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[The Peerybingle Family in the Carrier's Cart from the "Christmas Stories"]
Felix O. C. Darley
Annin-Loomis
1883
12 x 7.9 cm (4 ¾ by 3 ¼ inches) vignetted
Steel engraving
Third illustration for Dickens' Little Folks, republished by John B. Alden (New York: 1883).
[Click on illustration to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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LET us live so innocently, that when we come to say farewell to earth, there shall be no dread, like a cloud, hanging over our last journey like that which was pictured to the unhappy Scrooge — but a dear hope like that which Tiny Tim might have taken heavenward, leaving a bright line of light to linger in his home.
WHEN Distrust creeps wickedly to our firesides, if we are truly loving and wise, we will let all the smiles, and words, and deeds, of those we doubt, come like a host of blessed fairies to drive away the evil visitor.
Newtonville, Mass.
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 hope. 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! 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 Fairyrings 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. The hedges were tangled and bare, and waved a multitude of blighted garlands in the wind; but there was no discouragement in this. It was agreeable to contemplate; for it made the fireside warmer in possession, and the summer greener in expectancy. The river looked chilly; but it was in motion, and moving at a good pace — which was a great point. The canal was rather slow and torpid; that must be admitted. Never mind. It would freeze the sooner when the frost set fairly in, and then there would be skating and sliding; and the heavy old barges, frozen up somewhere near a wharf, would smoke their rusty iron chimney-pipes all day, and have a lazy time of it.
In one place there was a great mound of weeds or stubble burning; and they watched the fire, so white in the daytime, flaring through the fog, with only here and there a dash of red in it, until, in consequence, as she observed, of the smoke "getting up her nose," Miss Slowboy choked — she could do anything of that sort, on the smallest provocation — and woke the Baby, who wouldn't go to sleep again. But Boxer, who was in advance some quarter of a mile or so, had already passed the outposts of the town, and gained the corner of the street where Caleb and his daughter lived; and, long before they had reached the door, he and the Blind Girl were on the pavement waiting to receive them. ["Dot — Fairy Cricket," "Chirp the Second," 132]
The caption for this frontispiece to Darley's re-telling for children of A Christmas Carol and The Cricket on the Hearth is misleading, since the illustration contains only an image of the Peerybingle family outing from the latter. Moreover, no precise realisation of the family's travelling by the carrier's cart to Caleb and Bertha Plummer's "picnic" occurs in the 1845 novella. In fact, on this family expedition, the Old Gentleman stays back at the Peerybingles' Dorset cottage. The homecoming scene in the first edition of the novella employs a split-screen technique in a composite woodblock engraving dropped into the letterpress for the realisation of the cart in The Carrier's Cart in "Chirp the First." There is, however, a scene in Luigi Rossi's 1912 series that approximately corresponds to Darley's realisation of the trip: The Peerybingle Family sets out on a Visit.
Darley intends the picture of John Peerybingle, his young wife, their baby, Nurse Tilly, and Boxer to be a celebration of family. His choice of subject therefore avoids the uncomfortable notion of adultery that so absorbs the old carrier in his darkest hours before the hearth. And yet Darley's text does not avoid the scene in Tackleton's counting-house when the carrier and the businessman observe Dot in an intimate colloquy with the old man: "old no longer, but erect and gallant; bearing in his hand the false white hair that had won his way into their desolate and miserable home" (144). As noted above, the supposedly deaf old gentleman had not been an original member of the party on the carrier's van; rather, John has brought him over after he has made his rounds and is returning to Caleb and Bertha's cottage.
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Canton: Ohio U. P., 1980.
Darley, Felix Octavius Carr (illustrator). "Tiny Tim and Dot, and the Fairy Cricket" in Dickens' Little Folks. New York: John B. Alden, 1883. Pp. 2-147.
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].
__________. The Christmas Books. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910, VIII, 79-157.
__________. The Christmas Books. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
__________. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1878.
__________. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876.
Morley, Malcolm. "'The Cricket' on the Stage." Dickensian 48 (1952): 17-24.
Thomas, Deborah A. Chapter 4, "The Chord of the Christmas Season." Dickens and The Short Story. Philadelphia: U. Pennsylvania Press, 1982. Pp. 62-93.
Created 13 December 2023
Last modified 31 May 2025