THE Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten, when the Carrier sat downby his fireside.So troubled and grief-worn, that he seemed toscare the Cuckoo, who, having cut his ten melodious announcementsas short as possible, plunged back into the Moorish Palace again,and clapped his little door behind him, as if the unwontedspectacle were too much for his feelings.
If the little Haymaker had been armed with the sharpest of scythes,and had cut at every stroke into the Carrier's heart, he nevercould have gashed and wounded it, as Dot had done.
It was a heart so full of love for her; so bound up and heldtogether by innumerable threads of winning remembrance, spun fromthe daily working of her many qualities of endearment; it was aheart in which she had enshrined herself so gently and so closely;a heart so single and so earnest in its Truth, so strong in right,so weak in wrong; that it could cherish neither passion nor revengeat first, and had only room to hold the broken image of its Idol.
But, slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on his hearth, nowcold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts began to rise within him,as an angry wind comes rising in the night.The Stranger wasbeneath his outraged roof.Three steps would take him to hischamber-door.One blow would beat it in.'You might do murderbefore you know it,' Tackleton had said.How could it be murder,if he gave the villain time to grapple with him hand to hand! Hewas the younger man.
It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind.Itwas an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that shouldchange the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonelytravellers would dread to pass by night; and where the timid wouldsee shadows struggling in the ruined windows when the moon was dim,and hear wild noises in the stormy weather.
He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who had won the heartthat HE had never touched.Some lover of her early choice, of whomshe had thought and dreamed, for whom she had pined and pined, whenhe had fancied her so happy by his side.O agony to think of it!
She had been above-stairs with the Baby, getting it to bed.As hesat brooding on the hearth, she came close beside him, without hisknowledge - in the turning of the rack of his great misery, he lostall other sounds - and put her little stool at his feet.He onlyknew it, when he felt her hand upon his own, and saw her looking upinto his face.
With wonder? No.It was his first impression, and he was fain tolook at her again, to set it right.No, not with wonder.With aneager and inquiring look; but not with wonder.At first it wasalarmed and serious; then, it changed into a strange, wild,dreadful smile of recognition of his thoughts; then, there wasnothing but her clasped hands on her brow, and her bent head, andfalling hair.
Though the power of Omnipotence had been his to wield at thatmoment, he had too much of its diviner property of Mercy in hisbreast, to have turned one feather's weight of it against her.Buthe could not bear to see her crouching down upon the little seatwhere he had often looked on her, with love and pride, so innocentand gay; and, when she rose and left him, sobbing as she went, hefelt it a relief to have the vacant place beside him rather thanher so long-cherished presence.This in itself was anguish keenerthan all, reminding him how desolate he was become, and how thegreat bond of his life was rent asunder.
The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could have betterborne to see her lying prematurely dead before him with theirlittle child upon her breast, the higher and the stronger rose hiswrath against his enemy.He looked about him for a weapon.
There was a gun, hanging on the wall.He took it down, and moved apace or two towards the door of the perfidious Stranger's room.Heknew the gun was loaded.Some shadowy idea that it was just toshoot this man like a wild beast, seized him, and dilated in hismind until it grew into a monstrous demon in complete possession ofhim, casting out all milder thoughts and setting up its undividedempire.
That phrase is wrong.Not casting out his milder thoughts, butartfully transforming them.Changing them into scourges to drivehim on.Turning water into blood, love into hate, gentleness intoblind ferocity.Her image, sorrowing, humbled, but still pleadingto his tenderness and mercy with resistless power, never left hismind; but, staying there, it urged him to the door; raised theweapon to his shoulder; fitted and nerved his finger to thetrigger; and cried 'Kill him! In his bed!'
He reversed the gun to beat the stock up the door; he already heldit lifted in the air; some indistinct design was in his thoughts ofcalling out to him to fly, for God's sake, by the window -When, suddenly, the struggling fire illumined the whole chimneywith a glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth began to Chirp!
No sound he could have heard, no human voice, not even hers, couldso have moved and softened him.The artless words in which she hadtold him of her love for this same Cricket, were once more freshlyspoken; her trembling, earnest manner at the moment, was againbefore him; her pleasant voice - O what a voice it was, for makinghousehold music at the fireside of an honest man! - thrilledthrough and through his better nature, and awoke it into life andaction.
He recoiled from the door, like a man walking in his sleep,awakened from a frightful dream; and put the gun aside.Claspinghis hands before his face, he then sat down again beside the fire,and found relief in tears.
The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and stood inFairy shape before him.
'"I love it,"' said the Fairy Voice, repeating what he wellremembered, '"for the many times I have heard it, and the manythoughts its harmless music has given me."'
'She said so!' cried the Carrier.'True!'
'"This has been a happy home, John; and I love the Cricket for itssake!"'
'It has been, Heaven knows,' returned the Carrier.'She made ithappy, always, - until now.'