Dickens's Christmas Books - complete online versions

The Christmas Carol, The Chimes, Cricket On the Hearth, Battle Of Life
& The Haunted Man & the Ghosts's Bargain with Illustrations.

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	198	THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.
	as good as a play. Likewise, there were articles to carry, which required to be considered and discussed, and in reference to the adjustment and disposition of which, councils had to be holden by the Carrier and the senders : at which Boxer usually assisted, in short fits of the closest attention, and long fits of tearing round and round the assembled sages and barking himself hoarse. Of all these little incidents, Dot was the amused and open-eyed spectatress from her chair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on : a charming little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt: there was no lack of nudgings and glancings and whisperings and envyings among the younger men, I promise you. And this delighted John the Carrier, beyond measure ; for he was proud to have his little wife admired; knowing that she didn't mind it— that, if anything, she rather liked it perhaps.
	The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January weather; and was raw and cold. But who cared for such trifles? Not Dot, decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be the highest point of human joys; the crowning circumstance of earthly hopes. Not the Baby, I'll be sworn ; for it's not in Baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep, though its capacity is great in both respects, than that blessed young Peerybingle was, all the way. You couldn't see very far in the fog, of course; but you could see a great deal, oh a great deal! It's astonishing how much you may see, in a thicker fog than that, if you will only take the trouble to look for it. Why, even to sit watching for the Fairy-rings in the fields, and for the patches of hoar-frost still lingering in the shade, near hedges and by trees, was a pleasant occupation : to make no mention of the unexpected shapes in which the trees themselves came starting out of the mist, and glided into it again.