midnight
He provided good homes for the daughters of the two Baptist women whom he saw burned at the stake , and roundly punished the official who laid the undeserved stripes upon Miles Hendon 's back . He saved from the gallows the boy who had captured the stray falcon , and also the woman who had stolen a remnant of cloth from a weaver ; but he was too late to save the man who had been convicted of killing a deer in the royal forest . He showed favour to the justice who had pitied him when he was supposed to have stolen a pig , and he had the gratification of seeing him grow in the public esteem and become a great and honoured man . As long as the King lived he was fond of telling the story of his adventures , all through , from the hour that the sentinel cuffed him away from the palace gate till the final midnight when he deftly mixed himself into a gang of hurrying workmen and so slipped into the Abbey and climbed up and hid himself in the Confessor 's tomb , and then slept so long , next day , that he came within one of missing the Coronation altogether . He said that the frequent rehearsing of the precious lesson kept him strong in his purpose to make its teachings yield benefits to his people ; and so , whilst his life was spared he should continue to tell the story , and thus keep its sorrowful spectacles fresh in his memory and the springs of pity replenished in his heart . Miles Hendon and Tom Canty were favourites of the King , all through his brief reign , and his sincere mourners when he died . The good Earl of Kent had too much sense to abuse his peculiar privilege ; but he exercised it twice after the instance we have seen of it before he was called from this world -- once at the accession of Queen Mary , and once at the accession of Queen Elizabeth .