midnight
He accordingly rode out with Lance toward Glemham . It was a night of extraordinary blackness ; you could not distinguish a hedge until the twigs stung across your face ; the road was narrow , great tree-trunks with bulging roots lined it , at times it was very steep -- and , besides and beyond every other discomfort , there was the rain . It fell pitilessly straight over the face of the country with a continuous roar as though the earth was a hollow drum . Both travellers were drenched to the skin before they were free of Saxmundham , and one of them , when after midnight they stumbled into the poor tumble-down parody of a tavern at Glemham , was in an extreme exhaustion . It was no more than an ague , said Lance , from which he periodically suffered , but the two men slept in the same bare room , and towards morning Mitchelbourne was awakened from a deep slumber by an unfamiliar voice talking at an incredible speed through the darkness in an uncouth tongue . He started up upon his elbow ; the voice came from Lance 's bed . He struck a light .