They heard Mrs. Middlemore stop outside the kitchen, and exclaim, "Well! To think I should 'ave been so foolish as to leave the candle alight! I could 'ave swore I blowed it out before I left the room!" Then she opened the door, and it was well that Constable Nightingale darted forward to her support, for if he had not she would have fallen to the ground in affright, and the supper beer would have been lost to taste, if not to sight. It was as well, too, that he put his face close enough to her lips to partially stifle a kind of a hysterical gurgle which was escaping therefrom. It was, however, a proceeding of which Constable Wigg did not inwardly approve.
"Pluck up, Mrs. Middlemore," said Constable Nightingale, cheerily, "there's nothing wrong. It's only me and my mate, Wigg, who's on night duty here. Everything's as right as a fiddle. Take a pull at the beer--a long pull. Now you feel better, don't you?"
Mrs. Middlemore--her movements being enviously watched by Constable Wigg, whose thirst was growing almost unbearable--removed her lips from the jug, and said:
"Didn't get in at all," said Constable Nightingale, jocosely; "we were blown in."
"Yes, my dear. We was standing outside, Wigg and me, leaning against the door, when the wind come like a clap of thunder, and blew it clean open, and of course we went with it, flat on our backs the pair of us. When we got on our feet again the wind was tearing so, and the snow was pelting down that fierce, that I thought we might venture to take a liberty, and we come down here to warm ourselves. And that's the long and the short of it, my dear."
He still had his arm round Mrs. Middlemore's waist, and now he gave her a hug. She was a pleasant-faced, round-bodied woman, some forty years of age, and she looked up smilingly as the constable--her favorite constable--hugged her, and said,
"Well, now, I declare you did startle me. When I opened the door, and sor two men a-standing in my kitchen, I thought of burglars, and you might 'ave knocked me down with a feather.
"And now we're here," said Constable Nightingale, "I don't suppose you'd have the heart to turn us out."
"Turn you out!" exclaimed Mrs. Middlemore, "I wouldn't turn a cat out on such a night as this!"