About eight o'clock
He was so boyish and slim that they were obliged in mercy to hang him in the heaviest fetters kept in the jail , lest his heft should not break his neck , and they weighed so upon him that he could hardly drag himself up to the drop . At that time the gover ` ment was not strict about burying the body of an executed person within the precincts of the prison , and at the earnest prayer of his poor mother his body was allowed to be brought home . All the parish waited at their cottage doors in the evening for its arrival : I remember how , as a very little girl , I stood by my mother 's side . About eight o'clock , as we hearkened on our door-stones in the cold bright starlight , we could hear the faint crackle of a waggon from the direction of the turnpike-road . The noise was lost as the waggon dropped into a hollow , then it was plain again as it lumbered down the next long incline , and presently it entered Longpuddle . The coffin was laid in the belfry for the night , and the next day , Sunday , between the services , we buried him . A funeral sermon was preached the same afternoon , the text chosen being , `` He was the only son of his mother , and she was a widow . ''