When he returned to the parlour, after being again dismissed, I said to him: 

“Well, I congratulate you.”

“I thank ye!” he said, and sat down.  Presently I could hear him muttering to himself, mildly:  “Hell!  Hell!  Hell!”

I thought:  “Stirling will not be very long now, and we can depart home.”  I looked at my watch.  It was a quarter to two.  But Stirling did not appear, nor was there any message from him or sign.  I had to submit to the predicament.  As a faint chilliness from the window affected my back I drew my overcoat up to my shoulders as a counterpane.  Through a gap between the red curtains of the window I could see a star blazing.  It passed behind the curtain with disconcerting rapidity.  The universe was swinging and whirling as usual.

VII

Sounds of knocking disturbed me.  In the few seconds that elapsed before I could realize just where I was and why I was there, the summoning knocks were repeated.  The early sun was shining through the red blind.  I sat up and straightened my hair, involuntarily composing my attitude so that nobody who might enter the room should imagine that I had been other than patiently wide-awake all night.  The second door of the parlour—­that leading to the bar-room of the Foaming Quart—­was open, and I could see the bar itself, with shelves rising behind it and the upright handles of a beer-engine at one end.  Someone whom I could not see was evidently unbolting and unlocking the principal entrance to the inn.  Then I heard the scraping of a creaky portal on the floor.

“Well, Jos lad!”

It was the voice of the little man, Charlie, who had spoken with Myatt on the football field.

“Come in quick, Charlie.  It’s cowd [cold],” said the voice of Jos Myatt, gloomily.

“Ay!  Cowd it is, lad!  It’s above three mile as I’ve walked, and thou knows it, Jos.  Give us a quartern o’ gin.”

The door grated again and a bolt was drawn.

The two men passed together behind the bar, and so within my vision.  Charlie had a grey muffler round his neck; his hands were far in his pockets and seemed to be at strain, as though trying to prevent his upper and his lower garments from flying apart.  Jos Myatt was extremely dishevelled.  In the little man’s demeanour towards the big one there was now none of the self-conscious pride in the mere fact of acquaintance that I had noticed on the field.  Clearly the two were intimate friends, perhaps relatives.  While Jos was dispensing the gin, Charlie said, in a low tone: 

“Well, what luck, Jos?”

This was the first reference, by either of them, to the crisis.

Jos deliberately finished pouring out the gin.  Then he said: 

“There’s two on ’em, Charlie.”

“Two on ’em?  What mean’st tha’, lad?”

“I mean as it’s twins.”

Charlie and I were equally startled.