midnight
The family board was spread ; the family kettle -- an unusually fat one -- was singing on the fire , and the family chimney was roaring like a lion by reason of the wind , which blew a hurricane outside , and shook the family mansion , a small wooden hut , to its foundations . The hour was midnight . This fact was indicated by the family clock -- a Dutch one , with a face which had once been white , but was now become greenish yellow , probably from horror at the profanity of the artist who had painted a basket of unrecognisable fruit above it , an irate cockatoo below it , and a blue church with a pink steeple as near to the centre of it as the hands would admit of . The family circle , consisting of a stout good-looking woman of thirty or thereabouts , and a little boy and girl , were of the fisher class , obviously so to the senses of sight and smell . They sat by the fire .