about eleven
o’clock
Well , here I found poor Fanny , quite disconsolate and uncomfortable . The old boy had been very cross all day , which made her feel still more lonely ; and she was quite out of spirits . So , I put a good face on the matter , and laughed it off , and said we should enjoy the pleasures of a matrimonial life more by contrast ; and , at length , poor Fanny brightened up a little . I stopped there , till about eleven o'clock , and , just as I was taking my leave for the fourteenth time , the girl came running down the stairs , without her shoes , in a great fright , to tell us that the old villain -- Heaven forgive me for calling him so , for he is dead and gone now ! -- prompted I suppose by the prince of darkness , was coming down , to draw his own beer for supper -- a thing he had not done before , for six months , to my certain knowledge ; for the cask stood in that very back kitchen . If he discovered me there , explanation would have been out of the question ; for he was so outrageously violent , when at all excited , that he never would have listened to me . There was only one thing to be done .