midnight
_ But that arrow of memory had been sharpened on Time 's grindstone and it seemed to pierce through us , so Martin proposed that we should try the rollicking chorus which the excursionists had sung on the pleasure-steamer the night before . He did not know a note of music and he had no more voice than a corn-crake , but crushing up on to the music-stool by my side , he banged away with his left hand while I played with my right , and we sang together in a wild delightful discord -- _ `` Ramsey town , Ramsey town , smiling by the sea , Here 's a health to my true love , wheresoe'er she be . '' _ We laughed again when that was over , but I knew I could not keep it up much longer , and every now and then I forgot that I was in my boudoir and seemed to see that lonesome plateau , twelve thousand feet above the icy barrier that guards the Pole , and Martin toiling through blizzards over rolling waves of snow . Towards midnight we went out on to the balcony to look at the lightning for the last time . The thunder was shaking the cliffs and rolling along them like cannon-balls , and Martin said : `` It sounds like the breaking of the ice down there . '' When we returned to the room he told me he would have to be off early in the morning , before I was out of bed , having something to do in Blackwater , where `` the boys were getting up a spree of some sort . '' In this way he rattled on for some minutes , obviously talking himself down and trying to prevent me from thinking .