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 its
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 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!--"

10. And here, if you like, the cricket did chime in with 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 labored.

11. The kettle had had the last of its solo performances. It
persevered with undiminished ardor; 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.

12. There was an indescribable little thrill 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