midnight
The Abbey had flourished in the lifetime of Sir Thomas More , and was mentioned in some of his familiar epistles . The ruined building had been used as a granary in the time of Charles the First ; and it was only within the last decade that it had been redeemed from that degraded use , and had been in some measure restored and made habitable for the occupation of an old couple , who owned the surrounding fields , and who had a small dairy farm from which they sent fresh milk into London every morning . The ghostly repute of the place and the attraction of new milk , cheese cakes , and syllabubs , had drawn a certain number of those satiated pleasure-seekers who were ever on the alert for a new sensation , among whom there was none more active or more noisy than Lady Sarah Tewkesbury . She had made the haunted Abbey in a manner her own , had invited her friends to midnight parties to watch for the ghost , and to morning parties to eat syllabubs and dance on the grass . She had brought a shower of gold into the lap of the miserly freeholder , and had husband and wife completely under her thumb . Doler , the husband , had fought in the civil war , and Mrs. Doler had been a cook in the Fairfax household ; but both had scrupulously sunk all Cromwellian associations since his Majesty 's return , and in boasting , as he often did boast , of having fought desperately and been left for dead at the battle of Brentford , Mr. Doler had been careful to suppress the fact that he was a hireling soldier of the Parliament . He would weep for the martyred King , and tell the story of his own wounds , until it is possible he had forgotten which side he had fought for , in remembering his personal prowess and sufferings .