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Chirp the Third
Richard Doyle; engraver, T. Williams
1845
10.3 high by 6.7 cm wide (4 ½ by 2 ⅝ inches), framed
Dickens's The Cricket on The Hearth, "Chirp the Third," 114.
Enclosed text: CHIRP THE THIRD — The Dutch clock in the corner struck Ten, when the Carrier sat down by his fireside. So troubled and grief-worn, that he seemed to scare the Cuckoo, who, having cut his ten. . . . [114]
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
But, slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on his hearth, now cold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts began to rise within him, as an angry wind comes rising in the night. The Stranger was beneath his outraged roof. Three steps would take him to his chamber door. One blow would beat it in. "You might do murder before you know it," Tackleton had said. How could it be murder, if he gave the villain time to grapple with him hand to hand? He was the younger man.
It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should change the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely travellers would dread to pass by night; and where the timid would see 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 heart that he had never touched. Some lover of her early choice, of whom she had thought and dreamed, for whom she had pined and pined, when he had fancied her so happy by his side. Oh, agony to think of it! ["Chirp the Third," pp. 115-116]
John discovers by accident that the old, deaf Stranger whom he has picked up and brought home is in fact a handsome young man in disguise. The present illustration and John's Reverie, the one that follows, reify what we might term “the mistaken adultery plot,” for John has just witnessed what he believes was a romantic interlude between the youth and Dot. Should he release his young wife to be with a previous romantic attachment, or should he kill his rival? He takes his impression of the rendezvous as ocular proof of an affair, and never seeks another possible explanation. He blames himself, in fact, for having married a woman so much his junior. Again the illustrations of the figure of the middle-aged carrier create a problem of narrative-pictorial continuity as Doyle's handsome, bearded, well-dressed bourgeois looks nothing much like Leech’s balding rustic.
It's ten o'clock at night, and there's little more energy left in the Peerybingle home than in the Plummers'. John broods and broods, wrestling over time between "winning remembrances" of Dot and rising "other and fiercer thoughts": "You might do Murder, if he gave the Villain time to grapple with him hand to hand! He was the younger man." That realization goads him further. When Dot comes in and crouches down beside him, then, sobbing, leaves him, his relief was "in itself anguish keener than all: reminding him how desolate he has become, and how the great bond of his life was rent asunder." [Patten, pp. 187-188]
As Robert L. Patten suggests, then, the fairy figures rising and swirling around Dot at her mending (lower right) seem to represent the evaporating domestic bliss that John and Dot have enjoyed up to this critical point in their relationship. The viewer then notices a significant property in the lower left: a shotgun. This melodramatic detail may explain the obvious agitation that sweeps through the gesticulating fairy presences. Leech positions this symbol of domestic violence prominently in the next, rather more realistic wood-engraving, a reverie unaccompanied by fairies that represent John's fond memories departing.
This is the apotheosis of the early Victorian concept of domestic life, withdrawn from the harsh, sordid, competitive world, sanctified now by the new Lares and Penates: the kettle and the cradle, the Cricket and the fairies, do honor to Dot's image, household business, and music. [Patten, 189]
Left: Luigi Rossi's realisation of John's being tempted to murder his rival: John Approaches the Stranger's Door with a Gun in his Hand (1912), the direct consequence of the misunderstood scene in the gallery. Centre: Leech's version of the scene in which John wrestles with his conscience: John's Reverie (1845). Right: Brock's line-drawing depicts both the anguished husband and the spirit of the Fairy Cricket, rather than, as in Rossi's interpretation, a literal cricket: "Chirp the Third" (1905).
Abbey's Household Edition illustration focuses on John's angry response to Tackleton's tempting him to violence: "Listen to me!" he said. "And take care that you hear me right" (1876).
Dickens, Charles. The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home. Illustrated by John Leech, Daniel Maclise, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and Edwin Landseer. Engraved by George Dalziel, Edward Dalziel, T. Williams, J. Thompson, R. Graves, and Joseph Swain. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1846 [December 1845].
Patten, Robert L. Chapter 8, "Chirping." Dickens, Death, and Christmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 169-199. [Review]
Created 20 February 2001
Last updated 29 May 2024