midnight
In a bed-room above-stairs I found three women with servants ' caps , and a footman , arranged in a strange symmetrical way , head to head , like rays of a star . As I stood looking at them , I could have sworn , my good God , that I heard someone coming up the stairs . But it was some slight creaking of the breeze in the house , augmented a hundredfold to my inflamed and fevered hearing : for , used for years now to this silence of Eternity , it is as though I hear all sounds through an ear-trumpet . I went down , and after eating , and drinking some clary-water , made of brandy , sugar , cinnamon , and rose water , which I found in plenty , I lay down on a sofa in the inner hall , and slept a quiet sleep until near midnight . I went out then , still possessed with the foolish greed to reach London , and after getting the engine to rights , went off under a clear black sky thronged with worlds and far-sown spawn , some of them , I thought , perhaps like this of mine , whelmed and drowned in oceans of silence , with one only inhabitant to see it , and hear its silence . And all the long night I travelled , stopping twice only , once to get the coal from an engine which had impeded me , and once to drink some water , which I took care , as always , should be running water . When I felt my head nod , and my eyes close about 5 A.M. , I threw myself , just outside the arch of a tunnel upon a grassy bank , pretty thick with stalks and flowers , the workings of early dawn being then in the east : and there , till near eleven , slept .