After which, advising us all to get a good night, and announcing that to-morrow being Christmas Day, we should not breakfast till nine, he trotted off to his quarters and left us.
We were all pretty ready to take his advice, for what with a sixteen- mile run across country in the afternoon, and our big dinner in the evening, the thought of bed seemed rather a comfortable prospect.
One or two of the fellows, however, fellows whom no exertion ever seemed to weary, protested against going to bed at ten o'clock, and took good care that those who did shouldn't sleep.

We were used to that, and had to put up with it, and it must have been close upon the stroke of Christmas Day before they finally condescended to turn in and leave us in peace.
One by one the candles went out, the talk and the laughter gradually subsided, and even the grunts and twitches of the doughty heroes as they first gave themselves over to slumber died away in the darkness.

For the first time since we rose that morning, a dead silence reigned in Jolliffe's.
In fact, as I lay awake and tried to get to sleep the silence seemed unnaturally profound.

The tick of the big clock down in the hall struck on the ear with almost a thud, and the light breeze outside moaned among the ventilators and played chromatic scales through the keyhole in a fashion quite disturbing.

I wished that wind would shut up, and that the clock would run down.