midnight
Then came the dancing in the barn , lighted by candles in cloven sticks , and lanterns of turnips that were scooped out hollow . But at the vicarage Paul and Greta sat alone in silence and with clasped hands . Parson Christian came in and out at intervals , gossiping cheerily of the odds and ends of daily life , as if its even tenor had never been disturbed . They supped together , and sat on till midnight ; and then the old Christian took down his green tome and wrote : `` June 30 . -- So Paul being to return home after his long absence , I spent the forenoon on the fell shearing , and earned a stone of wool and a windle of rye . In the afternoon I set forward toward Keswick , wherefor Randal Alston had loaned me his mare and gig . At the Flying Horse I lighted not , but stood while I drank a pot of ale with John Proudfoot and Richard Parkinson and a neighbor that comes to-morrow to thatch the low barn for me .