midnight
The following evening , your father chancing to be officer of the guard and on duty , my father , whose wife had then been dead a year , was thoughtless enough to accompany Mrs. Nolan home at a late hour from the post ball . It was merely an act of ordinary courtesy ; but gossips magnified the tale , and bore it to Nolan . Still smarting from the former quarrel , in which I fear my father was in the wrong , he left the guard-house with the openly avowed intention of seeking immediate satisfaction . In the meanwhile Slavin , Murphy , and a trooper named Flynn , who had been to town without passes , and were half-drunk , stole through the guard lines , and decided to make a midnight raid on the colonel 's private office . Dodging along behind the powder-house , they ran suddenly upon my father , then on the way to his own quarters . Whether they were recognized by him , or whether drink made them reckless of consequences , is unknown , but one of the men instantly fired . Then they ran , and succeeded in gaining the barracks unsuspected . ''