midnight
He sank for a few moments into a fit of gloomy abstraction , till the sound of the clock striking twelve made him start , -- it was the only sound he had heard for some hours , and the sounds produced by inanimate things , while all living beings around are as dead , have at such an hour an effect indescribably awful . John looked at his manuscript with some reluctance , opened it , paused over the first lines , and as the wind sighed round the desolate apartment , and the rain pattered with a mournful sound against the dismantled window , wished -- what did he wish for ? -- he wished the sound of the wind less dismal , and the dash of the rain less monotonous . -- He may be forgiven , it was past midnight , and there was not a human being awake but himself within ten miles when he began to read . . . .