Herbert drove into Crikswich at night, and stopped at Crickledon’s, where he heard that Van Diemen was dining with Tinman.

Crickledon the carpenter permitted certain dry curves to play round his lips like miniature shavings at the name of Tinman; but Herbert asked, “What is it now?” in vain, and he went to Crickledon the cook.

This union of the two Crickledons, male and female; was an ideal one, such as poor women dream of; and men would do the same, if they knew how poor they are.  Each had a profession, each was independent of the other, each supported the fabric.  Consequently there was mutual respect, as between two pillars of a house.  Each saw the other’s faults with a sly wink to the world, and an occasional interchange of sarcasm that was tonic, very strengthening to the wits without endangering the habit of affection.  Crickledon the cook stood for her own opinions, and directed the public conduct of Crickledon the carpenter; and if he went astray from the line she marked out, she put it down to human nature, to which she was tolerant.  He, when she had not followed his advice, ascribed it to the nature of women.  She never said she was the equal of her husband; but the carpenter proudly acknowledged that she was as good as a man, and he bore with foibles derogatory to such high stature, by teaching himself to observe a neatness of domestic and general management that told him he certainly was not as good as a woman.  Herbert delighted in them.  The cook regaled the carpenter with skilful, tasty, and economic dishes; and the carpenter, obedient to her supplications, had promised, in the event of his outliving her, that no hands but his should have the making of her coffin.  “It is so nice,” she said, “to think one’s own husband will put together the box you are to lie in, of his own make!” Had they been even a doubtfully united pair, the cook’s anticipation of a comfortable coffin, the work of the best carpenter in England, would have kept them together; and that which fine cookery does for the cementing of couples needs not to be recounted to those who have read a chapter or two of the natural history of the male sex.

“Crickledon, my dear soul, your husband is labouring with a bit of fun,” Herbert said to her.

“He would n’t laugh loud at Punch, for fear of an action,” she replied.  “He never laughs out till he gets to bed, and has locked the door; and when he does he says ‘Hush!’ to me.  Tinman is n’t bailiff again just yet, and where he has his bailiff’s best Court suit from, you may ask.  He exercises in it off and on all the week, at night, and sometimes in the middle of the day.”

Herbert rallied her for her gossip’s credulity.

“It’s truth,” she declared.  “I have it from the maid of the house, little Jane, whom he pays four pound a year for all the work of the house:  a clever little thing with her hands and her head she is; and can read and write beautiful; and she’s a mind to leave ’em if they don’t advance her.  She knocked and went in while he was full blaze, and bowing his poll to his glass.  And now he turns the key, and a child might know he was at it.”