midnight
This note was left upon her bed-room table , where she knew it would be discovered ; so , after declining to join the family at tea , on the plea of slight indisposition , she filled a traveling satchel with what necessaries she thought she might require for the few days she presumed she should be absent , and extinguishing her lamp at the hour she usually retired to rest , awaited , alone and in silence , for the clock to strike eleven ; at which time she knew the family would have all sought their couch and be sunk in slumber . From her chamber window she perceived that the lights soon began to disappear from the casements of the few dwellings that were in the immediate vicinity of her habitation , and that the quiet of repose was stealing over the neighborhood . Busied with her own thoughts , and anxious for the future , the time for her departure drew nigh more rapidly than she had anticipated ; so , when the last stroke of eleven had died away through the house , she , having previously attired herself for her journey , and secured , about her person , whatever money she possessed , took up her satchel , and cautiously descending the stairs , soon emerged out into the gloomy night , hastily bending her footsteps towards the place of rendezvouz . Here , besides encountering the individual already introduced to the reader , who was waiting for her , she having had to travel a considerable distance , and it being now close on midnight , she found a second party stationed by the side of a good sized boat , into which all three stepped upon her arrival ; the two strangers seizing the oars and striking boldly out for the Canadian side of the river . Although rapid the current at the point of their crossing , so admirably did they manage their craft and lustily did they pull , they did not deviate much from the light on the opposite shore , which seemed to gleam from some cottage window , and which they took as a beacon and guide to their course . In the space of about half an hour , they landed at the point they expected to make , where they found a team waiting , with a lantern so ingeniously fixed in the wagon as to be discernible from the American side of the river only ; this being the light by which the two boatmen had steered . As they all stepped ashore , Kate had a full opportunity of scrutinizing the appearance of the second stranger , who aided her in crossing the river .