midnight
How should he meet Father John 's eyes after what he had done ? How should he find words to tell him that he had broken the solemn vow that he had taken on the holy scriptures , and had , in his first difficulty , flown to the disreputable security to be found in the haunts of such men as Joe Reynolds and Dan Kennedy . However , this he would have to tell him ; for the door was now open , and there stood the priest , with his eyes fixed on Thady 's sad face and soiled appearance . Thady had not had his clothes off for the last two nights , and they now bore all the soil and stains of his two midnight walks ; his countenance was pale in the extreme , and , never full or healthy , now seemed more thin and wan , than forty-eight hours ' sorrow could possibly have made it . He was much fatigued , for his shoes had become soaked with water in the moist grounds through which he had passed and repassed , and his feet were blistered with his long and unaccustomed walks . When Father John saw him , his heart melted within him at the sight of the young man 's sad and melancholy figure . We already know that from the moment he had first heard of the catastrophe , he had made excuses in his own heart for Thady ; and when he had heard , as he did at the inquest , that his sister had been with Ussher when he lifted his stick against him , he had not only acquitted him in his own estimation , from anything like the crime of murder , but he also felt certain that had he been in the same situation , he would most assuredly have done the same as Thady had done .