‘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 cold 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.’