nearly midnight
I covered up his face and left him there -- peasant and prince -- candles burning at his head and feet , and the star of Louis on his shattered breast ; and I saw him no more . All that night I walked the ramparts , thinking , remembering , hoping , waiting for the morning ; and when I saw the light break over those far eastern parishes , wasted by fire and sword , I set out on a journey to the Valdoche Hills . It was in the saffron light of early morning that I saw it , the Tall Calvary of the Valdoche Hills . The night before I had come up through a long valley , overhung with pines on one side and crimsoning maples on the other , and , travelling till nearly midnight , had lain down in the hollow of a bank , and listened to a little river leap over cascades , and , far below , go prattling on to the greater river in the south . My eyes closed , but for long I did not sleep . I heard a night-hawk go by on a lonely mission , a beaver slide from a log into the water , and the delicate humming of the pine needles was a drowsy music , through which broke by-and-bye the strange crying of a loon from the water below . I was neither asleep nor awake , but steeped in this wide awe of night , the sweet smell of earth and running water in my nostrils .