midnight
The churchyard is very old , and has no monuments of importance : only green headstones bent sideways and sunk to their neck and shoulders in the earth . A postern gate , with a flight of stone steps , opens from Kilbride Lane . Here every night you may see the ghost of Cody the murderer , climbing those steps with a rigid burden hanging from his shoulder . But as Mike Sheehan ascended the steps out of the midnight dark he felt no fear . He clanged the gate of the sacred quiet place in a way that set the silence echoing . The moon was high overhead , and was shining straight down on the square enclosure with its little heaped mounds and ancient stones . Some mad passion was on Mike Sheehan surely , or he would not so have desecrated the quiet resting-place of the dead .