nearly twelve o'clock
The laird found the lawyer an agreeable companion , chiefly from his readiness to listen to his old law stories , and Fergus laid himself out to please the two ladies : secure of the admiration of one , he hoped it might help to draw the favour of the other . He had conceived the notion that Ginevra probably disliked his profession , and took pains therefore to show how much he was a man of the world -- talked about Shakspere , and flaunted rags of quotation in elocutionary style ; got books from his study , and read passages from Byron , Shelley , and Moore -- chiefly from `` The Loves of the Angels '' of the last , ecstasizing the lawyer 's lady , and interesting Ginevra , though all he read taken together seemed to her unworthy of comparison with one of poor Donal 's songs . It grew late . The dinner had been at a fashionable hour ; they had stayed an unfashionable time : it was nearly twelve o'clock when guests and host left the house in company . The lawyer and his wife went one way , and Fergus went the other with the laird and Ginevra . Hearing the pitiful wailing of a child and the cough of a woman , as they went along a street bridge , they peeped over the parapet , and saw , upon the stair leading to the lower street , a woman , with a child asleep in her lap , trying to eat a piece of bread , and coughing as if in the last stage of consumption . On the next step below sat a man hushing in his bosom the baby whose cry they had heard .