four
o'clock
` No Bible ! ' said Devereux , ` the old witch ! ' Mrs. Irons , as you remember , never spared her rhetoric , which was fierce , shrill , and fluent , when the exercise of that gift was called for . The parish clerk bore it with a cynical and taciturn patience , not , perhaps , so common as it should be in his sex ; and this night , when she awoke , and her eyes rested on the form of her husband at her bedside , with a candle lighted , and buckling on his shoes , with his foot on the chair , she sat up straight in her bed , wide awake in an instant , for it was wonderful how the sight of that meek man roused the wife in her bosom , especially after an absence , and she had not seen him since four o'clock that evening ; so you may suppose his reception was warm , and her expressions every way worthy of her feelings . Meek Irons finished buckling that shoe , and then lifted the other to the edge of the chair , and proceeded to do the like for it , serenely , after his wont , and seeming to hear nothing . So Mrs. Irons proceeded , as was her custom when that patient person refused to be roused -- she grasped his collar near his cheek , meaning to shake him into attention . But instantly , as the operation commenced , the clerk griped her with his long , horny fingers by the throat , with a snap so sure and energetic that not a cry , not a gasp even , or a wheeze , could escape through ` the trachea , ' as medical men have it ; and her face and forehead purpled up , and her eyes goggled and glared in her head ; and her husband looked so insanely wicked , that , as the pale picture darkened before her , and she heard curse after curse , and one foul name after another hiss off his tongue , like water off a hot iron , in her singing ears , she gave herself up for lost .