The Trail of the Serpent · Chapter
Midnight by the Slopperton Clocks explained
A violent storm breaks over Slopperton at midnight, causing widespread unease.
What happens
A violent storm breaks over Slopperton at midnight, causing widespread unease. In Dr. Tappenden's household, the absence of Jabez North, who has never been late before, alarms the maids Sarah Anne and Miss Smithers. Meanwhile, in the impoverished Blind Peter district, a girl called Sillikens tends to her sick lover Jim. After fetching him wine, she returns to find him gone, having glimpsed a familiar figure fleeing in the storm.
Themes in this chapter
Urban Depravity and Poverty
The squalid conditions of Blind Peter and the desperate poverty of Sillikens and Jim highlight the grim realities of urban life.
Duality and Deception
Jabez North's uncharacteristic absence and the mysterious figure glimpsed in the storm suggest hidden motives and deceptive appearances.
Characters to notice
- Jabez North
Absent from Dr. Tappenden's household past midnight, causing concern among the maids.
- Sillikens
A girl from Blind Peter who tends to her sick lover Jim and later sees a familiar figure fleeing in the storm.
- Miss Smithers
A maid in Dr. Tappenden's house who waits up for Jabez North and speculates about his absence.
- Sarah Anne
The housemaid in Dr. Tappenden's household who fears Jabez North has met with harm.
- Jim Stilson
Sillikens' sick lover who disappears from his bed during the storm.
- Mrs. Martha Jones
Jim's grandmother, who sits drinking and muttering by the hearth after Jim's disappearance.
Key passages
“The clouds and the sky kept their promise, and as the clocks chimed the quarter before twelve the storm broke over the steeples at Slopperton.”
The storm arrived exactly as predicted, just before midnight, striking the town's church steeples.
Establishes the dramatic setting and the precise timing of the storm's onset.
“No sign of Jabez North. A white face and a pair of glazed eyes staring up at the sky, out on a dreary heath three miles from Slopperton, exposed to the fury of a pitiless storm; a man lying alone on a wretched mattress in a miserable apartment in Blind Peter—but no Jabez North.”
Jabez North is nowhere to be found, while elsewhere a corpse lies on a heath and a sick man languishes in Blind Peter.
Foreshadows violence and connects Jabez's absence to other tragic events.
“The girl sat down in her wet garments, of which she never once thought, on the little stool by the side of the bed.”
Sillikens, soaked from the rain, sat beside the bed without noticing her own discomfort.
Highlights her selfless devotion to her sick lover.
“The old woman still sat before the hearth. The sputtering candle had gone out, and the light from the miserable little fire only revealed the dark outlines of the wretched furniture and the figure of Jim’s grandmother, looking, as she sat mumbling over the broken teacup, like a wicked witch performing an incantation over a portable cauldron.”
The grandmother sat by the dying fire in the dark, muttering over her teacup like a witch casting a spell.
Creates a gothic, eerie atmosphere and emphasizes the decay and despair of the setting.