noon
He was alone , for the Muggletonian , Havisham and Trail were confined in the overseer 's house . Opposite him was a small window framing a square of sky . He had watched light clouds drift across it , and the sun pass slowly and majestically down it , and the sunset turn the clouds into floating blood-red plumes . He had been there since noon . Thick walls kept from him all sound in the house below -- it might have been a house of the dead . Through the closed window came the low , incessant hum of the summer world without , but no unusual noise . He had heard the sunset horn , and the song of the slaves coming from the fields , and as dusk began to fall , the cry of a whip-poor-will .