midnight
The night was perfectly still . Winter , black and hard , lay about the house like an iron wall . No wind stirred . Snow covered the world of mountain and moor outside , and Silence , supreme at midnight , poured all her softest forces upon the ancient building and its occupants . Spinrobin , curled up in the middle of the big four-poster , slept like a tired baby . It was a good deal later when somewhere out of that mass of silence rose the faint beginnings of a sound that stirred first cautiously about the very foundations of the house , and then , mounting inch by inch , through the hall , up the staircase , along the corridor , reached the floor where the secretary slept so peacefully , and finally entered his room . Its muffled tide poured most softly over all .