midnight
It was drawing near eleven . He fell into a reverie , and rambled slowly up and down the aisle , with his hands behind his back , and his dripping hat in them , swinging nearly to the flags , -- now lost in the darkness -- now emerging again , dim , nebulous , in the foggy light of the lanterns . When this clerical portrait came near , he was looking down , with gathered brows , upon the flags , moving his lips and nodding , as if counting them , as was his way . The doctor was thinking all the time upon the one text : -- Why should this livid memorial of two great crimes be now disturbed , after an obscurity of twenty-one years , as if to jog the memory of scandal , and set the great throat of the monster baying once more at the old midnight horror ? And as for that old house at Ballyfermot , why any one could have looked after it as well as he . ` Still he must live somewhere , and certainly this little town is quieter than the city , and the people , on the whole , very kindly , and by no means curious . ' This latter was a mistake of the doctor 's , who , like other simple persons , was fond of regarding others as harmless repetitions of himself .