the senior active at the expense of his observation . His eyes were now turned inward ; and the landscape , and the evening sun , which streamed over and hallowed it with a tender beauty to the last , was as completely hidden from his vision , as if a veil had been drawn above his sight . The retrospect , indeed , is ever the old man 's landscape ; and perhaps , even had he not been so unkindly driven back to its survey , our aged traveller would have been reminded of the past in the momently-deepening shadows which the evening gathered around his path . Twilight is the cherished season for sad memories , even as the midnight is supposed to be that of guilty ghosts ; and nothing , surely , can be more fitting than that the shadows of former hopes should revisit us in those hours when the face of nature itself seems darkening into gloom . It was night before the wayfarers reached the appointed baiting place . There they found their company -- a sort of little caravan , such as is frequent in the history of western emigration -- already assembled , and the supper awaiting them . Let us leave them to its enjoyment , and return once more to the village of Charlemont .