midnight
It was a very delightful room , with fine wide outlook -- over towards the church in its dark embowerment of evergreen oaks , which some of the folk would not pass by night ; over the long sweep of the land towards Little Sark ; then , over to the left , a glimpse of the sea and a dark blue film on the horizon which he knew was Jersey . This room and the balcony outside should be his workshop , he decided , and he looked forward , with an eagerness to which he had been stranger for weeks past , to burying himself in his work and finding in it solace and new strength . Graeme possessed a lively imagination , else surely he had never taken to writing . But a lively imagination , sole occupant of a ten-roomed house in a strange land whose inhabitants believed firmly in ghosts and spirits and things that walked by night , and that house but a stone 's - throw from the black churchyard where such discomforting things might naturally be supposed to congregate , was not nearly so enjoyable a possession at midnight as in the full light of day . He lay awake for hours , hearing what seemed to him uncanny sounds about the house , inside and out . The night wind sighed through the heavy pale leaves of the eucalyptus trees , and set the roses and honeysuckle on the verandah posts whispering and tapping . In the stark silence , sounds came out of the other nine empty rooms as though they chose that quiet time for passing confidences .