eleven
o’clock
Its decayed door rattles in the wind , and its threshold is choked up with vegetation ; there are birds ' nests at the corners of the altar , and in the recesses of the lofty windows , from which the stained glass has long ago disappeared . It seems , however , that every year at Christmas , a supernatural light wanders amid these ruins , and the peasants , in going to the masses and to the midnight repasts , see this phantom of a chapel illuminated by invisible tapers that burn in the open air , even in snow and wind . You may laugh at it if you like , but a vine-dresser of the place , named Garrigue , doubtless a descendant of Garrigou , declared to me that one Christmas night , when he was a little tipsy , he lost his way on the hill of Trinquelague ; and this is what he saw ... . Till eleven o'clock , nothing . All was silent , motionless , inanimate . Suddenly , about midnight , a chime sounded from the top of the steeple , an old , old chime , which seemed as if it were ten leagues off . Very soon Garrigue saw lights flitting about , and uncertain shadows moving in the road that climbs the hill .