Yes!—the breath of the man was coming more regularly, and his pulse felt slower and steadier. In a moment it would be safe to leave him and look for help. He withdrew his hand from the wrist it held and touched the sleeper's forehead. It was scarcely so hot as he had expected it to be. But it seemed insensitive to his touch, as there was no perceptible shrinking from it. The patient could be safely left for a moment.
He rose to his feet and stretched himself, glad of the respite. In the account of the affair that he wrote later to his substitute at Royd, he lays claim to having had no feeling at this moment but a wish for clean warm water to wash the touch of the drunkard's wrists off. He watched the motionless figure on the couch for a few moments, and the breathing satisfied him. He could be spared; for as short a time as need be, though.
He opened the door quietly and went out. But he returned to lock it; removing the key from within, but leaving it in the lock. Then he opened the street door and looked out. The little one had evidently misunderstood his instruction to leave it open—well! she really was almost a baby. However, that was enough to account for the non-appearance of any policeman. No police-officer ever leaves a "stood open" door uninvestigated in the small hours of the morning.
CHAPTER XIV
OF THE END OF THE BLIZZARD, AND OF SIMON MAGUS. HOW MR. TAYLOR FOUND A DOCTOR. OF A CHASE THROUGH THE SNOW, AND A CANAL-LOCK. WHAT WAS FOUND IN IT. BUT SIMON WAS INVISIBLE
How sweet and white and silent was the huge shroud of snow that lay so carefully on road and roof alike; unbroken, in this untrodden stillness, by so much as the memory of a rut inherited from yesterday's traffic; unmelted, even on the chimney-stacks, by the expiring efforts of yesterday's fires! How satisfied the stars that began to twinkle through the clearing veil of the snowdrift dying down, that the work of hiding London from them had been done thoroughly and well, and that they might shine on something clean at last! For the blizzard had gone to an appointment elsewhere, and the few flakes of belated snow that were afloat had given up all thought of blinding human eyes, and only seemed to pause in their selection of a resting-place. They had an embarras de choix.
As the sole spectator of the stillness stood looking out into the night, and thinking Wordsworth to himself, he saw the fixed red eye of a Cyclops railway-signal through the clear air; snow-scoured, and innocent, so far, of smoke. All that mighty heart was lying still—yes! But that engine, idling on the line and wide awake, felt free to wander to and fro, with clanks, and finally to execute an arpeggio of truncated snorts downwards, and give a sudden yell, and depart behind a steam-blast from beneath its apron. Then Mr. Taylor saw distinctly, at the end of his wrong turning, the fence that stultified it as a thoroughfare.
A wall of snow was against the lower half of the door, and the whole row of houses it made one of was nearly masked by the drift-pile heaped against it; and the snow that had caught and held against every roughness on the upright wall lay thick on every ledge and slope, and filled in every cavity. A sense of compromise was abroad in the air—an anticipated suggestion of a thaw; not yet, you know, but in time! Athelstan Taylor, as a neighbour's clock struck five in a hurry, knew so well what the shovels meant to sound like in the morning while all was still dry; and what the falls of snow would be like from uncleared roofs later on, when much would be slush.
There was not a soul in sight in the cul de sac street, which had so obviously been the wrong turning. There was consolation in that, though, for the Rev. Athelstan, for if it had been Gus and not he, Gus would have known his ground better, and passed on. But then!—what might not have happened to that poor little kid, asleep in there? However, it was necessary now to think what was to be done. Not a soul in sight, and hardly a sound to be heard; the very murmur of the city's traffic, that never quite dies, barely audible! Every house more than ever like its neighbour, in its cloak of snow. Which door should he choose, to knock at? One opposite looked the most promising, he thought. But he would put on his greatcoat before crossing through the cold night air. Where was that coat, by the way? So—back into the house to get it!
He struck a wax vesta to make the dark passage visible, and soon saw where the woman had hung it on a peg near the stairway. Should he, after all, go upstairs and rouse her?—Well, no, on the whole! Because he thought the woman bad for the patient, and better out of the way on that account. It did not occur to him that she was in the adjacent room, and the exploration above contributed as an obstacle to his decision. He felt readier for a colloquy with a roused next-door neighbour, than for shaking a stupefied sleeper to wakefulness—one, too, whom he had very poor reliance on. Besides, his own clearest scheme was to get some safe person to take charge of the patient, while he himself went for a doctor. If he did this, the doctor would come. If he sent, perhaps no! How could he tell?
But after this slight delay, just as well to look in at the sleeper once more before leaving him! The Rev. Athelstan, feeling very much like the New Policeman, opened the door cautiously. Just as well, for his charge was no longer where he had left him. He could see him in the half-light, blundering against the window-shutter, apparently without purpose, and talking to himself.
"Everything's took away, by Goard! Now if I could just lay 'ands on that there * * * knife, I could slit 'em all up. All the biling; and that'd make me even with 'em! Who's makin' any offer to stop me?" He muttered on, and there seemed no object in interrupting him. Very likely he would lie down and doze off again. A few minutes' patience, anyhow!
Suddenly he stopped and turned. And then perceiving Athelstan Taylor as he stood by the half-open door watching him intently, he addressed him exactly as though he were one of a succession of applicants or customers, whom he had satisfied so far.
"Now who might you be, master? 'And over your job! I'll be answerable to see to it by to-morrow forenoon." He seemed for the moment quite composed and businesslike, then suddenly changed to shrewd suspicion. "Unless you're—unless you're—unless you're.... No!—would you? That's not playing fair, by Goard! Come—you're a gentleman!—give a beggar his fair chance...." For a sort of wily approach, as though to somehow circumvent an object of suspicion, had been promptly intercepted, and he found himself firmly held as before. Then an intolerable horror seemed to seize on him quite suddenly. "God's mercy—keep him off—keep him off! I'll never let on about him to no one. I promise. Only give me a blooming Testament. I'll swear!" He asked several times for a Testament, variously described, rather to the amusement than otherwise of his hearer, whose sense of language discriminated between words with meanings and expletives without. The drunkard's manner seemed to him to throw doubt on the validity of any affidavit made on an unstained volume.
But there was no amusement—nothing but a shudder—to be got out of the intense conviction of his delirium that there was some horror—some spectre or nightmare, God knows what!—in ambush behind the man who held him. Those who have nursed any ordinary fever-patient through the hours of low vitality in the night, know how hard it is to struggle against a sort of belief in the reality of his delusions—against the sympathetic dread, at least, that all but does duty for a real belief. In delirium tremens this conviction is overwhelming, and the Rev. Athelstan almost felt it would be an easement, just once, to glance round behind him, and make sure there was no one else in the room. And this, although the drunkard's description seemed to apply to a conjurer (with the usual drawback) who had escaped from his coffin, but might be got back if we was sharp. His conviction of the reality of this person was too fervid to be ridiculous, or anything but unearthly; even when he added, as confirmatory, that he was a Hebrew conjuror, as well as a sanguinary one. Simon Magus, perhaps?—thought the Rev. Athelstan. And when he told