midnight
Slipping off his own clothing , he deliberately arrayed himself in the borrowed raiment , silk small-clothes and all , then put on the cocked hat , grasped the silver-headed cane in his right hand , and moving his small shaving-glass slowly up and down before him , so as by piecemeal to take in his whole figure , felt convinced that he would well pass for Squire Woodcock 's genuine phantom . But after the first feeling of self-satisfaction with his anticipated success had left him , it was not without some superstitious embarrassment that Israel felt himself encased in a dead man 's broadcloth ; nay , in the very coat in which the deceased had no doubt fallen down in his fit . By degrees he began to feel almost as unreal and shadowy as the shade whose part he intended to enact . Waiting long and anxiously till darkness came , and then till he thought it was fairly midnight , he stole back into the closet , and standing for a moment uneasily in the middle of the floor , thinking over all the risks he might run , he lingered till he felt himself resolute and calm . Then groping for the door leading into the hall , put his hand on the knob and turned it . But the door refused to budge . Was it locked ?