nine o'clock
Hideous cries aroused me ; sitting up in the dark , I heard men going along the street , roaring news of a hanging that had just taken place . `` Execution of Mrs. '' -- I forget the name of the murderess . `` Scene on the scaffold ! '' It was a little after nine o'clock ; the enterprising paper had promptly got out its gibbet edition . A morning of midwinter , roofs and ways covered with soot-grimed snow under the ghastly fog-pall ; and , whilst I lay there in my bed , that woman had been led out and hanged -- hanged . I thought with horror of the possibility that I might sicken and die in that wilderness of houses , nothing above me but `` a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours . '' Overcome with dread , I rose and bestirred myself .