ten at night
It was a bitterly cold night in January . The wind was roaring across the flats and fens of Cambridgeshire , driving tiny flakes of snow before it . But few people had been about all day , and those whose business compelled them to face the weather had hurried along , muffled up to the chin . It was ten at night ; and the porter and his wife at the workhouse , at Ely , had just gone to bed , when the woman exclaimed : `` Sam , I hear a child crying . '' `` Oh , nonsense ! '' the man replied , drawing the bedclothes higher over his head . `` It is the wind ; it 's been whistling all day . ''