CHAPTER I - Chrip the First

THE kettle began it! Don't tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle said. I

know better. Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of

time that she couldn't say which of them began it; but, I say the

kettle did. I ought to know, I hope! The kettle began it, full

five minutes by the little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner,

before the Cricket uttered a chirp.

As if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the convulsive little

Haymaker at the top of it, jerking away right and left with a

scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn't mowed down half an acre

of imaginary grass before the Cricket joined in at all!

Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that. I

wouldn't set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs.

Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account whatever.

Nothing should induce me. But, this is a question of act. And the

fact is, that the kettle began it, at least five minutes before the

Cricket gave any sign of being in existence. Contradict me, and

I'll say ten.

Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should have proceeded to

do so in my very first word, but for this plain consideration - if

I am to tell a story I must begin at the beginning; and how is it

possible to begin at the beginning, without beginning at the

kettle?

It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill,

you must understand, between the kettle and the Cricket. And this

is what led to it, and how it came about.

Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and clicking

over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable

rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the

yard - Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle at the water-butt.

Presently returning, less the pattens (and a good deal less, for

they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short), she set the

kettle on the fire. In doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid

it for an instant; for, the water being uncomfortably cold, and in

that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state wherein it seems to

penetrate through every kind of substance, patten rings included -

had laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle's toes, and even splashed her

legs. And when we rather plume ourselves (with reason too) upon

our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of

stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear.

Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn't

allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't hear of

accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it WOULD lean

forward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle,

on the hearth. It was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered

morosely at the fire. To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs.

Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then,

with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived

sideways in - down to the very bottom of the kettle. And the hull

of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to

coming out of the water, which the lid of that kettle employed

against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again.

It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its

handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and

mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, 'I won't boil.

Nothing shall induce me!'

But Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humour, dusted her chubby

little hands against each other, and sat down before the kettle,

laughing. Meantime, the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and

gleaming on the little Haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock,

until one might have thought he stood stock still before the

Moorish Palace, and nothing was in motion but the flame.

He was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second,

all right and regular. But, his sufferings when the clock was

going to strike, were frightful to behold; and, when a Cuckoo

looked out of a trap-door in the Palace, and gave note six times,

it shook him, each time, like a spectral voice - or like a

something wiry, plucking at his legs.

It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise among the

weights and ropes below him had quite subsided, that this terrified

Haymaker became himself again. Nor was he startled without reason;

for these rattling, bony skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting

in their operation, and I wonder very much how any set of men, but

most of all how Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them.

There is a popular belief that Dutchmen love broad cases and much

clothing for their own lower selves; and they might know better

than to leave their clocks so very lank and unprotected, surely.

Now it was, you observe, that the kettle began to spend the

evening. Now it was, that the kettle, growing mellow and musical,

began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to indulge

in short vocal snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't

quite made up its mind yet, to be good company. Now it was, that

after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial

sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all reserve, and burst

into a stream of song so cosy and hilarious, as never maudlin

nightingale yet formed the least idea of.

So plain too! Bless you, you might have understood it like a book

- better than some books you and I could name, perhaps. With its

warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud which merrily and

gracefully ascended a few feet, then hung about the chimney-corner

as its own domestic Heaven, it trolled its song with that strong

energy of cheerfulness, that its iron body hummed and stirred upon

the fire; and the lid itself, the recently rebellious lid - such is

the influence of a bright example - performed a sort of jig, and

clattered like a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known

the use of its twin brother.

That this song of the kettle's was a song of invitation and welcome

to somebody out of doors: to somebody at that moment coming on,

towards the snug small home and the crisp fire: there is no doubt

whatever. Mrs. Peerybingle knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing

before the hearth. It's a dark night, sang the kettle, and the

rotten leaves are lying by the way; and, above, all is mist and

darkness, and, below, all is mire and clay; and there's only one

relief in all the sad and murky air; and I don't know that it is

one, for it's nothing but a glare; of deep and angry crimson, where

the sun and wind together; set a brand upon the clouds for being

guilty of such weather; and the widest open country is a long dull

streak of black; and there's hoar-frost on the finger-post, and

thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn't water, and the water

isn't free; and you couldn't say that anything is what it ought to

be; but he's coming, coming, coming! -

And here, if you like, the Cricket DID chime in! with a Chirrup,

Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way of chorus; with a voice

so astoundingly disproportionate to its size, as compared with the

kettle; (size! you couldn't see it!) that if it had then and there

burst itself like an overcharged gun, if it had fallen a victim on

the spot, and chirruped its little body into fifty pieces, it would

have seemed a natural and inevitable consequence, for which it had

expressly laboured.

The kettle had had the last of its solo performance. It persevered

with undiminished ardour; but the Cricket took first fiddle and

kept it. Good Heaven, how it chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing

voice resounded through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the

outer darkness like a star. There was an indescribable little

trill and tremble in it, at its loudest, which suggested its being

carried off its legs, and made to leap again, by its own intense

enthusiasm. Yet they went very well together, the Cricket and the

kettle. The burden of the song was still the same; and louder,

louder, louder still, they sang it in their emulation.

The fair little listener - for fair she was, and young: though

something of what is called the dumpling shape; but I don't myself

object to that - lighted a candle, glanced at the Haymaker on the

top of the clock, who was getting in a pretty average crop of

minutes; and looked out of the window, where she saw nothing, owing

to the darkness, but her own face imaged in the glass. And my

opinion is (and so would yours have been), that she might have

looked a long way, and seen nothing half so agreeable. When she

came back, and sat down in her former seat, the Cricket and the

kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of

competition. The kettle's weak side clearly being, that he didn't

know when he was beat.

There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, chirp,

chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum - m - m! Kettle

making play in the distance, like a great top. Chirp, chirp,

chirp! Cricket round the corner. Hum, hum, hum - m - m! Kettle

sticking to him in his own way; no idea of giving in. Chirp,

chirp, chirp! Cricket fresher than ever. Hum, hum, hum - m - m!

Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket going in to

finish him. Hum, hum, hum - m - m! Kettle not to be finished.

Until at last they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry,

helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and

the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed,

or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer

head than yours or mine to have decided with anything like

certainty. But, of this, there is no doubt: that, the kettle and

the Cricket, at one and the same moment, and by some power of

amalgamation best known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside

song of comfort streaming into a ray of the candle that shone out

through the window, and a long way down the lane. And this light,

bursting on a certain person who, on the instant, approached

towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to him,

literally in a twinkling, and cried, 'Welcome home, old fellow!

Welcome home, my boy!'

This end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and

was taken off the fire. Mrs. Peerybingle then went running to the

door, where, what with the wheels of a cart, the tramp of a horse,

the voice of a man, the tearing in and out of an excited dog, and

the surprising and mysterious appearance of a baby, there was soon

the very What's-his-name to pay.

Where the baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle got hold of it in

that flash of time, I don't know. But a live baby there was, in

Mrs. Peerybingle's arms; and a pretty tolerable amount of pride she

seemed to have in it, when she was drawn gently to the fire, by a

sturdy figure of a man, much taller and much older than herself,

who had to stoop a long way down, to kiss her. But she was worth

the trouble. Six foot six, with the lumbago, might have done it.

'Oh goodness, John!' said Mrs. P. 'What a state you are in with

the weather!'

He was something the worse for it, undeniably. The thick mist hung

in clots upon his eyelashes like candied thaw; and between the fog

and fire together, there were rainbows in his very whiskers.

'Why, you see, Dot,' John made answer, slowly, as he unrolled a

shawl from about his throat; and warmed his hands; 'it - it an't

exactly summer weather. So, no wonder.'

'I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't like it,' said

Mrs. Peerybingle: pouting in a way that clearly showed she DID

like it, very much.

'Why what else are you?' returned John, looking down upon her with

a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze as his huge hand

and arm could give. 'A dot and' - here he glanced at the baby - 'a

dot and carry - I won't say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I

was very near a joke. I don't know as ever I was nearer.'

He was often near to something or other very clever, by his own

account: this lumbering, slow, honest John; this John so heavy,

but so light of spirit; so rough upon the surface, but so gentle at

the core; so dull without, so quick within; so stolid, but so good!

Oh Mother Nature, give thy children the true poetry of heart that

hid itself in this poor Carrier's breast - he was but a Carrier by

the way - and we can bear to have them talking prose, and leading

lives of prose; and bear to bless thee for their company!

It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure, and her baby in

her arms: a very doll of a baby: glancing with a coquettish

thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her delicate little head

just enough on one side to let it rest in an odd, half-natural,

half-affected, wholly nestling and agreeable manner, on the great

rugged figure of the Carrier. It was pleasant to see him, with his

tender awkwardness, endeavouring to adapt his rude support to her

slight need, and make his burly middle-age a leaning-staff not

inappropriate to her blooming youth. It was pleasant to observe

how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the background for the baby, took

special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of this grouping;

and stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, and her head thrust

forward, taking it in as if it were air. Nor was it less agreeable

to observe how John the Carrier, reference being made by Dot to the

aforesaid baby, checked his hand when on the point of touching the

infant, as if he thought he might crack it; and bending down,

surveyed it from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride,

such as an amiable mastiff might be supposed to show, if he found

himself, one day, the father of a young canary.

'An't he beautiful, John? Don't he look precious in his sleep?'

'Very precious,' said John. 'Very much so. He generally IS

asleep, an't he?'

'Lor, John! Good gracious no!'

'Oh,' said John, pondering. 'I thought his eyes was generally

shut. Halloa!'

'Goodness, John, how you startle one!'

'It an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way!' said the

astonished Carrier, 'is it? See how he's winking with both of 'em

at once! And look at his mouth! Why he's gasping like a gold and

silver fish!'

'You don't deserve to be a father, you don't,' said Dot, with all

the dignity of an experienced matron. 'But how should you know

what little complaints children are troubled with, John! You

wouldn't so much as know their names, you stupid fellow.' And when

she had turned the baby over on her left arm, and had slapped its

back as a restorative, she pinched her husband's ear, laughing.

'No,' said John, pulling off his outer coat. 'It's very true, Dot.

I don't know much about it. I only know that I've been fighting

pretty stiffly with the wind to-night. It's been blowing north-

east, straight into the cart, the whole way home.'

'Poor old man, so it has!' cried Mrs. Peerybingle, instantly

becoming very active. 'Here! Take the precious darling, Tilly,

while I make myself of some use. Bless it, I could smother it with

kissing it, I could! Hie then, good dog! Hie, Boxer, boy! Only

let me make the tea first, John; and then I'll help you with the

parcels, like a busy bee. "How doth the little" - and all the rest

of it, you know, John. Did you ever learn "how doth the little,"

when you went to school, John?'

'Not to quite know it,' John returned. 'I was very near it once.

But I should only have spoilt it, I dare say.'

'Ha ha,' laughed Dot. She had the blithest little laugh you ever

heard. 'What a dear old darling of a dunce you are, John, to be

sure!'

Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see that the

boy with the lantern, which had been dancing to and fro before the

door and window, like a Will of the Wisp, took due care of the

horse; who was fatter than you would quite believe, if I gave you

his measure, and so old that his birthday was lost in the mists of

antiquity. Boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the

family in general, and must be impartially distributed, dashed in

and out with bewildering inconstancy; now, describing a circle of

short barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at the

stable-door; now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress,

and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now, eliciting a

shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the fire,

by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance;

now, exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby; now, going round

and round upon the hearth, and lying down as if he had established

himself for the night; now, getting up again, and taking that

nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his, out into the weather, as if

he had just remembered an appointment, and was off, at a round

trot, to keep it.

'There! There's the teapot, ready on the hob!' said Dot; as

briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house. 'And there's the

old knuckle of ham; and there's the butter; and there's the crusty

loaf, and all! Here's the clothes-basket for the small parcels,

John, if you've got any there - where are you, John?'

'Don't let the dear child fall under the grate, Tilly, whatever you

do!'

It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting the

caution with some vivacity, that she had a rare and surprising

talent for getting this baby into difficulties and had several

times imperilled its short life, in a quiet way peculiarly her own.

She was of a spare and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch

that her garments appeared to be in constant danger of sliding off

those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were loosely hung.

Her costume was remarkable for the partial development, on all

possible occasions, of some flannel vestment of a singular

structure; also for affording glimpses, in the region of the back,

of a corset, or pair of stays, in colour a dead-green. Being

always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed,

besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's

perfections and the baby's, Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of

judgment, may be said to have done equal honour to her head and to

her heart; and though these did less honour to the baby's head,

which they were the occasional means of bringing into contact with

deal doors, dressers, stair-rails, bed-posts, and other foreign

substances, still they were the honest results of Tilly Slowboy's

constant astonishment at finding herself so kindly treated, and

installed in such a comfortable home. For, the maternal and

paternal Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and Tilly had been

bred by public charity, a foundling; which word, though only

differing from fondling by one vowel's length, is very different in

meaning, and expresses quite another thing.

To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her husband,

tugging at the clothes-basket, and making the most strenuous

exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried it), would have

amused you almost as much as it amused him. It may have

entertained the Cricket too, for anything I know; but, certainly,

it now began to chirp again, vehemently.

'Heyday!' said John, in his slow way. 'It's merrier than ever, to-

night, I think.'

'And it's sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has done

so. To have a Cricket on the Hearth, is the luckiest thing in all

the world!'

John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought into

his head, that she was his Cricket in chief, and he quite agreed

with her. But, it was probably one of his narrow escapes, for he

said nothing.

'The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John, was on that

night when you brought me home - when you brought me to my new home

here; its little mistress. Nearly a year ago. You recollect,

John?'

O yes. John remembered. I should think so!

'Its chirp was such a welcome to me! It seemed so full of promise

and encouragement. It seemed to say, you would be kind and gentle

with me, and would not expect (I had a fear of that, John, then) to

find an old head on the shoulders of your foolish little wife.'

John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the head,

as though he would have said No, no; he had had no such

expectation; he had been quite content to take them as they were.

And really he had reason. They were very comely.

'It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so; for you have

ever been, I am sure, the best, the most considerate, the most

affectionate of husbands to me. This has been a happy home, John;

and I love the Cricket for its sake!'

'Why so do I then,' said the Carrier. 'So do I, Dot.'

'I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the many

thoughts its harmless music has given me. Sometimes, in the

twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and down-hearted, John

- before baby was here to keep me company and make the house gay -

when I have thought how lonely you would be if I should die; how

lonely I should be if I could know that you had lost me, dear; its

Chirp, Chirp, Chirp upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of

another little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose

coming sound my trouble vanished like a dream. And when I used to

fear - I did fear once, John, I was very young you know - that ours

might prove to be an ill-assorted marriage, I being such a child,

and you more like my guardian than my husband; and that you might

not, however hard you tried, be able to learn to love me, as you

hoped and prayed you might; its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp has cheered me

up again, and filled me with new trust and confidence. I was

thinking of these things to-night, dear, when I sat expecting you;

and I love the Cricket for their sake!'

'And so do I,' repeated John. 'But, Dot? I hope and pray that I

might learn to love you? How you talk! I had learnt that, long

before I brought you here, to be the Cricket's little mistress,

Dot!'

She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him

with an agitated face, as if she would have told him something.

Next moment she was down upon her knees before the basket, speaking

in a sprightly voice, and busy with the parcels.

'There are not many of them to-night, John, but I saw some goods

behind the cart, just now; and though they give more trouble,

perhaps, still they pay as well; so we have no reason to grumble,

have we? Besides, you have been delivering, I dare say, as you

came along?'

'Oh yes,' John said. 'A good many.'

'Why what's this round box? Heart alive, John, it's a wedding-

cake!'

'Leave a woman alone to find out that,' said John, admiringly.

'Now a man would never have thought of it. Whereas, it's my belief

that if you was to pack a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a

turn-up bedstead, or a pickled salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a

woman would be sure to find it out directly. Yes; I called for it

at the pastry-cook's.'

'And it weighs I don't know what - whole hundredweights!' cried

Dot, making a great demonstration of trying to lift it.

'Whose is it, John? Where is it going?'

'Read the writing on the other side,' said John.

'Why, John! My Goodness, John!'

'Ah! who'd have thought it!' John returned.

'You never mean to say,' pursued Dot, sitting on the floor and

shaking her head at him, 'that it's Gruff and Tackleton the

toymaker!'

John nodded.

Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. Not in assent

- in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her lips the while

with all their little force (they were never made for screwing up;

I am clear of that), and looking the good Carrier through and

through, in her abstraction. Miss Slowboy, in the mean time, who

had a mechanical power of reproducing scraps of current

conversation for the delectation of the baby, with all the sense

struck out of them, and all the nouns changed into the plural

number, inquired aloud of that young creature, Was it Gruffs and

Tackletons the toymakers then, and Would it call at Pastry-cooks

for wedding-cakes, and Did its mothers know the boxes when its

fathers brought them homes; and so on.

'And that is really to come about!' said Dot. 'Why, she and I were

girls at school together, John.'

He might have been thinking of her, or nearly thinking of her,

perhaps, as she was in that same school time. He looked upon her

with a thoughtful pleasure, but he made no answer.

'And he's as old! As unlike her! - Why, how many years older than

you, is Gruff and Tackleton, John?'

'How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night at one sitting,

than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four, I wonder!' replied

John, good-humouredly, as he drew a chair to the round table, and

began at the cold ham. 'As to eating, I eat but little; but that

little I enjoy, Dot.'

Even this, his usual sentiment at meal times, one of his innocent

delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, and flatly

contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of his little wife,

who stood among the parcels, pushing the cake-box slowly from her

with her foot, and never once looked, though her eyes were cast

down too, upon the dainty shoe she generally was so mindful of.

Absorbed in thought, she stood there, heedless alike of the tea and

John (although he called to her, and rapped the table with his

knife to startle her), until he rose and touched her on the arm;

when she looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place

behind the teaboard, laughing at her negligence. But, not as she

had laughed before. The manner and the music were quite changed.

The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was not so

cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it.

'So, these are all the parcels, are they, John?' she said, breaking

a long silence, which the honest Carrier had devoted to the

practical illustration of one part of his favourite sentiment -

certainly enjoying what he ate, if it couldn't be admitted that he

ate but little. 'So, these are all the parcels; are they, John?'

'That's all,' said John. 'Why - no - I - ' laying down his knife

and fork, and taking a long breath. 'I declare - I've clean

forgotten the old gentleman!'

'The old gentleman?'

'In the cart,' said John. 'He was asleep, among the straw, the

last time I saw him. I've very nearly remembered him, twice, since

I came in; but he went out of my head again. Holloa! Yahip there!

Rouse up! That's my hearty!'

John said these latter words outside the door, whither he had

hurried with the candle in his hand.

Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to The Old

Gentleman, and connecting in her mystified imagination certain

associations of a religious nature with the phrase, was so

disturbed, that hastily rising from the low chair by the fire to

seek protection near the skirts of her mistress, and coming into

contact as she crossed the doorway with an ancient Stranger, she

instinctively made a charge or butt at him with the only offensive

instrument within her reach. This instrument happening to be the

baby, great commotion and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer

rather tended to increase; for, that good dog, more thoughtful than

its master, had, it seemed, been watching the old gentleman in his

sleep, lest he should walk off with a few young poplar trees that

were tied up behind the cart; and he still attended on him very

closely, worrying his gaiters in fact, and making dead sets at the

buttons.

'You're such an undeniable good sleeper, sir,' said John, when

tranquillity was restored; in the mean time the old gentleman had

stood, bareheaded and motionless, in the centre of the room; 'that

I have half a mind to ask you where the other six are - only that

would be a joke, and I know I should spoil it. Very near though,'

murmured the Carrier, with a chuckle; 'very near!'

The Stranger, who had long white hair, good features, singularly

bold and well defined for an old man, and dark, bright, penetrating

eyes, looked round with a smile, and saluted the Carrier's wife by

gravely inclining his head.

His garb was very quaint and odd - a long, long way behind the

time. Its hue was brown, all over. In his hand he held a great

brown club or walking-stick; and striking this upon the floor, it

fell asunder, and became a chair. On which he sat down, quite

composedly.

'There!' said the Carrier, turning to his wife. 'That's the way I

found him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a milestone. And

almost as deaf.'

'Sitting in the open air, John!'

'In the open air,' replied the Carrier, 'just at dusk. "Carriage

Paid," he said; and gave me eighteenpence. Then he got in. And

there he is.'

'He's going, John, I think!'

Not at all. He was only going to speak.

'If you please, I was to be left till called for,' said the

Stranger, mildly. 'Don't mind me.'

With that, he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large

pockets, and a book from another, and leisurely began to read.

Making no more of Boxer than if he had been a house lamb!

The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. The

Stranger raised his head; and glancing from the latter to the

former, said,

'Your daughter, my good friend?'

'Wife,' returned John.

'Niece?' said the Stranger.

'Wife,' roared John.

'Indeed?' observed the Stranger. 'Surely? Very young!'

He quietly turned over, and resumed his reading. But, before he

could have read two lines, he again interrupted himself to say:

'Baby, yours?'

John gave him a gigantic nod; equivalent to an answer in the

affirmative, delivered through a speaking trumpet.

'Girl?'

'Bo-o-oy!' roared John.

'Also very young, eh?'

Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. 'Two months and three da-

ays! Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o! Took very fine-ly!

Considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful chi-ild! Equal

to the general run of children at five months o-old! Takes notice,

in a way quite wonderful! May seem impossible to you, but feels

his legs al-ready!'

Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these

short sentences into the old man's ear, until her pretty face was

crimsoned, held up the Baby before him as a stubborn and triumphant

fact; while Tilly Slowboy, with a melodious cry of 'Ketcher,

Ketcher' - which sounded like some unknown words, adapted to a

popular Sneeze - performed some cow-like gambols round that all

unconscious Innocent.

'Hark! He's called for, sure enough,' said John. 'There's

somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly.'

Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from without;

being a primitive sort of door, with a latch, that any one could

lift if he chose - and a good many people did choose, for all kinds

of neighbours liked to have a cheerful word or two with the

Carrier, though he was no great talker himself. Being opened, it

gave admission to a little, meagre, thoughtful, dingy-faced man,

who seemed to have made himself a great-coat from the sack-cloth

covering of some old box; for, when he turned to shut the door, and

keep the weather out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment,

the inscription G & T in large black capitals. Also the word GLASS

in bold characters.

'Good evening, John!' said the little man. 'Good evening, Mum.

Good evening, Tilly. Good evening, Unbeknown! How's Baby, Mum?

Boxer's pretty well I hope?'

'All thriving, Caleb,' replied Dot. 'I am sure you need only look

at the dear child, for one, to know that.'

'And I'm sure I need only look at you for another,' said Caleb.

He didn't look at her though; he had a wandering and thoughtful eye

which seemed to be always projecting itself into some other time

and place, no matter what he said; a description which will equally

apply to his voice.

'Or at John for another,' said Caleb. 'Or at Tilly, as far as that

goes. Or certainly at Boxer.'

'Busy just now, Caleb?' asked the Carrier.

'Why, pretty well, John,' he returned, with the distraught air of a

man who was casting about for the Philosopher's stone, at least.

'Pretty much so. There's rather a run on Noah's Arks at present.

I could have wished to improve upon the Family, but I don't see how

it's to be done at the price. It would be a satisfaction to one's

mind, to make it clearer which was Shems and Hams, and which was

Wives. Flies an't on that scale neither, as compared with

elephants you know! Ah! well! Have you got anything in the parcel

line for me, John?'

The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had taken

off; and brought out, carefully preserved in moss and paper, a tiny

flower-pot.

'There it is!' he said, adjusting it with great care. 'Not so much

as a leaf damaged. Full of buds!'

Caleb's dull eye brightened, as he took it, and thanked him.

'Dear, Caleb,' said the Carrier. 'Very dear at this season.'

'Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, whatever it cost,'

returned the little man. 'Anything else, John?'

'A small box,' replied the Carrier. 'Here you are!'

'"For Caleb Plummer,"' said the little man, spelling out the

direction. '"With Cash." With Cash, John? I don't think it's for

me.'

'With Care,' returned the Carrier, looking over his shoulder.

'Where do you make out cash?'

'Oh! To be sure!' said Caleb. 'It's all right. With care! Yes,

yes; that's mine. It might have been with cash, indeed, if my dear

Boy in the Golden South Americas had lived, John. You loved him

like a son; didn't you? You needn't say you did. I know, of

course. "Caleb Plummer. With care." Yes, yes, it's all right.

It's a box of dolls' eyes for my daughter's work. I wish it was

her own sight in a box, John.'

'I wish it was, or could be!' cried the Carrier.

'Thank'ee,' said the little man. 'You speak very hearty. To think

that she should never see the Dolls - and them a-staring at her, so

bold, all day long! That's where it cuts. What's the damage,

John?'

'I'll damage you,' said John, 'if you inquire. Dot! Very near?'

'Well! it's like you to say so,' observed the little man. 'It's

your kind way. Let me see. I think that's all.'

'I think not,' said the Carrier. 'Try again.'

'Something for our Governor, eh?' said Caleb, after pondering a

little while. 'To be sure. That's what I came for; but my head's

so running on them Arks and things! He hasn't been here, has he?'

'Not he,' returned the Carrier. 'He's too busy, courting.'

'He's coming round though,' said Caleb; 'for he told me to keep on

the near side of the road going home, and it was ten to one he'd

take me up. I had better go, by the bye. - You couldn't have the

goodness to let me pinch Boxer's tail, Mum, for half a moment,

could you?'

'Why, Caleb! what a question!'

'Oh never mind, Mum,' said the little man. 'He mightn't like it

perhaps. There's a small order just come in, for barking dogs; and

I should wish to go as close to Natur' as I could, for sixpence.

That's all. Never mind, Mum.'

It happened opportunely, that Boxer, without receiving the proposed

stimulus, began to bark with great zeal. But, as this implied the

approach of some new visitor, Caleb, postponing his study from the

life to a more convenient season, shouldered the round box, and

took a hurried leave. He might have spared himself the trouble,

for he met the visitor upon the threshold.

'Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I'll take you home.

John Peerybingle, my service to you. More of my service to your

pretty wife. Handsomer every day! Better too, if possible! And

younger,' mused the speaker, in a low voice; 'that's the Devil of

it!'

'I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. Tackleton,'

said Dot, not with the best grace in the world; 'but for your

condition.'

'You know all about it then?'

'I have got myself to believe it, somehow,' said Dot.

'After a hard struggle, I suppose?'

'Very.'

Tackleton the Toy-merchant, pretty generally known as Gruff and

Tackleton - for that was the firm, though Gruff had been bought out

long ago; only leaving his name, and as some said his nature,

according to its Dictionary meaning, in the business - Tackleton

the Toy-merchant, was a man whose vocation had been quite

misunderstood by his Parents and Guardians. If they had made him a

Money Lender, or a sharp Attorney, or a Sheriff's Officer, or a

Broker, he might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and,

after having had the full run of himself in ill-natured

transactions, might have turned out amiable, at last, for the sake

of a little freshness and novelty. But, cramped and chafing in the

peaceable pursuit of toy-making, he was a domestic Ogre, who had

been living on children all his life, and was their implacable

enemy. He despised all toys; wouldn't have bought one for the

world; delighted, in his malice, to insinuate grim expressions into

the faces of brown-paper farmers who drove pigs to market, bellmen

who advertised lost lawyers' consciences, movable old ladies who

darned stockings or carved pies; and other like samples of his

stock in trade. In appalling masks; hideous, hairy, red-eyed Jacks

in Boxes; Vampire Kites; demoniacal Tumblers who wouldn't lie down,

and were perpetually flying forward, to stare infants out of

countenance; his soul perfectly revelled. They were his only

relief, and safety-valve. He was great in such inventions.

Anything suggestive of a Pony-nightmare was delicious to him. He

had even lost money (and he took to that toy very kindly) by

getting up Goblin slides for magic-lanterns, whereon the Powers of

Darkness were depicted as a sort of supernatural shell-fish, with

human faces. In intensifying the portraiture of Giants, he had

sunk quite a little capital; and, though no painter himself, he

could indicate, for the instruction of his artists, with a piece of

chalk, a certain furtive leer for the countenances of those

monsters, which was safe to destroy the peace of mind of any young

gentleman between the ages of six and eleven, for the whole

Christmas or Midsummer Vacation.

What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in other things. You

may easily suppose, therefore, that within the great green cape,

which reached down to the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up

to the chin an uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was about as

choice a spirit, and as agreeable a companion, as ever stood in a

pair of bull-headed-looking boots with mahogany-coloured tops.

Still, Tackleton, the toy-merchant, was going to be married. In

spite of all this, he was going to be married. And to a young wife

too, a beautiful young wife.

He didn't look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier's

kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and

his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked

down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill-

conditioned self peering out of one little corner of one little

eye, like the concentrated essence of any number of ravens. But, a

Bridegroom he designed to be.

'In three days' time. Next Thursday. The last day of the first

month in the year. That's my wedding-day,' said Tackleton.

Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and one eye

nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly shut, was always the

expressive eye? I don't think I did.

'That's my wedding-day!' said Tackleton, rattling his money.

'Why, it's our wedding-day too,' exclaimed the Carrier.

'Ha ha!' laughed Tackleton. 'Odd! You're just such another

couple. Just!'

The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is not to be

described. What next? His imagination would compass the

possibility of just such another Baby, perhaps. The man was mad.

'I say! A word with you,' murmured Tackleton, nudging the Carrier

with his elbow, and taking him a little apart. 'You'll come to the

wedding? We're in the same boat, you know.'

'How in the same boat?' inquired the Carrier.

'A little disparity, you know,' said Tackleton, with another nudge.

'Come and spend an evening with us, beforehand.'

'Why?' demanded John, astonished at this pressing hospitality.

'Why?' returned the other. 'That's a new way of receiving an

invitation. Why, for pleasure - sociability, you know, and all

that!'

'I thought you were never sociable,' said John, in his plain way.

'Tchah! It's of no use to be anything but free with you, I see,'

said Tackleton. 'Why, then, the truth is you have a - what tea-

drinking people call a sort of a comfortable appearance together,

you and your wife. We know better, you know, but - '

'No, we don't know better,' interposed John. 'What are you talking

about?'

'Well! We DON'T know better, then,' said Tackleton. 'We'll agree

that we don't. As you like; what does it matter? I was going to

say, as you have that sort of appearance, your company will produce

a favourable effect on Mrs. Tackleton that will be. And, though I

don't think your good lady's very friendly to me, in this matter,

still she can't help herself from falling into my views, for

there's a compactness and cosiness of appearance about her that

always tells, even in an indifferent case. You'll say you'll

come?'

'We have arranged to keep our Wedding-Day (as far as that goes) at

home,' said John. 'We have made the promise to ourselves these six

months. We think, you see, that home - '

'Bah! what's home?' cried Tackleton. 'Four walls and a ceiling!

(why don't you kill that Cricket? I would! I always do. I hate

their noise.) There are four walls and a ceiling at my house.

Come to me!'

'You kill your Crickets, eh?' said John.

'Scrunch 'em, sir,' returned the other, setting his heel heavily on

the floor. 'You'll say you'll come? it's as much your interest as

mine, you know, that the women should persuade each other that

they're quiet and contented, and couldn't be better off. I know

their way. Whatever one woman says, another woman is determined to

clinch, always. There's that spirit of emulation among 'em, sir,

that if your wife says to my wife, "I'm the happiest woman in the

world, and mine's the best husband in the world, and I dote on

him," my wife will say the same to yours, or more, and half believe

it.'

'Do you mean to say she don't, then?' asked the Carrier.

'Don't!' cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh. 'Don't what?'

The Carrier had some faint idea of adding, 'dote upon you.' But,

happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon him over

the turned-up collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking

it out, he felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to

be doted on, that he substituted, 'that she don't believe it?'

'Ah you dog! You're joking,' said Tackleton.

But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift of his

meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner, that he was obliged to

be a little more explanatory.

'I have the humour,' said Tackleton: holding up the fingers of his

left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply 'there I am,

Tackleton to wit:' 'I have the humour, sir, to marry a young wife,

and a pretty wife:' here he rapped his little finger, to express

the Bride; not sparingly, but sharply; with a sense of power. 'I'm

able to gratify that humour and I do. It's my whim. But - now

look there!'

He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully, before the fire;

leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watching the bright

blaze. The Carrier looked at her, and then at him, and then at

her, and then at him again.

'She honours and obeys, no doubt, you know,' said Tackleton; 'and

that, as I am not a man of sentiment, is quite enough for ME. But

do you think there's anything more in it?'

'I think,' observed the Carrier, 'that I should chuck any man out

of window, who said there wasn't.'

'Exactly so,' returned the other with an unusual alacrity of

assent. 'To be sure! Doubtless you would. Of course. I'm

certain of it. Good night. Pleasant dreams!'

The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and uncertain, in

spite of himself. He couldn't help showing it, in his manner.

'Good night, my dear friend!' said Tackleton, compassionately.

'I'm off. We're exactly alike, in reality, I see. You won't give

us to-morrow evening? Well! Next day you go out visiting, I know.

I'll meet you there, and bring my wife that is to be. It'll do her

good. You're agreeable? Thank'ee. What's that!'

It was a loud cry from the Carrier's wife: a loud, sharp, sudden

cry, that made the room ring, like a glass vessel. She had risen

from her seat, and stood like one transfixed by terror and

surprise. The Stranger had advanced towards the fire to warm

himself, and stood within a short stride of her chair. But quite

still.

'Dot!' cried the Carrier. 'Mary! Darling! What's the matter?'

They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who had been dozing on

the cake-box, in the first imperfect recovery of his suspended

presence of mind, seized Miss Slowboy by the hair of her head, but

immediately apologised.

'Mary!' exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his arms. 'Are

you ill! What is it? Tell me, dear!'

She only answered by beating her hands together, and falling into a

wild fit of laughter. Then, sinking from his grasp upon the

ground, she covered her face with her apron, and wept bitterly.

And then she laughed again, and then she cried again, and then she

said how cold it was, and suffered him to lead her to the fire,

where she sat down as before. The old man standing, as before,

quite still.

'I'm better, John,' she said. 'I'm quite well now - I -'

'John!' But John was on the other side of her. Why turn her face

towards the strange old gentleman, as if addressing him! Was her

brain wandering?

'Only a fancy, John dear - a kind of shock - a something coming

suddenly before my eyes - I don't know what it was. It's quite

gone, quite gone.'

'I'm glad it's gone,' muttered Tackleton, turning the expressive

eye all round the room. 'I wonder where it's gone, and what it

was. Humph! Caleb, come here! Who's that with the grey hair?'

'I don't know, sir,' returned Caleb in a whisper. 'Never see him

before, in all my life. A beautiful figure for a nut-cracker;

quite a new model. With a screw-jaw opening down into his

waistcoat, he'd be lovely.'

'Not ugly enough,' said Tackleton.

'Or for a firebox, either,' observed Caleb, in deep contemplation,

'what a model! Unscrew his head to put the matches in; turn him

heels up'ards for the light; and what a firebox for a gentleman's

mantel-shelf, just as he stands!'

'Not half ugly enough,' said Tackleton. 'Nothing in him at all!

Come! Bring that box! All right now, I hope?'

'Quite gone!' said the little woman, waving him hurriedly away.

'Good night!'

'Good night,' said Tackleton. 'Good night, John Peerybingle! Take

care how you carry that box, Caleb. Let it fall, and I'll murder

you! Dark as pitch, and weather worse than ever, eh? Good night!'

So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out at the

door; followed by Caleb with the wedding-cake on his head.

The Carrier had been so much astounded by his little wife, and so

busily engaged in soothing and tending her, that he had scarcely

been conscious of the Stranger's presence, until now, when he again

stood there, their only guest.

'He don't belong to them, you see,' said John. 'I must give him a

hint to go.'

'I beg your pardon, friend,' said the old gentleman, advancing to

him; 'the more so, as I fear your wife has not been well; but the

Attendant whom my infirmity,' he touched his ears and shook his

head, 'renders almost indispensable, not having arrived, I fear

there must be some mistake. The bad night which made the shelter

of your comfortable cart (may I never have a worse!) so acceptable,

is still as bad as ever. Would you, in your kindness, suffer me to

rent a bed here?'

'Yes, yes,' cried Dot. 'Yes! Certainly!'

'Oh!' said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this consent.

'Well! I don't object; but, still I'm not quite sure that - '

'Hush!' she interrupted. 'Dear John!'

'Why, he's stone deaf,' urged John.

'I know he is, but - Yes, sir, certainly. Yes! certainly! I'll

make him up a bed, directly, John.'

As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits, and the

agitation of her manner, were so strange that the Carrier stood

looking after her, quite confounded.

'Did its mothers make it up a Beds then!' cried Miss Slowboy to the

Baby; 'and did its hair grow brown and curly, when its caps was

lifted off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the

fires!'

With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, which is

often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, the Carrier as

he walked slowly to and fro, found himself mentally repeating even

these absurd words, many times. So many times that he got them by

heart, and was still conning them over and over, like a lesson,

when Tilly, after administering as much friction to the little bald

head with her hand as she thought wholesome (according to the

practice of nurses), had once more tied the Baby's cap on.

'And frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting by the fires. What

frightened Dot, I wonder!' mused the Carrier, pacing to and fro.

He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the Toy-merchant,

and yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite uneasiness. For,

Tackleton was quick and sly; and he had that painful sense,

himself, of being of slow perception, that a broken hint was always

worrying to him. He certainly had no intention in his mind of

linking anything that Tackleton had said, with the unusual conduct

of his wife, but the two subjects of reflection came into his mind

together, and he could not keep them asunder.

The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining all

refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then, Dot - quite well

again, she said, quite well again - arranged the great chair in the

chimney-corner for her husband; filled his pipe and gave it him;

and took her usual little stool beside him on the hearth.

She always WOULD sit on that little stool. I think she must have

had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling little stool.

She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I should say,

in the four quarters of the globe. To see her put that chubby

little finger in the bowl, and then blow down the pipe to clear the

tube, and, when she had done so, affect to think that there was

really something in the tube, and blow a dozen times, and hold it

to her eye like a telescope, with a most provoking twist in her

capital little face, as she looked down it, was quite a brilliant

thing. As to the tobacco, she was perfect mistress of the subject;

and her lighting of the pipe, with a wisp of paper, when the

Carrier had it in his mouth - going so very near his nose, and yet

not scorching it - was Art, high Art.

And the Cricket and the kettle, turning up again, acknowledged it!

The bright fire, blazing up again, acknowledged it! The little

Mower on the clock, in his unheeded work, acknowledged it! The

Carrier, in his smoothing forehead and expanding face, acknowledged

it, the readiest of all.

And as he soberly and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe, and as

the Dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire gleamed, and as the

Cricket chirped; that Genius of his Hearth and Home (for such the

Cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned

many forms of Home about him. Dots of all ages, and all sizes,

filled the chamber. Dots who were merry children, running on

before him gathering flowers, in the fields; coy Dots, half

shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough

image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking

wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots,

attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened;

matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of

daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and

beset by troops of rosy grandchildren; withered Dots, who leaned on

sticks, and tottered as they crept along. Old Carriers too,

appeared, with blind old Boxers lying at their feet; and newer

carts with younger drivers ('Peerybingle Brothers' on the tilt);

and sick old Carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of

dead and gone old Carriers, green in the churchyard. And as the

Cricket showed him all these things - he saw them plainly, though

his eyes were fixed upon the fire - the Carrier's heart grew light

and happy, and he thanked his Household Gods with all his might,

and cared no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do.

But, what was that young figure of a man, which the same Fairy

Cricket set so near Her stool, and which remained there, singly and

alone? Why did it linger still, so near her, with its arm upon the

chimney-piece, ever repeating 'Married! and not to me!'

O Dot! O failing Dot! There is no place for it in all your

husband's visions; why has its shadow fallen on his hearth!

Read next: CHAPTER II - Chirp The Second


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