The Cricket on the Hearth",
by Charles Dickens.
[obi/Charles.Dickens/cricket.on.hearth.txt]
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH
CHIRP THE FIRST
The kettle began it! 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 waxyfaced 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 fact. 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 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
oue 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, boil. Nothing shall
induce me!But Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humour,
dusted her chubby little hands aginst 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 whiring 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 know that it is
one, for 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 wildest 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 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 ...
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