midnight
Runners shouted it as they sped by ; boys panted it , breathless ; women with loosened hair stumbled into darkling chambers and faltered it out to new-wakened sleepers ; pale girls clutching wraps at their throats whispered it across fences ; the sick , tossing on their hard beds , heard it . The bell clamored it far and near ; it spread over the country-side ; it flew over the wires to distant cities . The White-Caps had got Mr. Harkless ! Lige Willetts had lost track of him out near Briscoes ' , it was said , and had come in at midnight seeking him . He had found Parker , the `` Herald '' foreman , and Ross Schofield , the typesetter , and Bud Tipworthy , the devil , at work in the printing-room , but no sign of Harkless , there or in the cottage . Together these had sought for him and had roused others , who had inquired at every house where he might have gone for shelter , and they had heard nothing . They had watched for his coming during the slackening of the storm and he had not come , and there was nowhere he could have gone .