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The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens\r
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This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with\r
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or\r
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included\r
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net\r
\r
\r
Title: A Christmas Carol\r
       A Ghost Story of Christmas\r
\r
Author: Charles Dickens\r
\r
Release Date: August 11, 2004 [EBook #46]\r
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Language: English\r
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CAROL ***\r
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Produced by Jose Menendez\r
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A CHRISTMAS CAROL\r
\r
IN PROSE\r
BEING\r
A Ghost Story of Christmas\r
\r
by Charles Dickens\r
\r
\r
\r
PREFACE\r
\r
I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book,\r
to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my\r
readers out of humour with themselves, with each other,\r
with the season, or with me.  May it haunt their houses\r
pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.\r
\r
Their faithful Friend and Servant,\r
                                   C. D.\r
December, 1843.\r
\r
\r
\r
CONTENTS\r
\r
Stave   I: Marley's Ghost\r
Stave  II: The First of the Three Spirits\r
Stave III: The Second of the Three Spirits\r
Stave  IV: The Last of the Spirits\r
Stave   V: The End of It\r
\r
\r
\r
STAVE I:  MARLEY'S GHOST\r
\r
MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt\r
whatever about that. The register of his burial was\r
signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,\r
and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and\r
Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he\r
chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a\r
door-nail.\r
\r
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my\r
own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about\r
a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to\r
regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery\r
in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors\r
is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands\r
shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You\r
will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that\r
Marley was as dead as a door-nail.\r
\r
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.\r
How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were\r
partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge\r
was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole\r
assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and\r
sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully\r
cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent\r
man of business on the very day of the funeral,\r
and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.\r
\r
The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to\r
the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley\r
was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or\r
nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going\r
to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that\r
Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there\r
would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a\r
stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,\r
than there would be in any other middle-aged\r
gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy\r
spot--say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance--\r
literally to astonish his son's weak mind.\r
\r
Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name.\r
There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse\r
door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as\r
Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the\r
business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley,\r
but he answered to both names. It was all the\r
same to him.\r
\r
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone,\r
Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping,\r
clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint,\r
from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire;\r
secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The\r
cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed\r
nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his\r
eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his\r
grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his\r
eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low\r
temperature always about with him; he iced his office in\r
the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.\r
\r
External heat and cold had little influence on\r
Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather\r
chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he,\r
no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no\r
pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't\r
know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and\r
snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage\r
over him in only one respect. They often "came down"\r
handsomely, and Scrooge never did.\r
\r
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with\r
gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you?\r
When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored\r
him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him\r
what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all\r
his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of\r
Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to\r
know him; and when they saw him coming on, would\r
tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and\r
then would wag their tails as though they said, "No\r
eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"\r
\r
But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing\r
he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths\r
of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance,\r
was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.\r
\r
Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year,\r
on Christmas Eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his\r
counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy\r
withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside,\r
go wheezing up and down, beating their hands\r
upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the\r
pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had\r
only just gone three, but it was quite dark already--\r
it had not been light all day--and candles were flaring\r
in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like\r
ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog\r
came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was\r
so dense without, that although the court was of the\r
narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.\r
To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring\r
everything, one might have thought that Nature\r
lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.\r
\r
The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open\r
that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a\r
dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying\r
letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's\r
fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one\r
coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept\r
the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the\r
clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted\r
that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore\r
the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to\r
warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being\r
a man of a strong imagination, he failed.\r
\r
"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried\r
a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's\r
nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was\r
the first intimation he had of his approach.\r
\r
"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"\r
\r
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the\r
fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was\r
all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his\r
eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.\r
\r
"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's\r
nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"\r
\r
"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What\r
right have you to be merry? What reason have you\r
to be merry? You're poor enough."\r
\r
"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What\r
right have you to be dismal? What reason have you\r
to be morose? You're rich enough."\r
\r
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur\r
of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up\r
with "Humbug."\r
\r
"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.\r
\r
"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I\r
live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas!\r
Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas\r
time to you but a time for paying bills without\r
money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but\r
not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books\r
and having every item in 'em through a round dozen\r
of months presented dead against you? If I could\r
work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot\r
who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips,\r
should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried\r
with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"\r
\r
"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.\r
\r
"Nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep Christmas\r
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."\r
\r
"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you\r
don't keep it."\r
\r
"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much\r
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done\r
you!"\r
\r
"There are many things from which I might have\r
derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare\r
say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the\r
rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas\r
time, when it has come round--apart from the\r
veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything\r
belonging to it can be apart from that--as a\r
good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant\r
time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar\r
of the year, when men and women seem by one consent\r
to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think\r
of people below them as if they really were\r
fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race\r
of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,\r
uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or\r
silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me\r
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"\r
\r
The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.\r
Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,\r
he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark\r
for ever.\r
\r
"Let me hear another sound from you," said\r
Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing\r
your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker,\r
sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you\r
don't go into Parliament."\r
\r
"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow."\r
\r
Scrooge said that he would see him--yes, indeed he\r
did. He went the whole length of the expression,\r
and said that he would see him in that extremity first.\r
\r
"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"\r
\r
"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.\r
\r
"Because I fell in love."\r
\r
"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if\r
that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous\r
than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"\r
\r
"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before\r
that happened. Why give it as a reason for not\r
coming now?"\r
\r
"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.\r
\r
"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you;\r
why cannot we be friends?"\r
\r
"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.\r
\r
"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so\r
resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I\r
have been a party. But I have made the trial in\r
homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas\r
humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"\r
\r
"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.\r
\r
"And A Happy New Year!"\r
\r
"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.\r
\r
His nephew left the room without an angry word,\r
notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to\r
bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who,\r
cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned\r
them cordially.\r
\r
"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who\r
overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a\r
week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry\r
Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam."\r
\r
This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had\r
let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen,\r
pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off,\r
in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in\r
their hands, and bowed to him.\r
\r
"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the\r
gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure\r
of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"\r
\r
"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,"\r
Scrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very\r
night."\r
\r
"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented\r
by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting\r
his credentials.\r
\r
It certainly was; for they had been two kindred\r
spirits. At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge\r
frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials\r
back.\r
\r
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,"\r
said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than\r
usually desirable that we should make some slight\r
provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer\r
greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in\r
want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands\r
are in want of common comforts, sir."\r
\r
"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.\r
\r
"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down\r
the pen again.\r
\r
"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge.\r
"Are they still in operation?"\r
\r
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish\r
I could say they were not."\r
\r
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour,\r
then?" said Scrooge.\r
\r
"Both very busy, sir."\r
\r
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first,\r
that something had occurred to stop them in their\r
useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to\r
hear it."\r
\r
"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish\r
Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,"\r
returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring\r
to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink,\r
and means of warmth. We choose this time, because\r
it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt,\r
and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down\r
for?"\r
\r
"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.\r
\r
"You wish to be anonymous?"\r
\r
"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you\r
ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.\r
I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't\r
afford to make idle people merry. I help to support\r
the establishments I have mentioned--they cost\r
enough; and those who are badly off must go there."\r
\r
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."\r
\r
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had\r
better do it, and decrease the surplus population.\r
Besides--excuse me--I don't know that."\r
\r
"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.\r
\r
"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's\r
enough for a man to understand his own business, and\r
not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies\r
me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"\r
\r
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue\r
their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed\r
his labours with an improved opinion of himself,\r
and in a more facetious temper than was usual\r
with him.\r
\r
Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that\r
people ran about with flaring links, proffering their\r
services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct\r
them on their way. The ancient tower of a church,\r
whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down\r
at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became\r
invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the\r
clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if\r
its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.\r
The cold became intense. In the main street, at the\r
corner of the court, some labourers were repairing\r
the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier,\r
round which a party of ragged men and boys were\r
gathered: warming their hands and winking their\r
eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug\r
being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed,\r
and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness\r
of the shops where holly sprigs and berries\r
crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale\r
faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers'\r
trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant,\r
with which it was next to impossible to believe that\r
such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything\r
to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the\r
mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks\r
and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's\r
household should; and even the little tailor, whom he\r
had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for\r
being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up\r
to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean\r
wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.\r
\r
Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting\r
cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped\r
the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather\r
as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then\r
indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The\r
owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled\r
by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,\r
stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with\r
a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of\r
\r
        "God bless you, merry gentleman!\r
         May nothing you dismay!"\r
\r
Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action,\r
that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to\r
the fog and even more congenial frost.\r
\r
At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house\r
arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his\r
stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant\r
clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out,\r
and put on his hat.\r
\r
"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said\r
Scrooge.\r
\r
"If quite convenient, sir."\r
\r
"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not\r
fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd\r
think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"\r
\r
The clerk smiled faintly.\r
\r
"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used,\r
when I pay a day's wages for no work."\r
\r
The clerk observed that it was only once a year.\r
\r
"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every\r
twenty-fifth of December!" said Scrooge, buttoning\r
his great-coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must\r
have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next\r
morning."\r
\r
The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge\r
walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a\r
twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his\r
white comforter dangling below his waist (for he\r
boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill,\r
at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in\r
honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home\r
to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play\r
at blindman's-buff.\r
\r
Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual\r
melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and\r
beguiled the rest of the evening with his\r
banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in\r
chambers which had once belonged to his deceased\r
partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a\r
lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so\r
little business to be, that one could scarcely help\r
fancying it must have run there when it was a young\r
house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses,\r
and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough\r
now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but\r
Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices.\r
The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew\r
its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands.\r
The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway\r
of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of\r
the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the\r
threshold.\r
\r
Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all\r
particular about the knocker on the door, except that it\r
was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had\r
seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence\r
in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what\r
is called fancy about him as any man in the city of\r
London, even including--which is a bold word--the\r
corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be\r
borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one\r
thought on Marley, since his last mention of his\r
seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then\r
let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened\r
that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door,\r
saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate\r
process of change--not a knocker, but Marley's face.\r
\r
Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow\r
as the other objects in the yard were, but had a\r
dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark\r
cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked\r
at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly\r
spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The\r
hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air;\r
and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly\r
motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it\r
horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the\r
face and beyond its control, rather than a part of\r
its own expression.\r
\r
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it\r
was a knocker again.\r
\r
To say that he was not startled, or that his blood\r
was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it\r
had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue.\r
But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished,\r
turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.\r
\r
He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before\r
he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind\r
it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the\r
sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall.\r
But there was nothing on the back of the door, except\r
the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he\r
said "Pooh, pooh!" and closed it with a bang.\r
\r
The sound resounded through the house like thunder.\r
Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's\r
cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal\r
of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to\r
be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and\r
walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too:\r
trimming his candle as he went.\r
\r
You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six\r
up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad\r
young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you\r
might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken\r
it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall\r
and the door towards the balustrades: and done it\r
easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room\r
to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge\r
thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before\r
him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of\r
the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well,\r
so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with\r
Scrooge's dip.\r
\r
Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.\r
Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before\r
he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms\r
to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection\r
of the face to desire to do that.\r
\r
Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they\r
should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under\r
the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin\r
ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had\r
a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the\r
bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown,\r
which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude\r
against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard,\r
old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three\r
legs, and a poker.\r
\r
Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked\r
himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his\r
custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off\r
his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and\r
his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take\r
his gruel.\r
\r
It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a\r
bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and\r
brood over it, before he could extract the least\r
sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel.\r
The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch\r
merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint\r
Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures.\r
There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters;\r
Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending\r
through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams,\r
Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats,\r
hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts;\r
and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came\r
like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the\r
whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first,\r
with power to shape some picture on its surface from\r
the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would\r
have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one.\r
\r
"Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the\r
room.\r
\r
After several turns, he sat down again. As he\r
threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened\r
to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the\r
room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten\r
with a chamber in the highest story of the\r
building. It was with great astonishment, and with\r
a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he\r
saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in\r
the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it\r
rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.\r
\r
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute,\r
but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had\r
begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking\r
noise, deep down below; as if some person were\r
dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the\r
wine-merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have\r
heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as\r
dragging chains.\r
\r
The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound,\r
and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors\r
below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight\r
towards his door.\r
\r
"It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won't believe it."\r
\r
His colour changed though, when, without a pause,\r
it came on through the heavy door, and passed into\r
the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the\r
dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know\r
him; Marley's Ghost!" and fell again.\r
\r
The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail,\r
usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on\r
the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts,\r
and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was\r
clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound\r
about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge\r
observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks,\r
ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.\r
His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him,\r
and looking through his waistcoat, could see\r
the two buttons on his coat behind.\r
\r
Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no\r
bowels, but he had never believed it until now.\r
\r
No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he\r
looked the phantom through and through, and saw\r
it standing before him; though he felt the chilling\r
influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very\r
texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head\r
and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before;\r
he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.\r
\r
"How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.\r
"What do you want with me?"\r
\r
"Much!"--Marley's voice, no doubt about it.\r
\r
"Who are you?"\r
\r
"Ask me who I was."\r
\r
"Who were you then?" said Scrooge, raising his\r
voice. "You're particular, for a shade." He was going\r
to say "to a shade," but substituted this, as more\r
appropriate.\r
\r
"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley."\r
\r
"Can you--can you sit down?" asked Scrooge, looking\r
doubtfully at him.\r
\r
"I can."\r
\r
"Do it, then."\r
\r
Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know\r
whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in\r
a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event\r
of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity\r
of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat\r
down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he\r
were quite used to it.\r
\r
"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost.\r
\r
"I don't," said Scrooge.\r
\r
"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of\r
your senses?"\r
\r
"I don't know," said Scrooge.\r
\r
"Why do you doubt your senses?"\r
\r
"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them.\r
A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may\r
be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of\r
cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of\r
gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"\r
\r
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking\r
jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means\r
waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be\r
smart, as a means of distracting his own attention,\r
and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice\r
disturbed the very marrow in his bones.\r
\r
To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence\r
for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very\r
deuce with him. There was something very awful,\r
too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal\r
atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it\r
himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the\r
Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts,\r
and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour\r
from an oven.\r
\r
"You see this toothpick?" said Scrooge, returning\r
quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned;\r
and wishing, though it were only for a second, to\r
divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.\r
\r
"I do," replied the Ghost.\r
\r
"You are not looking at it," said Scrooge.\r
\r
"But I see it," said the Ghost, "notwithstanding."\r
\r
"Well!" returned Scrooge, "I have but to swallow\r
this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a\r
legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug,\r
I tell you! humbug!"\r
\r
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook\r
its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that\r
Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself\r
from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was\r
his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage\r
round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors,\r
its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!\r
\r
Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands\r
before his face.\r
\r
"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do\r
you trouble me?"\r
\r
"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do\r
you believe in me or not?"\r
\r
"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits\r
walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"\r
\r
"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned,\r
"that the spirit within him should walk abroad among\r
his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that\r
spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so\r
after death. It is doomed to wander through the\r
world--oh, woe is me!--and witness what it cannot\r
share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to\r
happiness!"\r
\r
Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain\r
and wrung its shadowy hands.\r
\r
"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell\r
me why?"\r
\r
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost.\r
"I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded\r
it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I\r
wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"\r
\r
Scrooge trembled more and more.\r
\r
"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the\r
weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?\r
It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven\r
Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since.\r
It is a ponderous chain!"\r
\r
Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the\r
expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty\r
or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see\r
nothing.\r
\r
"Jacob," he said, imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley,\r
tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!"\r
\r
"I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes\r
from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed\r
by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor\r
can I tell you what I would. A very little more is\r
all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I\r
cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked\r
beyond our counting-house--mark me!--in life my\r
spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our\r
money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before\r
me!"\r
\r
It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became\r
thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets.\r
Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now,\r
but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his\r
knees.\r
\r
"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,"\r
Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though\r
with humility and deference.\r
\r
"Slow!" the Ghost repeated.\r
\r
"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And travelling\r
all the time!"\r
\r
"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no\r
peace. Incessant torture of remorse."\r
\r
"You travel fast?" said Scrooge.\r
\r
"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.\r
\r
"You might have got over a great quantity of\r
ground in seven years," said Scrooge.\r
\r
The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and\r
clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of\r
the night, that the Ward would have been justified in\r
indicting it for a nuisance.\r
\r
"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the\r
phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour\r
by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into\r
eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is\r
all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit\r
working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may\r
be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast\r
means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of\r
regret can make amends for one life's opportunity\r
misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"\r
\r
"But you were always a good man of business,\r
Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this\r
to himself.\r
\r
"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands\r
again. "Mankind was my business. The common\r
welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance,\r
and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings\r
of my trade were but a drop of water in the\r
comprehensive ocean of my business!"\r
\r
It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were\r
the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it\r
heavily upon the ground again.\r
\r
"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said,\r
"I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of\r
fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never\r
raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise\r
Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to\r
which its light would have conducted me!"\r
\r
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the\r
spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake\r
exceedingly.\r
\r
"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly\r
gone."\r
\r
"I will," said Scrooge. "But don't be hard upon\r
me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!"\r
\r
"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that\r
you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible\r
beside you many and many a day."\r
\r
It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered,\r
and wiped the perspiration from his brow.\r
\r
"That is no light part of my penance," pursued\r
the Ghost. "I am here to-night to warn you, that you\r
have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A\r
chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."\r
\r
"You were always a good friend to me," said\r
Scrooge. "Thank'ee!"\r
\r
"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by\r
Three Spirits."\r
\r
Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the\r
Ghost's had done.\r
\r
"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned,\r
Jacob?" he demanded, in a faltering voice.\r
\r
"It is."\r
\r
"I--I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.\r
\r
"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot\r
hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow,\r
when the bell tolls One."\r
\r
"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over,\r
Jacob?" hinted Scrooge.\r
\r
"Expect the second on the next night at the same\r
hour. The third upon the next night when the last\r
stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see\r
me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you\r
remember what has passed between us!"\r
\r
When it had said these words, the spectre took its\r
wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head,\r
as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its\r
teeth made, when the jaws were brought together\r
by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again,\r
and found his supernatural visitor confronting him\r
in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and\r
about its arm.\r
\r
The apparition walked backward from him; and at\r
every step it took, the window raised itself a little,\r
so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.\r
\r
It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.\r
When they were within two paces of each other,\r
Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to\r
come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.\r
\r
Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear:\r
for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible\r
of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of\r
lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and\r
self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment,\r
joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the\r
bleak, dark night.\r
\r
Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his\r
curiosity. He looked out.\r
\r
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither\r
and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they\r
went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's\r
Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments)\r
were linked together; none were free. Many had\r
been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He\r
had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white\r
waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to\r
its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist\r
a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below,\r
upon a door-step. The misery with them all was,\r
clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in\r
human matters, and had lost the power for ever.\r
\r
Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist\r
enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and\r
their spirit voices faded together; and the night became\r
as it had been when he walked home.\r
\r
Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door\r
by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked,\r
as he had locked it with his own hands, and\r
the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say "Humbug!"\r
but stopped at the first syllable. And being,\r
from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues\r
of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or\r
the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of\r
the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to\r
bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the\r
instant.\r
\r
\r
STAVE II:  THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS\r
\r
WHEN Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed,\r
he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from\r
the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to\r
pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a\r
neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened\r
for the hour.\r
\r
To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from\r
six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to\r
twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he\r
went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have\r
got into the works. Twelve!\r
\r
He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most\r
preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve:\r
and stopped.\r
\r
"Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have\r
slept through a whole day and far into another night. It\r
isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and\r
this is twelve at noon!"\r
\r
The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed,\r
and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub\r
the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he\r
could see anything; and could see very little then. All he\r
could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely\r
cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro,\r
and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been\r
if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the\r
world.  This was a great relief, because "three days after sight\r
of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his\r
order," and so forth, would have become a mere United States'\r
security if there were no days to count by.\r
\r
Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought\r
it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it.  The more he\r
thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured\r
not to think, the more he thought.\r
\r
Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved\r
within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his\r
mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first\r
position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through,\r
"Was it a dream or not?"\r
\r
Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters\r
more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned\r
him of a visitation when the bell tolled one.  He resolved to lie\r
awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could\r
no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the\r
wisest resolution in his power.\r
\r
The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he\r
must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock.\r
At length it broke upon his listening ear.\r
\r
"Ding, dong!"\r
\r
"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting.\r
\r
"Ding, dong!"\r
\r
"Half-past!" said Scrooge.\r
\r
"Ding, dong!"\r
\r
"A quarter to it," said Scrooge.\r
\r
"Ding, dong!"\r
\r
"The hour itself," said Scrooge, triumphantly, "and nothing else!"\r
\r
He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a\r
deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE.  Light flashed up in the room\r
upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.\r
\r
The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a\r
hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his\r
back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains\r
of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a\r
half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the\r
unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now\r
to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.\r
\r
It was a strange figure--like a child: yet not so like a\r
child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural\r
medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded\r
from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions.\r
Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was\r
white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in\r
it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were\r
very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold\r
were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately\r
formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic\r
of the purest white; and round its waist was bound\r
a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held\r
a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular\r
contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed\r
with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was,\r
that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear\r
jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was\r
doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a\r
great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.\r
\r
Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing\r
steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt\r
sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another,\r
and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so\r
the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a\r
thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs,\r
now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a\r
body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible\r
in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the\r
very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and\r
clear as ever.\r
\r
"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to\r
me?" asked Scrooge.\r
\r
"I am!"\r
\r
The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if\r
instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.\r
\r
"Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded.\r
\r
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."\r
\r
"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish\r
stature.\r
\r
"No. Your past."\r
\r
Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if\r
anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire\r
to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.\r
\r
"What!" exclaimed the Ghost, "would you so soon put out,\r
with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough\r
that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and\r
force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon\r
my brow!"\r
\r
Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend\r
or any knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" the Spirit at\r
any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what\r
business brought him there.\r
\r
"Your welfare!" said the Ghost.\r
\r
Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not\r
help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been\r
more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard\r
him thinking, for it said immediately:\r
\r
"Your reclamation, then. Take heed!"\r
\r
It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him\r
gently by the arm.\r
\r
"Rise! and walk with me!"\r
\r
It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the\r
weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes;\r
that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below\r
freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers,\r
dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at\r
that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand,\r
was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit\r
made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.\r
\r
"I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable to fall."\r
\r
"Bear but a touch of my hand there," said the Spirit,\r
laying it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more\r
than this!"\r
\r
As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall,\r
and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either\r
hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it\r
was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished\r
with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon\r
the ground.\r
\r
"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands together,\r
as he looked about him. "I was bred in this place. I was\r
a boy here!"\r
\r
The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch,\r
though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still\r
present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious\r
of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected\r
with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares\r
long, long, forgotten!\r
\r
"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is\r
that upon your cheek?"\r
\r
Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice,\r
that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him\r
where he would.\r
\r
"You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit.\r
\r
"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervour; "I could\r
walk it blindfold."\r
\r
"Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" observed\r
the Ghost. "Let us go on."\r
\r
They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every\r
gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared\r
in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river.\r
Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them\r
with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in\r
country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys\r
were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the\r
broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air\r
laughed to hear it!\r
\r
"These are but shadows of the things that have been," said\r
the Ghost. "They have no consciousness of us."\r
\r
The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge\r
knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond\r
all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and\r
his heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled\r
with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry\r
Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for\r
their several homes! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge?\r
Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done\r
to him?\r
\r
"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A\r
solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still."\r
\r
Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.\r
\r
They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and\r
soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little\r
weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell\r
hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken\r
fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls\r
were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their\r
gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables;\r
and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass.\r
Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for\r
entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open\r
doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished,\r
cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a\r
chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow\r
with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too\r
much to eat.\r
\r
They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a\r
door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and\r
disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by\r
lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely\r
boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down\r
upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he\r
used to be.\r
\r
Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle\r
from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the\r
half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among\r
the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle\r
swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in\r
the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening\r
influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.\r
\r
The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his\r
younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in\r
foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at:\r
stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and\r
leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.\r
\r
"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's\r
dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas\r
time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone,\r
he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And\r
Valentine," said Scrooge, "and his wild brother, Orson; there\r
they go! And what's his name, who was put down in his\r
drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see him!\r
And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii;\r
there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I'm glad of it.\r
What business had he to be married to the Princess!"\r
\r
To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature\r
on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between\r
laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited\r
face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in\r
the city, indeed.\r
\r
"There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and\r
yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the\r
top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called\r
him, when he came home again after sailing round the\r
island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin\r
Crusoe?'  The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't.\r
It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running\r
for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!"\r
\r
Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his\r
usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, "Poor\r
boy!" and cried again.\r
\r
"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his\r
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his\r
cuff: "but it's too late now."\r
\r
"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.\r
\r
"Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a boy\r
singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should\r
like to have given him something: that's all."\r
\r
The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand:\r
saying as it did so, "Let us see another Christmas!"\r
\r
Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the\r
room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk,\r
the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the\r
ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how\r
all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you\r
do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything\r
had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all\r
the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.\r
\r
He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly.\r
Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of\r
his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.\r
\r
It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy,\r
came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and\r
often kissing him, addressed him as her "Dear, dear\r
brother."\r
\r
"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the\r
child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh.\r
"To bring you home, home, home!"\r
\r
"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy.\r
\r
"Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home, for good\r
and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder\r
than he used to be, that home's like Heaven! He spoke so\r
gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that\r
I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come\r
home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach\r
to bring you. And you're to be a man!" said the child,\r
opening her eyes, "and are never to come back here; but\r
first, we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have\r
the merriest time in all the world."\r
\r
"You are quite a woman, little Fan!" exclaimed the boy.\r
\r
She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his\r
head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on\r
tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her\r
childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to\r
go, accompanied her.\r
\r
A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master\r
Scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster\r
himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious\r
condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind\r
by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his\r
sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that\r
ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial\r
and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold.\r
Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a\r
block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments\r
of those dainties to the young people: at the same time,\r
sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of "something"\r
to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman,\r
but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had\r
rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied\r
on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster\r
good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove\r
gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the\r
hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens\r
like spray.\r
\r
"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have\r
withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large heart!"\r
\r
"So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I will not\r
gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!"\r
\r
"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I think,\r
children."\r
\r
"One child," Scrooge returned.\r
\r
"True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!"\r
\r
Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly,\r
"Yes."\r
\r
Although they had but that moment left the school behind\r
them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city,\r
where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy\r
carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and\r
tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by\r
the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas\r
time again; but it was evening, and the streets were\r
lighted up.\r
\r
The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked\r
Scrooge if he knew it.\r
\r
"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed here!"\r
\r
They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh\r
wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two\r
inches taller he must have knocked his head against the\r
ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:\r
\r
"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig\r
alive again!"\r
\r
Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the\r
clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his\r
hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over\r
himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and\r
called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:\r
\r
"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"\r
\r
Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly\r
in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.\r
\r
"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost.\r
"Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached\r
to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!"\r
\r
"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night.\r
Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's\r
have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap\r
of his hands, "before a man can say Jack Robinson!"\r
\r
You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it!\r
They charged into the street with the shutters--one, two,\r
three--had 'em up in their places--four, five, six--barred\r
'em and pinned 'em--seven, eight, nine--and came back\r
before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.\r
\r
"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the\r
high desk, with wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads,\r
and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup,\r
Ebenezer!"\r
\r
Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared\r
away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking\r
on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if\r
it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was\r
swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon\r
the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and\r
bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter's\r
night.\r
\r
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the\r
lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty\r
stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial\r
smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and\r
lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they\r
broke. In came all the young men and women employed in\r
the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the\r
baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend,\r
the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was\r
suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying\r
to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who\r
was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress.\r
In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly,\r
some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling;\r
in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went,\r
twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again\r
the other way; down the middle and up again; round\r
and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old\r
top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top\r
couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top\r
couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When\r
this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his\r
hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the\r
fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially\r
provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his\r
reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no\r
dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home,\r
exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man\r
resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.\r
\r
There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more\r
dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there\r
was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece\r
of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.\r
But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast\r
and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort\r
of man who knew his business better than you or I could\r
have told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley."  Then\r
old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top\r
couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them;\r
three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were\r
not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no\r
notion of walking.\r
\r
But if they had been twice as many--ah, four times--old\r
Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would\r
Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner\r
in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me\r
higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue\r
from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the\r
dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given\r
time, what would have become of them next. And when old\r
Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance;\r
advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and\r
curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to\r
your place; Fezziwig "cut"--cut so deftly, that he appeared\r
to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without\r
a stagger.\r
\r
When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up.\r
Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side\r
of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually\r
as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas.\r
When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did\r
the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away,\r
and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a\r
counter in the back-shop.\r
\r
During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a\r
man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene,\r
and with his former self. He corroborated everything,\r
remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent\r
the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the\r
bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from\r
them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious\r
that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its\r
head burnt very clear.\r
\r
"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly\r
folks so full of gratitude."\r
\r
"Small!" echoed Scrooge.\r
\r
The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices,\r
who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig:\r
and when he had done so, said,\r
\r
"Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of\r
your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so\r
much that he deserves this praise?"\r
\r
"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and\r
speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self.\r
"It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy\r
or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a\r
pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and\r
looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is\r
impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness\r
he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."\r
\r
He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.\r
\r
"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.\r
\r
"Nothing particular," said Scrooge.\r
\r
"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted.\r
\r
"No," said Scrooge, "No. I should like to be able to say\r
a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all."\r
\r
His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance\r
to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by\r
side in the open air.\r
\r
"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"\r
\r
This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he\r
could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again\r
Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime\r
of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later\r
years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice.\r
There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which\r
showed the passion that had taken root, and where the\r
shadow of the growing tree would fall.\r
\r
He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young\r
girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears,\r
which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of\r
Christmas Past.\r
\r
"It matters little," she said, softly. "To you, very little.\r
Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort\r
you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have\r
no just cause to grieve."\r
\r
"What Idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.\r
\r
"A golden one."\r
\r
"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said.\r
"There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and\r
there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity\r
as the pursuit of wealth!"\r
\r
"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently.\r
"All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being\r
beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your\r
nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion,\r
Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"\r
\r
"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so\r
much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you."\r
\r
She shook her head.\r
\r
"Am I?"\r
\r
"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were\r
both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could\r
improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You\r
are changed. When it was made, you were another man."\r
\r
"I was a boy," he said impatiently.\r
\r
"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you\r
are," she returned. "I am. That which promised happiness\r
when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that\r
we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of\r
this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it,\r
and can release you."\r
\r
"Have I ever sought release?"\r
\r
"In words. No. Never."\r
\r
"In what, then?"\r
\r
"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another\r
atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In\r
everything that made my love of any worth or value in your\r
sight. If this had never been between us," said the girl,\r
looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; "tell me,\r
would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"\r
\r
He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in\r
spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, "You think\r
not."\r
\r
"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered,\r
"Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this,\r
I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you\r
were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe\r
that you would choose a dowerless girl--you who, in your\r
very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or,\r
choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your\r
one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your\r
repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I\r
release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you\r
once were."\r
\r
He was about to speak; but with her head turned from\r
him, she resumed.\r
\r
"You may--the memory of what is past half makes me\r
hope you will--have pain in this. A very, very brief time,\r
and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an\r
unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you\r
awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!"\r
\r
She left him, and they parted.\r
\r
"Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Conduct\r
me home. Why do you delight to torture me?"\r
\r
"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.\r
\r
"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don't wish to\r
see it. Show me no more!"\r
\r
But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms,\r
and forced him to observe what happened next.\r
\r
They were in another scene and place; a room, not very\r
large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter\r
fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge\r
believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely\r
matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this\r
room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children\r
there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count;\r
and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not\r
forty children conducting themselves like one, but every\r
child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences\r
were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care;\r
on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily,\r
and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to\r
mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands\r
most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of\r
them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I\r
wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that\r
braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little\r
shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to\r
save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they\r
did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should\r
have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment,\r
and never come straight again. And yet I should\r
have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have\r
questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have\r
looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never\r
raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of\r
which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should\r
have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence\r
of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its\r
value.\r
\r
But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a\r
rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and\r
plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed\r
and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who\r
came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys\r
and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and\r
the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter!\r
The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his\r
pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight\r
by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back,\r
and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of\r
wonder and delight with which the development of every\r
package was received! The terrible announcement that the\r
baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan\r
into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having\r
swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter!\r
The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy,\r
and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike.\r
It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions\r
got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the\r
top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.\r
\r
And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever,\r
when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning\r
fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his\r
own fireside; and when he thought that such another\r
creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might\r
have called him father, and been a spring-time in the\r
haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.\r
\r
"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a\r
smile, "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon."\r
\r
"Who was it?"\r
\r
"Guess!"\r
\r
"How can I? Tut, don't I know?" she added in the\r
same breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."\r
\r
"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as\r
it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could\r
scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point\r
of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in\r
the world, I do believe."\r
\r
"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me\r
from this place."\r
\r
"I told you these were shadows of the things that have\r
been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do\r
not blame me!"\r
\r
"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed, "I cannot bear it!"\r
\r
He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon\r
him with a face, in which in some strange way there were\r
fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.\r
\r
"Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"\r
\r
In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which\r
the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was\r
undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed\r
that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly\r
connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the\r
extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down\r
upon its head.\r
\r
The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher\r
covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down\r
with all his force, he could not hide the light: which streamed\r
from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.\r
\r
He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an\r
irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own\r
bedroom.  He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand\r
relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank\r
into a heavy sleep.\r
\r
\r
STAVE III:  THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS\r
\r
AWAKING in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and\r
sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had\r
no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the\r
stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness\r
in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding\r
a conference with the second messenger despatched to him\r
through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that he\r
turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which\r
of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put\r
them every one aside with his own hands; and lying down\r
again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For\r
he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its\r
appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and\r
made nervous.\r
\r
Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves\r
on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually\r
equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their\r
capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for\r
anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which\r
opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and\r
comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for\r
Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you\r
to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of\r
strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and\r
rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.\r
\r
Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by\r
any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the\r
Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a\r
violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter\r
of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay\r
upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy\r
light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the\r
hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than\r
a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it\r
meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive\r
that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of\r
spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of\r
knowing it. At last, however, he began to think--as you or\r
I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not\r
in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done\r
in it, and would unquestionably have done it too--at last, I\r
say, he began to think that the source and secret of this\r
ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence,\r
on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking\r
full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in\r
his slippers to the door.\r
\r
The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange\r
voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He\r
obeyed.\r
\r
It was his own room. There was no doubt about that.\r
But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls\r
and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a\r
perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming\r
berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and\r
ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had\r
been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring\r
up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had\r
never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and\r
many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form\r
a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn,\r
great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages,\r
mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts,\r
cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears,\r
immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that\r
made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy\r
state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to\r
see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's\r
horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge,\r
as he came peeping round the door.\r
\r
"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in! and know\r
me better, man!"\r
\r
Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this\r
Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and\r
though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like\r
to meet them.\r
\r
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit.\r
"Look upon me!"\r
\r
Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple\r
green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment\r
hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was\r
bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any\r
artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the\r
garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other\r
covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining\r
icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its\r
genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice,\r
its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded\r
round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword\r
was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.\r
\r
"You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed\r
the Spirit.\r
\r
"Never," Scrooge made answer to it.\r
\r
"Have never walked forth with the younger members of\r
my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers\r
born in these later years?" pursued the Phantom.\r
\r
"I don't think I have," said Scrooge. "I am afraid I have\r
not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?"\r
\r
"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost.\r
\r
"A tremendous family to provide for!" muttered Scrooge.\r
\r
The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.\r
\r
"Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where\r
you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt\r
a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught\r
to teach me, let me profit by it."\r
\r
"Touch my robe!"\r
\r
Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.\r
\r
Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game,\r
poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings,\r
fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room,\r
the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood\r
in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the\r
weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and\r
not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the\r
pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of\r
their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see\r
it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting\r
into artificial little snow-storms.\r
\r
The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows\r
blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow\r
upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground;\r
which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by\r
the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed\r
and re-crossed each other hundreds of times where the great\r
streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace\r
in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy,\r
and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,\r
half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended\r
in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great\r
Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away\r
to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful\r
in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of\r
cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest\r
summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.\r
\r
For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops\r
were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another\r
from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious\r
snowball--better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest--\r
laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it\r
went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the\r
fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round,\r
pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats\r
of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out\r
into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were\r
ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in\r
the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking\r
from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went\r
by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were\r
pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there\r
were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence\r
to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might\r
water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy\r
and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among\r
the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered\r
leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthy, setting\r
off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great\r
compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and\r
beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after\r
dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among\r
these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and\r
stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was\r
something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and\r
round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.\r
\r
The Grocers'! oh, the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps\r
two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such\r
glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the\r
counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller\r
parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled\r
up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended\r
scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even\r
that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so\r
extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight,\r
the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and\r
spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on\r
feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs\r
were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in\r
modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that\r
everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but\r
the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful\r
promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other\r
at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left\r
their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to\r
fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in\r
the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people\r
were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which\r
they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own,\r
worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws\r
to peck at if they chose.\r
\r
But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and\r
chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in\r
their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the\r
same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and\r
nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners\r
to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers\r
appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with\r
Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the\r
covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their\r
dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind\r
of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words\r
between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he\r
shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good\r
humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame\r
to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love\r
it, so it was!\r
\r
In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and\r
yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners\r
and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of\r
wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as\r
if its stones were cooking too.\r
\r
"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from\r
your torch?" asked Scrooge.\r
\r
"There is. My own."\r
\r
"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?"\r
asked Scrooge.\r
\r
"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."\r
\r
"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.\r
\r
"Because it needs it most."\r
\r
"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I wonder\r
you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should\r
desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent\r
enjoyment."\r
\r
"I!" cried the Spirit.\r
\r
"You would deprive them of their means of dining every\r
seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said\r
to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?"\r
\r
"I!" cried the Spirit.\r
\r
"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?" said\r
Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."\r
\r
"I seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.\r
\r
"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your\r
name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.\r
\r
"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit,\r
"who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion,\r
pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness\r
in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and\r
kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge\r
their doings on themselves, not us."\r
\r
Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on,\r
invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the\r
town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which\r
Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding\r
his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place\r
with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as\r
gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible\r
he could have done in any lofty hall.\r
\r
And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in\r
showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind,\r
generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor\r
men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he\r
went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and\r
on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped\r
to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his\r
torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob" a-week\r
himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his\r
Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present\r
blessed his four-roomed house!\r
\r
Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out\r
but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons,\r
which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and\r
she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of\r
her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter\r
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and\r
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private\r
property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the\r
day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly\r
attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.\r
And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing\r
in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the\r
goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious\r
thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced\r
about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the\r
skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked\r
him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up,\r
knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and\r
peeled.\r
\r
"What has ever got your precious father then?" said Mrs.\r
Cratchit. "And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha\r
warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?"\r
\r
"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she\r
spoke.\r
\r
"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits.\r
"Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!"\r
\r
"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!"\r
said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off\r
her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.\r
\r
"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the\r
girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!"\r
\r
"Well! Never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs.\r
Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have\r
a warm, Lord bless ye!"\r
\r
"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young\r
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha,\r
hide!"\r
\r
So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father,\r
with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe,\r
hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned\r
up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his\r
shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and\r
had his limbs supported by an iron frame!\r
\r
"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking\r
round.\r
\r
"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.\r
\r
"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his\r
high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way\r
from church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming\r
upon Christmas Day!"\r
\r
Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only\r
in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet\r
door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits\r
hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house,\r
that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.\r
\r
"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit,\r
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had\r
hugged his daughter to his heart's content.\r
\r
"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he\r
gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the\r
strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home,\r
that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he\r
was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember\r
upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind\r
men see."\r
\r
Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and\r
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing\r
strong and hearty.\r
\r
His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back\r
came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by\r
his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while\r
Bob, turning up his cuffs--as if, poor fellow, they were\r
capable of being made more shabby--compounded some hot\r
mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round\r
and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter,\r
and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the\r
goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.\r
\r
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose\r
the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a\r
black swan was a matter of course--and in truth it was\r
something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made\r
the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot;\r
Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour;\r
Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted\r
the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny\r
corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for\r
everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard\r
upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest\r
they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be\r
helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was\r
said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs.\r
Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared\r
to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the\r
long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of\r
delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim,\r
excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with\r
the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!\r
\r
There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe\r
there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and\r
flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal\r
admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes,\r
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as\r
Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small\r
atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at\r
last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest\r
Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to\r
the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss\r
Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to\r
bear witnesses--to take the pudding up and bring it in.\r
\r
Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should\r
break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got\r
over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they\r
were merry with the goose--a supposition at which the two\r
young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were\r
supposed.\r
\r
Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of\r
the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the\r
cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next\r
door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that!\r
That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit\r
entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding,\r
like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half\r
of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with\r
Christmas holly stuck into the top.\r
\r
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly\r
too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by\r
Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that\r
now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had\r
had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had\r
something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it\r
was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have\r
been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed\r
to hint at such a thing.\r
\r
At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the\r
hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the\r
jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges\r
were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the\r
fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in\r
what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and\r
at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass.\r
Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.\r
\r
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as\r
golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with\r
beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and\r
cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:\r
\r
"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"\r
\r
Which all the family re-echoed.\r
\r
"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.\r
\r
He sat very close to his father's side upon his little\r
stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he\r
loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and\r
dreaded that he might be taken from him.\r
\r
"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt\r
before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live."\r
\r
"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor\r
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully\r
preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,\r
the child will die."\r
\r
"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he\r
will be spared."\r
\r
"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none\r
other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here.\r
What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and\r
decrease the surplus population."\r
\r
Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by\r
the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.\r
\r
"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not\r
adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered\r
What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what\r
men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the\r
sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live\r
than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear\r
the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life\r
among his hungry brothers in the dust!"\r
\r
Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast\r
his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on\r
hearing his own name.\r
\r
"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the\r
Founder of the Feast!"\r
\r
"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit,\r
reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece\r
of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good\r
appetite for it."\r
\r
"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas Day."\r
\r
"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said she, "on\r
which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard,\r
unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert!\r
Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!"\r
\r
"My dear," was Bob's mild answer, "Christmas Day."\r
\r
"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's," said\r
Mrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life to him! A merry\r
Christmas and a happy new year! He'll be very merry and\r
very happy, I have no doubt!"\r
\r
The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of\r
their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank\r
it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge\r
was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast\r
a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full\r
five minutes.\r
\r
After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than\r
before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done\r
with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his\r
eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full\r
five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed\r
tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business;\r
and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from\r
between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular\r
investments he should favour when he came into the receipt\r
of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor\r
apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work\r
she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch,\r
and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a\r
good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at\r
home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some\r
days before, and how the lord "was much about as tall as\r
Peter;" at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you\r
couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this\r
time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and\r
by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in\r
the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice,\r
and sang it very well indeed.\r
\r
There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not\r
a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes\r
were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty;\r
and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside\r
of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased\r
with one another, and contented with the time; and when\r
they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings\r
of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon\r
them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.\r
\r
By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty\r
heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets,\r
the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and\r
all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of\r
the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot\r
plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep\r
red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness.\r
There all the children of the house were running out\r
into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins,\r
uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again,\r
were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and\r
there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted,\r
and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near\r
neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw\r
them enter--artful witches, well they knew it--in a glow!\r
\r
But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on\r
their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought\r
that no one was at home to give them welcome when they\r
got there, instead of every house expecting company, and\r
piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how\r
the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and\r
opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with\r
a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything\r
within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before,\r
dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was\r
dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly\r
as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter\r
that he had any company but Christmas!\r
\r
And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they\r
stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses\r
of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place\r
of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed,\r
or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner;\r
and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass.\r
Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery\r
red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a\r
sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in\r
the thick gloom of darkest night.\r
\r
"What place is this?" asked Scrooge.\r
\r
"A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of\r
the earth," returned the Spirit. "But they know me. See!"\r
\r
A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they\r
advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and\r
stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a\r
glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their\r
children and their children's children, and another generation\r
beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.\r
The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling\r
of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a\r
Christmas song--it had been a very old song when he was a\r
boy--and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.\r
So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite\r
blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour\r
sank again.\r
\r
The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his\r
robe, and passing on above the moor, sped--whither? Not\r
to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw\r
the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them;\r
and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it\r
rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it\r
had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.\r
\r
Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league\r
or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed,\r
the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.\r
Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds\r
--born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the\r
water--rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.\r
\r
But even here, two men who watched the light had made\r
a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed\r
out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their\r
horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they\r
wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and\r
one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and\r
scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship\r
might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in\r
itself.\r
\r
Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea\r
--on, on--until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any\r
shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman\r
at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who\r
had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations;\r
but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or\r
had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his\r
companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward\r
hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or\r
sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another\r
on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared\r
to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those\r
he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted\r
to remember him.\r
\r
It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the\r
moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it\r
was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown\r
abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it\r
was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear\r
a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge\r
to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a\r
bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling\r
by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving\r
affability!\r
\r
"Ha, ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!"\r
\r
If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a\r
man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can\r
say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me,\r
and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.\r
\r
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that\r
while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing\r
in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and\r
good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way: holding\r
his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the\r
most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage,\r
laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being\r
not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.\r
\r
"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"\r
\r
"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" cried\r
Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it too!"\r
\r
"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece,\r
indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by\r
halves. They are always in earnest.\r
\r
She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled,\r
surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that\r
seemed made to be kissed--as no doubt it was; all kinds of\r
good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another\r
when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever\r
saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what\r
you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too.\r
Oh, perfectly satisfactory.\r
\r
"He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew, "that's\r
the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However,\r
his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing\r
to say against him."\r
\r
"I'm sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's niece.\r
"At least you always tell me so."\r
\r
"What of that, my dear!" said Scrooge's nephew. "His\r
wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it.\r
He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the\r
satisfaction of thinking--ha, ha, ha!--that he is ever going\r
to benefit US with it."\r
\r
"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece.\r
Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed\r
the same opinion.\r
\r
"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew. "I am sorry for\r
him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers\r
by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he takes it into\r
his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us.\r
What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner."\r
\r
"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted\r
Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they\r
must be allowed to have been competent judges, because\r
they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the\r
table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.\r
\r
"Well! I'm very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew,\r
"because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers.\r
What do you say, Topper?"\r
\r
Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's\r
sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast,\r
who had no right to express an opinion on the subject.\r
Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister--the plump one with the lace\r
tucker: not the one with the roses--blushed.\r
\r
"Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands.\r
"He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a\r
ridiculous fellow!"\r
\r
Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was\r
impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister\r
tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was\r
unanimously followed.\r
\r
"I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, "that\r
the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making\r
merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant\r
moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses\r
pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts,\r
either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I\r
mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he\r
likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas\r
till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it--I defy\r
him--if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after\r
year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only\r
puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds,\r
that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday."\r
\r
It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking\r
Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much\r
caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any\r
rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the\r
bottle joyously.\r
\r
After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical\r
family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a\r
Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who\r
could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never\r
swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face\r
over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and\r
played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing:\r
you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had\r
been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the\r
boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of\r
Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the\r
things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he\r
softened more and more; and thought that if he could have\r
listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the\r
kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands,\r
without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob\r
Marley.\r
\r
But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After\r
a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children\r
sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its\r
mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first\r
a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I\r
no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he\r
had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done\r
thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the\r
Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after\r
that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the\r
credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons,\r
tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano,\r
smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went,\r
there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was.\r
He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up\r
against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would\r
have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would\r
have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly\r
have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.\r
She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not.\r
But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her\r
silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got\r
her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his\r
conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to\r
know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her\r
head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by\r
pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain\r
about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told\r
him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in\r
office, they were so very confidential together, behind the\r
curtains.\r
\r
Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party,\r
but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool,\r
in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close\r
behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her\r
love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet.\r
Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was\r
very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat\r
her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as Topper\r
could have told you. There might have been twenty people there,\r
young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for\r
wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that\r
his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with\r
his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too;\r
for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut\r
in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in\r
his head to be.\r
\r
The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood,\r
and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like\r
a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But\r
this the Spirit said could not be done.\r
\r
"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half hour,\r
Spirit, only one!"\r
\r
It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew\r
had to think of something, and the rest must find out what;\r
he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case\r
was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed,\r
elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live\r
animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an\r
animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes,\r
and lived in London, and walked about the streets,\r
and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and\r
didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market,\r
and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a\r
tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh\r
question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a\r
fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that\r
he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last\r
the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:\r
\r
"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know\r
what it is!"\r
\r
"What is it?" cried Fred.\r
\r
"It's your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!"\r
\r
Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal\r
sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a\r
bear?" ought to have been "Yes;" inasmuch as an answer\r
in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts\r
from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency\r
that way.\r
\r
"He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," said\r
Fred, "and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health.\r
Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the\r
moment; and I say, 'Uncle Scrooge!'"\r
\r
"Well! Uncle Scrooge!" they cried.\r
\r
"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old\r
man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew. "He wouldn't\r
take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle\r
Scrooge!"\r
\r
Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light\r
of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious\r
company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech,\r
if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene\r
passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his\r
nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.\r
\r
Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they\r
visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood\r
beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands,\r
and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they\r
were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was\r
rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every\r
refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not\r
made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his\r
blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.\r
\r
It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge\r
had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared\r
to be condensed into the space of time they passed\r
together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained\r
unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly\r
older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of\r
it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night party, when,\r
looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place,\r
he noticed that its hair was grey.\r
\r
"Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Scrooge.\r
\r
"My life upon this globe, is very brief," replied the Ghost.\r
"It ends to-night."\r
\r
"To-night!" cried Scrooge.\r
\r
"To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing\r
near."\r
\r
The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at\r
that moment.\r
\r
"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said\r
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see\r
something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding\r
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?"\r
\r
"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was\r
the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here."\r
\r
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children;\r
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt\r
down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.\r
\r
"Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!" exclaimed\r
the Ghost.\r
\r
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling,\r
wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where\r
graceful youth should have filled their features out, and\r
touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled\r
hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and\r
pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat\r
enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No\r
change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any\r
grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has\r
monsters half so horrible and dread.\r
\r
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to\r
him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but\r
the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie\r
of such enormous magnitude.\r
\r
"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.\r
\r
"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon\r
them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.\r
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,\r
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for\r
on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the\r
writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out\r
its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye!\r
Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.\r
And bide the end!"\r
\r
"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.\r
\r
"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him\r
for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"\r
\r
The bell struck twelve.\r
\r
Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not.\r
As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the\r
prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes,\r
beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like\r
a mist along the ground, towards him.\r
\r
\r
STAVE IV:  THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS\r
\r
THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When\r
it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in\r
the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to\r
scatter gloom and mystery.\r
\r
It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed\r
its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible\r
save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been\r
difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it\r
from the darkness by which it was surrounded.\r
\r
He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside\r
him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a\r
solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither\r
spoke nor moved.\r
\r
"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To\r
Come?" said Scrooge.\r
\r
The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its\r
hand.\r
\r
"You are about to show me shadows of the things that\r
have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,"\r
Scrooge pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?"\r
\r
The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an\r
instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head.\r
That was the only answer he received.\r
\r
Although well used to ghostly company by this time,\r
Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled\r
beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when\r
he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as\r
observing his condition, and giving him time to recover.\r
\r
But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him\r
with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the\r
dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon\r
him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost,\r
could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap\r
of black.\r
\r
"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more\r
than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose\r
is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another\r
man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company,\r
and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak\r
to me?"\r
\r
It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight\r
before them.\r
\r
"Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night is\r
waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead\r
on, Spirit!"\r
\r
The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him.\r
Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him\r
up, he thought, and carried him along.\r
\r
They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather\r
seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its\r
own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on\r
'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down,\r
and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in\r
groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully\r
with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had\r
seen them often.\r
\r
The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men.\r
Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge\r
advanced to listen to their talk.\r
\r
"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "I\r
don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's\r
dead."\r
\r
"When did he die?" inquired another.\r
\r
"Last night, I believe."\r
\r
"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third,\r
taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box.\r
"I thought he'd never die."\r
\r
"God knows," said the first, with a yawn.\r
\r
"What has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced\r
gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his\r
nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.\r
\r
"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin,\r
yawning again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't\r
left it to me. That's all I know."\r
\r
This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.\r
\r
"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same\r
speaker; "for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go\r
to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?"\r
\r
"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the\r
gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. "But I must\r
be fed, if I make one."\r
\r
Another laugh.\r
\r
"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,"\r
said the first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves, and I\r
never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will.\r
When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't\r
his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak\r
whenever we met. Bye, bye!"\r
\r
Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with\r
other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the\r
Spirit for an explanation.\r
\r
The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed\r
to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking\r
that the explanation might lie here.\r
\r
He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business:\r
very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point\r
always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point\r
of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.\r
\r
"How are you?" said one.\r
\r
"How are you?" returned the other.\r
\r
"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own at\r
last, hey?"\r
\r
"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn't it?"\r
\r
"Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I\r
suppose?"\r
\r
"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!"\r
\r
Not another word. That was their meeting, their\r
conversation, and their parting.\r
\r
Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the\r
Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so\r
trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden\r
purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be.\r
They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the\r
death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this\r
Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any\r
one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could\r
apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they\r
applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement,\r
he resolved to treasure up every word he heard,\r
and everything he saw; and especially to observe the\r
shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation\r
that the conduct of his future self would give him\r
the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these\r
riddles easy.\r
\r
He looked about in that very place for his own image; but\r
another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the\r
clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he\r
saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured\r
in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however;\r
for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and\r
thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried\r
out in this.\r
\r
Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its\r
outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his\r
thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and\r
its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes\r
were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel\r
very cold.\r
\r
They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part\r
of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before,\r
although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The\r
ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched;\r
the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and\r
archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of\r
smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the\r
whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.\r
\r
Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed,\r
beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags,\r
bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor\r
within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges,\r
files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets\r
that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in\r
mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and\r
sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a\r
charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal,\r
nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the\r
cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous\r
tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury\r
of calm retirement.\r
\r
Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this\r
man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the\r
shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman,\r
similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by\r
a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight\r
of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each\r
other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which\r
the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three\r
burst into a laugh.\r
\r
"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who\r
had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the second;\r
and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look\r
here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three met\r
here without meaning it!"\r
\r
"You couldn't have met in a better place," said old Joe,\r
removing his pipe from his mouth. "Come into the parlour.\r
You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other\r
two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop.\r
Ah! How it skreeks! There an't such a rusty bit of metal\r
in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's\r
no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We're all suitable\r
to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the\r
parlour. Come into the parlour."\r
\r
The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The\r
old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and\r
having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the\r
stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.\r
\r
While he did this, the woman who had already spoken\r
threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting\r
manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and\r
looking with a bold defiance at the other two.\r
\r
"What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said the\r
woman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves.\r
He always did."\r
\r
"That's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No man\r
more so."\r
\r
"Why then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid,\r
woman; who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes in\r
each other's coats, I suppose?"\r
\r
"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together.\r
"We should hope not."\r
\r
"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's enough.\r
Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these?\r
Not a dead man, I suppose."\r
\r
"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.\r
\r
"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old\r
screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural in his\r
lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look\r
after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying\r
gasping out his last there, alone by himself."\r
\r
"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs.\r
Dilber. "It's a judgment on him."\r
\r
"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the\r
woman; "and it should have been, you may depend upon it,\r
if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that\r
bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out\r
plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to\r
see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves,\r
before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle,\r
Joe."\r
\r
But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this;\r
and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first,\r
produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two,\r
a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no\r
great value, were all. They were severally examined and\r
appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed\r
to give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a\r
total when he found there was nothing more to come.\r
\r
"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give\r
another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it.\r
Who's next?"\r
\r
Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing\r
apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of\r
sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall\r
in the same manner.\r
\r
"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine,\r
and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That's\r
your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made\r
it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal and knock\r
off half-a-crown."\r
\r
"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first woman.\r
\r
Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience\r
of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots,\r
dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.\r
\r
"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains!"\r
\r
"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward\r
on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains!"\r
\r
"You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and\r
all, with him lying there?" said Joe.\r
\r
"Yes I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"\r
\r
"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and\r
you'll certainly do it."\r
\r
"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything\r
in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He\r
was, I promise you, Joe," returned the woman coolly. "Don't\r
drop that oil upon the blankets, now."\r
\r
"His blankets?" asked Joe.\r
\r
"Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "He\r
isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say."\r
\r
"I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?" said\r
old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.\r
\r
"Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I\r
an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for\r
such things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that\r
shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor\r
a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too.\r
They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me."\r
\r
"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.\r
\r
"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied\r
the woman with a laugh. "Somebody was fool enough to\r
do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for\r
such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite\r
as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did\r
in that one."\r
\r
Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat\r
grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by\r
the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and\r
disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they\r
had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.\r
\r
"Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe,\r
producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their\r
several gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, you\r
see! He frightened every one away from him when he was\r
alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!"\r
\r
"Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. "I\r
see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own.\r
My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is\r
this!"\r
\r
He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now\r
he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which,\r
beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up,\r
which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful\r
language.\r
\r
The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with\r
any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience\r
to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it\r
was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon\r
the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept,\r
uncared for, was the body of this man.\r
\r
Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand\r
was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted\r
that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon\r
Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought\r
of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it;\r
but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss\r
the spectre at his side.\r
\r
Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar\r
here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy\r
command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved,\r
revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair\r
to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is\r
not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released;\r
it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the\r
hand WAS open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm,\r
and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike!\r
And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow\r
the world with life immortal!\r
\r
No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and\r
yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He\r
thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be\r
his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares?\r
They have brought him to a rich end, truly!\r
\r
He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a\r
woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this\r
or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be\r
kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was\r
a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What\r
they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so\r
restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.\r
\r
"Spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. In leaving it,\r
I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!"\r
\r
Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the\r
head.\r
\r
"I understand you," Scrooge returned, "and I would do\r
it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have\r
not the power."\r
\r
Again it seemed to look upon him.\r
\r
"If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion\r
caused by this man's death," said Scrooge quite agonised,\r
"show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!"\r
\r
The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a\r
moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room\r
by daylight, where a mother and her children were.\r
\r
She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness;\r
for she walked up and down the room; started at every\r
sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock;\r
tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly\r
bear the voices of the children in their play.\r
\r
At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried\r
to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was\r
careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was\r
a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight\r
of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.\r
\r
He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for\r
him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news\r
(which was not until after a long silence), he appeared\r
embarrassed how to answer.\r
\r
"Is it good?" she said, "or bad?"--to help him.\r
\r
"Bad," he answered.\r
\r
"We are quite ruined?"\r
\r
"No. There is hope yet, Caroline."\r
\r
"If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Nothing is\r
past hope, if such a miracle has happened."\r
\r
"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead."\r
\r
She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke\r
truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she\r
said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next\r
moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of\r
her heart.\r
\r
"What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last\r
night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a\r
week's delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid\r
me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only\r
very ill, but dying, then."\r
\r
"To whom will our debt be transferred?"\r
\r
"I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready\r
with the money; and even though we were not, it would be\r
a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his\r
successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!"\r
\r
Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter.\r
The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what\r
they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier\r
house for this man's death! The only emotion that the\r
Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of\r
pleasure.\r
\r
"Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said\r
Scrooge; "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just\r
now, will be for ever present to me."\r
\r
The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar\r
to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and\r
there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They\r
entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; the dwelling he had\r
visited before; and found the mother and the children seated\r
round the fire.\r
\r
Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as\r
still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter,\r
who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters\r
were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet!\r
\r
"'And He took a child, and set him in the midst of\r
them.'"\r
\r
Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not\r
dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he\r
and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not\r
go on?\r
\r
The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her\r
hand up to her face.\r
\r
"The colour hurts my eyes," she said.\r
\r
The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!\r
\r
"They're better now again," said Cratchit's wife. "It\r
makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak\r
eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It\r
must be near his time."\r
\r
"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book.\r
"But I think he has walked a little slower than he used,\r
these few last evenings, mother."\r
\r
They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a\r
steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:\r
\r
"I have known him walk with--I have known him walk\r
with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed."\r
\r
"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often."\r
\r
"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all.\r
\r
"But he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent upon\r
her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was no\r
trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door!"\r
\r
She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter\r
--he had need of it, poor fellow--came in. His tea\r
was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should\r
help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got\r
upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against\r
his face, as if they said, "Don't mind it, father. Don't be\r
grieved!"\r
\r
Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to\r
all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and\r
praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls.\r
They would be done long before Sunday, he said.\r
\r
"Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?" said his\r
wife.\r
\r
"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have\r
gone. It would have done you good to see how green a\r
place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I\r
would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!"\r
cried Bob. "My little child!"\r
\r
He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he\r
could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther\r
apart perhaps than they were.\r
\r
He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above,\r
which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas.\r
There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were\r
signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat\r
down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed\r
himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what\r
had happened, and went down again quite happy.\r
\r
They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother\r
working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness\r
of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but\r
once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing\r
that he looked a little--"just a little down you know," said\r
Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. "On\r
which," said Bob, "for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman\r
you ever heard, I told him. 'I am heartily sorry for it, Mr.\r
Cratchit,' he said, 'and heartily sorry for your good wife.'\r
By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't know."\r
\r
"Knew what, my dear?"\r
\r
"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob.\r
\r
"Everybody knows that!" said Peter.\r
\r
"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope they\r
do. 'Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I\r
can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me\r
his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come to me.' Now, it\r
wasn't," cried Bob, "for the sake of anything he might be\r
able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was\r
quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our\r
Tiny Tim, and felt with us."\r
\r
"I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit.\r
\r
"You would be surer of it, my dear," returned Bob, "if\r
you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised--\r
mark what I say!--if he got Peter a better situation."\r
\r
"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit.\r
\r
"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be keeping\r
company with some one, and setting up for himself."\r
\r
"Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning.\r
\r
"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these days;\r
though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But however\r
and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we\r
shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim--shall we--or this\r
first parting that there was among us?"\r
\r
"Never, father!" cried they all.\r
\r
"And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that when\r
we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he\r
was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among\r
ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it."\r
\r
"No, never, father!" they all cried again.\r
\r
"I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am very happy!"\r
\r
Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the\r
two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook\r
hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from\r
God!\r
\r
"Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me that our\r
parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not\r
how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?"\r
\r
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as\r
before--though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there\r
seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were\r
in the Future--into the resorts of business men, but showed\r
him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything,\r
but went straight on, as to the end just now desired,\r
until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.\r
\r
"This court," said Scrooge, "through which we hurry now,\r
is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length\r
of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be,\r
in days to come!"\r
\r
The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.\r
\r
"The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. "Why do you\r
point away?"\r
\r
The inexorable finger underwent no change.\r
\r
Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked\r
in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was\r
not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself.\r
The Phantom pointed as before.\r
\r
He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither\r
he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate.\r
He paused to look round before entering.\r
\r
A churchyard. Here, then; the wretched man whose name\r
he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a\r
worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and\r
weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up\r
with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A\r
worthy place!\r
\r
The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to\r
One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was\r
exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new\r
meaning in its solemn shape.\r
\r
"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,"\r
said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the\r
shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of\r
things that May be, only?"\r
\r
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which\r
it stood.\r
\r
"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if\r
persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the\r
courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is\r
thus with what you show me!"\r
\r
The Spirit was immovable as ever.\r
\r
Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and\r
following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected\r
grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.\r
\r
"Am I that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, upon\r
his knees.\r
\r
The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.\r
\r
"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!"\r
\r
The finger still was there.\r
\r
"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me!\r
I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must\r
have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I\r
am past all hope!"\r
\r
For the first time the hand appeared to shake.\r
\r
"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he\r
fell before it: "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities\r
me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you\r
have shown me, by an altered life!"\r
\r
The kind hand trembled.\r
\r
"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it\r
all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the\r
Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I\r
will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I\r
may sponge away the writing on this stone!"\r
\r
In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to\r
free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it.\r
The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.\r
\r
Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate\r
reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress.\r
It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.\r
\r
\r
STAVE V:  THE END OF IT\r
\r
YES! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own,\r
the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time\r
before him was his own, to make amends in!\r
\r
"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!"\r
Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "The Spirits\r
of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley!\r
Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say\r
it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!"\r
\r
He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions,\r
that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his\r
call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the\r
Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.\r
\r
"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one of\r
his bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings\r
and all. They are here--I am here--the shadows of the\r
things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will\r
be. I know they will!"\r
\r
His hands were busy with his garments all this time;\r
turning them inside out, putting them on upside down,\r
tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every\r
kind of extravagance.\r
\r
"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and\r
crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of\r
himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I\r
am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I\r
am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to\r
everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo\r
here! Whoop! Hallo!"\r
\r
He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing\r
there: perfectly winded.\r
\r
"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried\r
Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace.\r
"There's the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley\r
entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas\r
Present, sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering\r
Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened.\r
Ha ha ha!"\r
\r
Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so\r
many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh.\r
The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!\r
\r
"I don't know what day of the month it is!" said\r
Scrooge. "I don't know how long I've been among the\r
Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never\r
mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop!\r
Hallo here!"\r
\r
He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing\r
out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang,\r
hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang,\r
clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!\r
\r
Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his\r
head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold;\r
cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight;\r
Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious!\r
Glorious!\r
\r
"What's to-day!" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a\r
boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look\r
about him.\r
\r
"EH?" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.\r
\r
"What's to-day, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge.\r
\r
"To-day!" replied the boy. "Why, CHRISTMAS DAY."\r
\r
"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I\r
haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night.\r
They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of\r
course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!"\r
\r
"Hallo!" returned the boy.\r
\r
"Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one,\r
at the corner?" Scrooge inquired.\r
\r
"I should hope I did," replied the lad.\r
\r
"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy!\r
Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that\r
was hanging up there?--Not the little prize Turkey: the\r
big one?"\r
\r
"What, the one as big as me?" returned the boy.\r
\r
"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a pleasure\r
to talk to him. Yes, my buck!"\r
\r
"It's hanging there now," replied the boy.\r
\r
"Is it?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it."\r
\r
"Walk-ER!" exclaimed the boy.\r
\r
"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest. Go and buy\r
it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the\r
direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and\r
I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than\r
five minutes and I'll give you half-a-crown!"\r
\r
The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady\r
hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.\r
\r
"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's!" whispered Scrooge,\r
rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "He sha'n't\r
know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe\r
Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's\r
will be!"\r
\r
The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady\r
one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to\r
open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's\r
man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker\r
caught his eye.\r
\r
"I shall love it, as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, patting\r
it with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it before.\r
What an honest expression it has in its face! It's a\r
wonderful knocker!--Here's the Turkey! Hallo! Whoop!\r
How are you! Merry Christmas!"\r
\r
It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his\r
legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a\r
minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.\r
\r
"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,"\r
said Scrooge. "You must have a cab."\r
\r
The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with\r
which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which\r
he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed\r
the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle\r
with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and\r
chuckled till he cried.\r
\r
Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to\r
shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when\r
you don't dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the\r
end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of\r
sticking-plaister over it, and been quite satisfied.\r
\r
He dressed himself "all in his best," and at last got out\r
into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth,\r
as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present;\r
and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded\r
every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly\r
pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows\r
said, "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!"\r
And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe\r
sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.\r
\r
He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he\r
beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his\r
counting-house the day before, and said, "Scrooge and Marley's, I\r
believe?"  It sent a pang across his heart to think how this\r
old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he\r
knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.\r
\r
"My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and\r
taking the old gentleman by both his hands. "How do you\r
do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of\r
you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!"\r
\r
"Mr. Scrooge?"\r
\r
"Yes," said Scrooge. "That is my name, and I fear it\r
may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon.\r
And will you have the goodness"--here Scrooge whispered in\r
his ear.\r
\r
"Lord bless me!" cried the gentleman, as if his breath\r
were taken away. "My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?"\r
\r
"If you please," said Scrooge. "Not a farthing less. A\r
great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you.\r
Will you do me that favour?"\r
\r
"My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with him.\r
"I don't know what to say to such munifi--"\r
\r
"Don't say anything, please," retorted Scrooge. "Come\r
and see me. Will you come and see me?"\r
\r
"I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he\r
meant to do it.\r
\r
"Thank'ee," said Scrooge. "I am much obliged to you.\r
I thank you fifty times. Bless you!"\r
\r
He went to church, and walked about the streets, and\r
watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children\r
on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into\r
the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found\r
that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never\r
dreamed that any walk--that anything--could give him so\r
much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps\r
towards his nephew's house.\r
\r
He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the\r
courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and\r
did it:\r
\r
"Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge to the\r
girl. Nice girl! Very.\r
\r
"Yes, sir."\r
\r
"Where is he, my love?" said Scrooge.\r
\r
"He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll\r
show you up-stairs, if you please."\r
\r
"Thank'ee. He knows me," said Scrooge, with his hand\r
already on the dining-room lock. "I'll go in here, my dear."\r
\r
He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door.\r
They were looking at the table (which was spread out in\r
great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous\r
on such points, and like to see that everything is right.\r
\r
"Fred!" said Scrooge.\r
\r
Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started!\r
Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting\r
in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done\r
it, on any account.\r
\r
"Why bless my soul!" cried Fred, "who's that?"\r
\r
"It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner.\r
Will you let me in, Fred?"\r
\r
Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off.\r
He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier.\r
His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he\r
came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did\r
every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful\r
games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!\r
\r
But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was\r
early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob\r
Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his\r
heart upon.\r
\r
And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No\r
Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen\r
minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his\r
door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.\r
\r
His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter\r
too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his\r
pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.\r
\r
"Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as\r
near as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming\r
here at this time of day?"\r
\r
"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I am behind my time."\r
\r
"You are?" repeated Scrooge. "Yes. I think you are.\r
Step this way, sir, if you please."\r
\r
"It's only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, appearing from\r
the Tank. "It shall not be repeated. I was making rather\r
merry yesterday, sir."\r
\r
"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge, "I\r
am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And\r
therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving\r
Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into\r
the Tank again; "and therefore I am about to raise your\r
salary!"\r
\r
Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He\r
had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it,\r
holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help\r
and a strait-waistcoat.\r
\r
"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an earnestness\r
that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the\r
back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I\r
have given you, for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and\r
endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss\r
your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of\r
smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another\r
coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!"\r
\r
\r
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and\r
infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was\r
a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a\r
master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or\r
any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old\r
world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him,\r
but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was\r
wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this\r
globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill\r
of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these\r
would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they\r
should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in\r
less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was\r
quite enough for him.\r
\r
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon\r
the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was\r
always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas\r
well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that\r
be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim\r
observed, God bless Us, Every One!\r
\r
\r
\r
\r
\r
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