midnight
`` Well ... yes , yes ... why should n't I ? '' he said , and then , `` Yes , I will , I will '' -- with the air of a man who had made up his mind to a daring enterprise . Our curragh is a stretch of wild marsh lying over against the sea , undrained , only partly cultivated , half covered with sedge and sallow bushes , and consequently liable to heavy mists . There was a mist over it that night , and hence it was not easy even for Father Dan -LRB- accustomed to midnight visits to curragh cottages -RRB- to find the house which had once been the home of `` Neale the Lord . '' We rooted it out at last by help of the parish constable , who was standing at the corner of a by-road talking to the coachman of a gorgeous carriage waiting there , with its two splendid horses smoking in the thick night air . When , over the shingle of what we call `` the street , '' we reached the low straggling crofter-cottage under its thick trammon tree -LRB- supposed to keep off the evil spirits -RRB- , I rapped with my knuckles at the door , and it was opened by a tall scraggy woman with a candle in her hand . This was Nessy MacLeod , harder and uglier than ever , with her red hair combed up , giving her the appearance of a bunch of carrots over two stalks of rhubarb .