midnight
But Christmas brought visitors to the rambling old mansion . A country squire and his fat wife occupied the tapestried chamber ; merry girls scampered up and down the long passages , and young men stared out of the latticed windows , watching for southerly winds and cloudy skies ; there was not an empty stall in the roomy old stables ; an extempore forge had been set up in the yard for the shoeing of hunters ; yelping dogs made the place noisy with their perpetual clamor ; strange servants herded together on the garret story ; and every little casement hidden away under some pointed gable , and every dormer window in the quaint old roof , glimmered upon the winter 's night with its separate taper , till , coming suddenly upon Audley Court , the benighted stranger , misled by the light , and noise , and bustle of the place , might have easily fallen into young Marlowe 's error , and have mistaken the hospitable mansion for a good , old-fashioned inn , such as have faded from this earth since the last mail coach and prancing tits took their last melancholy journey to the knacker 's yard . Among other visitors Mr. Robert Audley came down to Essex for the hunting season , with half a dozen French novels , a case of cigars , and three pounds of Turkish tobacco in his portmanteau . The honest young country squires , who talked all breakfast time of Flying Dutchman fillies and Voltigeur colts ; of glorious runs of seven hours ' hard riding over three counties , and a midnight homeward ride of thirty miles upon their covert hacks ; and who ran away from the well-spread table with their mouths full of cold sirloin , to look at that off pastern , or that sprained forearm , or the colt that had just come back from the veterinary surgeon 's , set down Robert Audley , dawdling over a slice of bread and marmalade , as a person utterly unworthy of any remark whatsoever . The young barrister had brought a couple of dogs with him ; and the country gentleman who gave fifty pounds for a pointer ; and traveled a couple of hundred miles to look at a leash of setters before he struck a bargain , laughed aloud at the two miserable curs , one of which had followed Robert Audley through Chancery Lane , and half the length of Holborn ; while his companion had been taken by the barrister vi et armis from a coster-monger who was ill-using him . And as Robert furthermore insisted on having these two deplorable animals under his easy-chair in the drawing-room , much to the annoyance of my lady , who , as we know , hated all dogs , the visitors at Audley Court looked upon the baronet 's nephew as an inoffensive species of maniac . During other visits to the Court Robert Audley had made a feeble show of joining in the sports of the merry assembly .