about six o'clock at night
No reply was made , and no competitor appeared ; so , after a lapse of the usual interval by the running of a sand-glass , upon the intended purchaser entering the proper sureties , Mr. Mac-Morlan was obliged , in technical terms , to `` find and declare the sale lawfully completed , and to prefer the said Gilbert Glossin as the purchaser of the said lands and estate . '' The honest writer refused to partake of a splendid entertainment with which Gilbert Glossin , Esquire , now of Ellangowan , treated the rest of the company , and returned home in huge bitterness of spirit , which he vented in complaints against the fickleness and caprice of these Indian nabobs , who never knew what they would be at for ten days together . Fortune generously determined to take the blame upon herself , and cut off even this vent of Mac-Morlan 's resentment . An express arrived about six o'clock at night , `` very particularly drunk , '' the maidservant said , with a packet from Colonel Mannering , dated four days back , at a town about a hundred miles ' distance from Kippletringan , containing full powers to Mr. Mac-Morlan , or any one whom he might employ , to make the intended purchase , and stating , that some family business of consequence called the Colonel himself to Westmoreland , where a letter would find him , addressed to the care of Arthur Mervyn , Esq. , of Mervyn Hall . Mac-Morlan , in the transports of his wrath , flung the power of attorney at the head of the innocent maid-servant , and was only forcibly withheld from horsewhipping the rascally messenger , by whose sloth and drunkenness the disappointment had taken place . My gold is gone , my money is spent , My land now take it unto thee . Give me thy gold , good John o ' Scales , And thine for aye my land shall be .