midnight
Tell , him everything ! '' The wooden arrow on the top of the cupola of the Life-Saving Station had had a busy night of it . With the going down of the sun the wind had continued to blow east-southeast -- its old course for weeks -- and the little sentinel , lulled into inaction , had fallen into a doze , its feather end fixed on the glow of the twilight . At midnight a rollicking breeze that piped from out the north caught the sensitive vane napping , and before the dawn broke had quite tired it out , shifting from point to point , now west , now east , now nor ` east-by-east , and now back to north again . By the time Morgan had boiled his coffee and had cut his bacon into slivers ready for the frying-pan the restless wind , as if ashamed of its caprices , had again veered to the north-east , and then , as if determined ever after to lead a better life , had pulled itself together and had at last settled down to a steady blow from that quarter . The needle of the aneroid fastened to the wall of the sitting-room , and in reach of everybody 's eye , had also made a night of it . In fact , it had not had a moment 's peace since Captain Holt reset its register the day before .