midnight
He pored over the document that had so possessed him , turning its crabbed meanings every way , trying to get out of it some new light , often tempted to fling it into the fire which he kept under his retort , and let the whole thing go ; but then again , soon rising out of that black depth of despair , into a determination to do what he had so long striven for . With such intense action of mind as he brought to bear on this paper , it is wonderful that it was not spiritually distilled ; that its essence did not arise , purified from all alloy of falsehood , from all turbidness of obscurity and ambiguity , and form a pure essence of truth and invigorating motive , if of any it were capable . In this interval , Septimius is said by tradition to have found out many wonderful secrets that were almost beyond the scope of science . It was said that old Aunt Keziah used to come with a coal of fire from unknown furnaces , to light his distilling apparatus ; it was said , too , that the ghost of the old lord , whose ingenuity had propounded this puzzle for his descendants , used to come at midnight and strive to explain to him this manuscript ; that the Black Man , too , met him on the hill-top , and promised him an immediate release from his difficulties , provided he would kneel down and worship him , and sign his name in his book , an old , iron-clasped , much-worn volume , which he produced from his ample pockets , and showed him in it the names of many a man whose name has become historic , and above whose ashes kept watch an inscription testifying to his virtues and devotion , -- old autographs , -- for the Black Man was the original autograph collector . But these , no doubt , were foolish stories , conceived andpropagated in chimney-corners , while yet there were chimney-corners and firesides , and smoky flues . There wasno truth in such things , I am sure ; the Black Man had changedhis tactics , and knew better than to lure the human soul thus to come to him with his musty autograph-book . So Septimiusfought with his difficulty by himself , as many a beginner inscience has done before him ; and to his efforts in this way arepopularly attributed many herb-drinks , and some kinds ofspruce-beer , and nostrums used for rheumatism , sore throat , and typhus fever ; but I rather think they all came from Aunt Keziah ; or perhaps , like jokes to Joe Miller , all sorts ofquack medicines , flocking at large through the community , areassigned to him or her .