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.
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.