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