midnight
But otherwise all was still , quicscent . San Francisco slept . It was the morning of December 24 , 1849 -- the first Christmas eve following the gold rush . Windham , who had lain awake since midnight , pondered upon this and other things . Events had succeeded each other with such riotous activity of late that life seemed more like a dream than a reality . His turbulent months at the mines , his high preliminary hopes of fortune , their gradual waning to a slow despair ; the advent of James Burthen and his daughter ; then love , his partner 's murder and the girl 's abduction ; his pursuit and illness . Alice 's rescue and their marriage ; his return to find the claim covered with snow ; finally a clerical post in San Francisco .