a
quarter past ten
John carried a handsome horn-lantern , which flashed now on a roadside bush -- now on the discoloured battlements of the bridge -- and now on a streaming window . They stepped out -- there were no umbrellas in those days -- splashing among the wide and widening pools ; while Sally and Lilias stood in the porch , holding candles for full five minutes after the doctor and his ` Jack-o ' - the-lantern , ' as he called honest John , whose arm and candle always befriended him in his night excursions , had got round the corner . Through the back bow-window of the Phoenix , there pealed forth -- faint in the distance and rain -- a solemn royal ditty , piped by the tuneful Aldermen of Skinner 's Alley , and neither unmusical nor somehow uncongenial with the darkness , and the melancholy object of the doctor 's walk , the chant being rather monastic , wild , and dirge-like . It was a quarter past ten , and no other sound of life or human neighbourhood was stirring . If secrecy were an object , it was well secured by the sable sky , and the steady torrent which rolled down with electric weight and perpendicularity , making all nature resound with one long hush -- sh -- sh -- sh -- sh -- deluging the broad street , and turning the channels and gutters into mimic mill-streams which snorted and hurtled headlong through their uneven beds , and round the corners towards the turbid Liffey , which , battered all over with rain , muddy , and sullen , reeled its way towards the sea , rolling up to the heavens an aspect black as their own . As they passed by the Phoenix -LRB- a little rivulet , by-the-bye , was spouting down from the corner of the sign ; and indeed the night was such as might well have caused that suicidal fowl to abandon all thoughts of self-incremation , and submit to an unprecedented death by drowning -RRB- , there was no idle officer , or lounging waiter upon the threshold . Military and civilians were all snug in their quarters that night ; and the inn , except for the ` Aldermen ' in the back parlour , was doing no business .