midnight
We were chatting quietly , after we had left her , full of good resolutions , and we were climbing Pine Street , the deep snow making the passage difficult , when we heard the strange sound of the rejoicing in New York , twenty miles away . And it was without any thought of coming peril , without any thought of our neighbours , that we paused at the top of the ridge and looked across the valley . Indeed , we spoke of a previous New Year when we had sallied out from our flat and joined the tumultuous citizens in the streets . Above us was the dark blue sky of a wintry midnight , obscured here and there by indeterminate blotches of moving cloud , and far away to the eastward lay a long , low glare pierced by a single white light , the lantern of the Metropolitan Tower in New York . We paused and stood close together upon the immediate edge of the vacant plot , now several feet deep in snow , our figures throwing long shadows upon the ghostly purity of the covering . And we became aware that we were not watching so much as listening , for on the freshening easterly wind there was borne such a rumour as men are not often permitted to make or to hear . It could scarcely be called a noise ; it was rather a terrible and confusing _ presence _ translated into sound .