midnight
`` Now , you know where old Garney is buried ? '' Garney was a dissolute soldier who blew his head off , accidentally , his friends claimed , and he was buried on what was supposed to be his own land just north of Raften 's , but it afterward proved to be part of the highway where a sidepath joined in , and in spite of its diggers the grave was at the _ crossing of two roads _ . Thus by the hand of fate Bill Garney was stamped as a suicide . The legend was that every time a wagon went over his head he must groan , but unwilling to waste those outcries during the rumbling of the wheels , he waited till midnight and rolled them out all together . Anyone hearing should make a sympathetic reply or they would surely suffer some dreadful fate . This was the legend that Caleb called up to memory and made very impressive by being properly impressed himself . `` Now , '' said he , `` I am going to hide this stone just behind the rock that marks the head of Garney 's grave , an ' I 'll send you to git it some night .