night, about 11 o'clock
I write all this to my reproach as well as to theirs , for albeit they dwelt in another parish it had been my Christian duty to seek them out . I did not , and I was greatly to blame . ` To pass over many years and come to the 2nd of December last -LRB- 1718 -RRB- . That night , about 11 o'clock , I sat in my library reading . It was blowing hard without , the wind W.N.W. ; but I had forgotten the gale in my book , when a sound , as it were a distant outcry of many voices , fetched me to unbar the shutters and open the window to listen . The sound , whatever it was , had died away : I heard but the wind roaring and the surf on the beaches along the Bay : and I was closing the window again when , close at hand , a man 's voice called to me to open the front door . I went out to the hall , where a lamp stood , and opened to him .