The Cricket on the Hearth | Page 2

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