midnight
She lay in the river a fortnight or more , and every day sent us a gang of sixty or seventy of our country 's gallant defenders , who spread themselves over the town , doing all sorts of mad things . They were good-natured enough , but full of old Sancho . The `` Wee Drop '' proved a drop too much for many of them . They went singing through the streets at midnight , wringing off door-knockers , shinning up water-spouts , and frightening the Oldest Inhabitant nearly to death by popping their heads into his second-story window , and shouting `` Fire ! '' One morning a blue-jacket was discovered in a perilous plight , half-way up the steeple of the South Church , clinging to the lightning-rod . How he got there nobody could tell , not even blue-jacket himself . All he knew was , that the leg of his trousers had caught on a nail , and there he stuck , unable to move either way .