eight o’clock in the morning
After looking very grave and very wise , and questioning and cross-questioning a proper time , the surgeon said it was impossible for him to pronounce any thing decidedly , till the patient should have passed another night ; but that if the next night proved favourable , he might then venture to declare him out of immediate danger , and might then begin to hope that , with time and care , he would do well . With this opinion , guarded and dubious as it was , Ormond was delighted -- his heart felt relieved of part of the heavy load by which it had been oppressed , and the surgeon was well feed from the purse which Sir Ulick had put into Ormond 's hands . Ormond 's next business was to send a _ gossoon _ with a letter to his friend the King of the Black Islands , to tell him all that had passed , and to request an asylum in his dominions . By the time he had finished and despatched his letter , it was eight o'clock in the morning ; and he was afraid that before he could receive an answer , it might be too late in the day to carry a wounded man as far as the Black Islands : he therefore accepted the hospitable offer of the village school-mistress , to give him and his patient a lodging for that night . There was indeed no one in the place who would not have done as much for Master Harry . All were in astonishment and sorrow when they heard that he was going to leave the castle ; and their hatred to Lady O'Shane would have known no bounds , had they learned that she was the cause of his _ banishment _ : but this he generously concealed , and forbade those of his followers or partisans , who had known any thing of what had passed , to repeat what they had heard . It was late in the day before Marcus rose ; for he had to sleep off the effects of his last night 's intemperance .