noon
Still the youth was gentle , courteous , affectionate , and submissive to his father 's will , and resisted with all his power the dark suggestions which were breathed into his mind , as it seemed , by some emanation of the Evil Principle , exhorting him , like the wicked wife of job , to curse God and die . The time at length arrived when be was to perform what was then thought a long and somewhat perilous journey , to the mansion of the early friend who had calculated his nativity . His road lay through several places of interest , and he enjoyed the amusement of travelling , more than he himself thought would have been possible . Thus he did not reach the place of his destination till noon , on the day preceding his birthday . It seemed as if he bad been carried away with an unwonted tide of pleasurable sensation , so as to forget , in some degree , what his father had communicated concerning the purpose of his journey . He halted at length before a respectable but solitary old mansion , to which he was directed as the abode of his father 's friend . The servants who came to take his horse told him he had been expected for two days .