midnight
Will was an illegitimate child . His mother had kept the secret so well that he did not know his father , though he had frequently urged her to reveal to him privately all that she knew of his parentage . In conversing , too , with Nancy , his now affianced bride , he had expressed similar wishes ; whilst she , with a becoming and feminine modesty , had urged him not to press an aged parent on so delicate a point . At last the old woman was taken seriously ill , and , on her death-bed and at midnight , revealed to her son the secret of his birth . He was the son of a proprietor in the parish , and a much-respected man . The youth , so soon as he had closed his mother 's eyes , hurried off , amidst the darkness , to the abode of his father , and , entering by a window , was in his father 's bedchamber and over his body ere he was fully awake . `` John Scott ! ''