midnight
This was the Bishop of Southwark , Percy remembered , who had left England early that morning . `` He is coming straight through , your Eminence ? '' `` Yes ; he should have been here by twenty-three . It is after midnight , is it not ? '' As he spoke , the bells chimed out the half-hour . It was nearly quiet now . All day the air had been full of sound ; mobs had paraded the suburbs ; the gates of the City had been barred , yet that was only an earnest of what was to be expected when the world understood itself .