midnight
We parted in the storm , after I had forced half-a-crown on his acceptance , with a trembling hand . I conclude that something supernatural happened to the steamboat , as it bore his reeking figure down the river ; but it never got into the papers . Two years elapsed , during which I followed my profession without any vicissitudes ; never holding so much as a motion , of course . At the expiration of that period , I found myself making my way home to the Temple , one night , in precisely such another storm of thunder and lightning as that by which I had been overtaken on board the steamboat -- except that this storm , bursting over the town at midnight , was rendered much more awful by the darkness and the hour . As I turned into my court , I really thought a thunderbolt would fall , and plough the pavement up . Every brick and stone in the place seemed to have an echo of its own for the thunder . The waterspouts were overcharged , and the rain came tearing down from the house-tops as if they had been mountain-tops .