noon
`` That 's the first knock . He 'll want to mind himself from this out -- the next one might hit him harder . '' The back stairs at Mount Music were old and precipitous . To descend them at high noon demanded circumspection at night , when the armies of the cockroaches were abroad ; and marauding rats came flopping up and down them , upon their unlawful occasions , only that man of iron , Robert Evans , was proof to their terrors . Christian , even though inured from childhood to the backstairs , held her habit skirt high , and thanked , heaven for her riding-boots , as she made her way down the worn stone steps , at some half-past four of a September morning . Mount Music was one of the many houses of its period that , with , to quote Mrs. Dixon , `` the globe of Ireland to build over , '' had elected to bestow its menials in dark and complex basements . Christian and her candle traversed the long maze of underground passages .