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  • PREFACE

  • I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little bookto raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not  

  • put my readers out of humour with themselveswith each other, with the season, or with me.  

  • May it haunt their houses pleasantlyand no one wish to lay it.

  • Their faithful Friend and Servant,

  • C. D.

  • December, 1843.

  • STAVE ONE. MARLEY’S GHOST

  • Marley was dead: to begin with. There  is no doubt whatever about that.  

  • The register of his burial was signed by  the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,  

  • and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed itand Scrooge’s name was good uponChange,  

  • for anything he chose to put his hand toOld Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

  • Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my  own knowledge, what there is particularly dead  

  • about a door-nail. I might have been inclinedmyself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest  

  • piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the  wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile;  

  • and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb  it, or the Country’s done for. You will  

  • therefore permit me to repeat, emphaticallythat Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

  • Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he didHow could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were  

  • partners for I don’t know how many years. Scrooge  was his sole executor, his sole administrator,  

  • his sole assign, his sole residuary  legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner.  

  • And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by  the sad event, but that he was an excellent man  

  • of business on the very day of the funeraland solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

  • The mention of Marley’s funeral brings  me back to the point I started from.  

  • There is no doubt that Marley was deadThis must be distinctly understood,  

  • or nothing wonderful can come of the storyam going to relate. If we were not perfectly  

  • convinced that Hamlet’s Father died before the  play began, there would be nothing more remarkable  

  • in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly  wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would  

  • be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly  turning out after dark in a breezy spotsay  

  • Saint Paul’s Churchyard for instanceliterally  to astonish his son’s weak mind.

  • Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s  name. There it stood, years afterwards,  

  • above the warehouse door: Scrooge and MarleyThe firm was known as Scrooge and Marley.  

  • Sometimes people new to the  business called Scrooge Scrooge,  

  • and sometimes Marley, but he answered to  both names. It was all the same to him.

  • Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at  the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing,  

  • wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutchingcovetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint,  

  • from which no steel had ever struck out  generous fire; secret, and self-contained,  

  • and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him  froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose,  

  • shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gaitmade his eyes red, his thin lips blue;  

  • and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A  frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows,  

  • and his wiry chin. He carried his own  low temperature always about with him;  

  • he iced his office in the dog-days; and  didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.

  • External heat and cold had little influence on  Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather  

  • chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than heno falling snow was more intent upon its purpose,  

  • no pelting rain less open to entreatyFoul weather didn’t know where to have  

  • him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hailand sleet, could boast of the advantage over  

  • him in only one respect. They oftencame  downhandsomely, and Scrooge never did.

  • Nobody ever stopped him in the street to  say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Scrooge,  

  • how are you? When will you come to see me?”  No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle,  

  • no children asked him what it was o’clock, no  man or woman ever once in all his life inquired  

  • the way to such and such a place, of ScroogeEven the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him;  

  • and when they saw him coming on, would tug their  owners into doorways and up courts; and then would  

  • wag their tails as though they said, “No eye at  all is better than an evil eye, dark master!”

  • But what did Scrooge care! It  was the very thing he liked.  

  • To edge his way along the crowded paths of lifewarning all human sympathy to keep its distance,  

  • was what the knowing ones callnutsto Scrooge.

  • Once upon a timeof all the good days in  the year, on Christmas Eveold Scrooge  

  • sat busy in his counting-house. It  was cold, bleak, biting weather:  

  • foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the  court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating  

  • their hands upon their breasts, and stamping  their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them.  

  • The city clocks had only just gone threebut it was quite dark alreadyit had not  

  • been light all dayand candles were flaring  in the windows of the neighbouring offices,  

  • like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The  fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole,  

  • and was so dense without, that although  the court was of the narrowest,  

  • the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see  the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring  

  • everything, one might have thought that Nature  lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

  • The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open  that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in  

  • a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was  copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire,  

  • but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller  that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t  

  • replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box  in his own room; and so surely as the clerk  

  • came in with the shovel, the master predicted  that it would be necessary for them to part.  

  • Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforterand tried to warm himself at the candle;  

  • in which effort, not being a man  of a strong imagination, he failed.

  • “A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried  a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s  

  • nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this  was the first intimation he had of his approach.

  • Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!”

  • He had so heated himself with  rapid walking in the fog and frost,  

  • this nephew of Scrooge’s,  that he was all in a glow;  

  • his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes  sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

  • Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s  nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?”

  • “I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry  Christmas! What right have you to be  

  • merry? What reason have you to  be merry? Youre poor enough.”

  • Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily.  

  • What right have you to be dismal? What reason  have you to be morose? Youre rich enough.”

  • Scrooge having no better answer ready  on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!”  

  • again; and followed it up withHumbug.”

  • Don’t be cross, uncle!” said the nephew.

  • What else can I be,” returned the uncle,  “when I live in such a world of fools as this?  

  • Merry Christmas! Out upon merry ChristmasWhat’s Christmas time to you but a time for  

  • paying bills without money; a time  for finding yourself a year older,  

  • but not an hour richer; a time for balancing  your books and having every item inem  

  • through a round dozen of months presented  dead against you? If I could work my will,”  

  • said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes  about withMerry Christmason his lips, should  

  • be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with  a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”

  • Uncle!” pleaded the nephew.

  • Nephew!” returned the uncle sternly,  “keep Christmas in your own way,  

  • and let me keep it in mine.”

  • Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s  nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”

  • Let me leave it alone, then,”  

  • said Scrooge. “Much good may it do  you! Much good it has ever done you!”

  • There are many things from which I might have  derived good, by which I have not profited,  

  • I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among  the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of  

  • Christmas time, when it has come roundapart from  the veneration due to its sacred name and origin,  

  • if anything belonging to it can be apart  from thatas a good time; a kind, forgiving,  

  • charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know  of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and  

  • women seem by one consent to open their shut-up  hearts freely, and to think of people below them  

  • as if they really were fellow-passengers to the  grave, and not another race of creatures bound  

  • on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though  it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in  

  • my pocket, I believe that it has done me goodand will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

  • The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applaudedBecoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,  

  • he poked the fire, and extinguished  the last frail spark for ever.

  • Let me hear another sound from you,” said  Scrooge, “and youll keep your Christmas by  

  • losing your situation! Youre quite a powerful  speaker, sir,” he added, turning to his nephew.  

  • “I wonder you don’t go into Parliament.”

  • Don’t be angry, uncle. ComeDine with us to-morrow.”

  • Scrooge said that he would see himyes, indeed he  did. He went the whole length of the expression,  

  • and said that he would see  him in that extremity first.

  • But why?” cried Scrooge’s nephew. “Why?”

  • Why did you get married?” said Scrooge.

  • Because I fell in love.”

  • Because you fell in love!” growled  Scrooge, as if that were the only one  

  • thing in the world more ridiculous than  a merry Christmas. “Good afternoon!”

  • Nay, uncle, but you never came  to see me before that happened.  

  • Why give it as a reason for not coming now?”

  • Good afternoon,” said Scrooge.

  • “I want nothing from you; I ask nothing  of you; why cannot we be friends?”

  • Good afternoon,” said Scrooge.

  • “I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you  so resolute. We have never had any quarrel,  

  • to which I have been a party. But I have  made the trial in homage to Christmas,  

  • and I’ll keep my Christmas humour to  the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!”

  • Good afternoon!” said Scrooge.

  • And A Happy New Year!”

  • Good afternoon!” said Scrooge.

  • His nephew left the room without  an angry word, notwithstanding.  

  • He stopped at the outer door to bestow  the greetings of the season on the clerk,  

  • who, cold as he was, was warmer than  Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.

  • There’s another fellow,” muttered Scroogewho overheard him: “my clerk, with fifteen  

  • shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking  about a merry Christmas. I’ll retire to Bedlam.”

  • This lunatic, in letting Scrooge’s nephew out,  

  • had let two other people in. They were portly  gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood,  

  • with their hats off, in Scrooge’s office. They had  books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

  • Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe,” said one  of the gentlemen, referring to his list.  

  • Have I the pleasure of addressing  Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?”

  • Mr. Marley has been dead these  seven years,” Scrooge replied.  

  • He died seven years ago, this very night.”

  • We have no doubt his liberality is well  represented by his surviving partner,”  

  • said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

  • It certainly was; for they had been two  kindred spirits. At the ominous word  

  • liberality,” Scrooge frowned, and shook  his head, and handed the credentials back.

  • At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,”  said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is  

  • more than usually desirable that we should make  some slight provision for the Poor and destitute,  

  • who suffer greatly at the present time. Many  thousands are in want of common necessaries;  

  • hundreds of thousands are in  want of common comforts, sir.”

  • Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.

  • Plenty of prisons,” said the  gentleman, laying down the pen again.

  • And the Union workhouses?” demanded  Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”

  • They are. Still,” returned the gentleman,  “I wish I could say they were not.”

  • The Treadmill and the Poor Law are  in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.

  • Both very busy, sir.”

  • Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at  first, that something had occurred to stop  

  • them in their useful course,” said  Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

  • Under the impression that they scarcely furnish  Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,”  

  • returned the gentleman, “a few of us are  endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some  

  • meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose  this time, because it is a time, of all others,  

  • when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance  rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”

  • Nothing!” Scrooge replied.

  • You wish to be anonymous?”

  • “I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge.  “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen,  

  • that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself  at Christmas and I can’t afford to make  

  • idle people merry. I help to support  the establishments I have mentionedthey  

  • cost enough; and those who  are badly off must go there.”

  • Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

  • If they would rather die,” said Scrooge,  

  • they had better do it, and decrease the surplus  population. Besidesexcuse me—I don’t know that.”

  • But you might know it,” observed the gentleman.

  • It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s  enough for a man to understand his own business,  

  • and not to interfere with other people’s.  

  • Mine occupies me constantlyGood afternoon, gentlemen!”

  • Seeing clearly that it would be  useless to pursue their point,  

  • the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his  labours with an improved opinion of himself,  

  • and in a more facetious temper  than was usual with him.

  • Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened sothat people ran about with flaring links,  

  • proffering their services to  go before horses in carriages,  

  • and conduct them on their wayThe ancient tower of a church,  

  • whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down  at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall,  

  • became invisible, and struck the hours and  quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations  

  • afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its  frozen head up there. The cold became intense.  

  • In the main street, at the corner of the courtsome labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and  

  • had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which  a party of ragged men and boys were gathered:  

  • warming their hands and winking their eyes before  the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left  

  • in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealedand turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of  

  • the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled  in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces  

  • ruddy as they passed. Poulterersand grocers’  trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant,  

  • with which it was next to impossible to believe  that such dull principles as bargain and sale  

  • had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the  stronghold of the mighty Mansion House,  

  • gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to  keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor’s household should;  

  • and even the little tailor, whom he had fined  five shillings on the previous Monday for  

  • being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streetsstirred up to-morrow’s pudding in his garret,  

  • while his lean wife and the baby  sallied out to buy the beef.

  • Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searchingbiting cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but  

  • nipped the Evil Spirit’s nose with  a touch of such weather as that,  

  • instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed  he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner  

  • of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by  the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,  

  • stooped down at Scrooge’s keyhole to regale him  with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of 

  • God bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay!”

  • Scrooge seized the ruler  with such energy of action,  

  • that the singer fled in terror, leaving the  keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.

  • At length the hour of shutting  up the counting-house arrived.  

  • With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his  stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the  

  • expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly  snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.

  • Youll want all day to-morrow,  I suppose?” said Scrooge.

  • If quite convenient, sir.”

  • It’s not convenient,” said Scrooge, “and it’s  not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it,  

  • you’d think yourself ill-used, I’ll be bound?”

  • The clerk smiled faintly.

  • And yet,” said Scrooge, “you don’t think me  ill-used, when I pay a day’s wages for no work.”

  • The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

  • “A poor excuse for picking a man’s  pocket every twenty-fifth of December!”  

  • said Scrooge, buttoning  his great-coat to the chin.  

  • But I suppose you must have the whole  day. Be here all the earlier next morning.”

  • The clerk promised that he wouldand Scrooge walked out with a growl.  

  • The office was closed in a twinkling, and the  clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter  

  • dangling below his waist (for he boasted no  great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill,  

  • at the end of a lane of boys, twenty timesin honour of its being Christmas Eve,  

  • and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as  he could pelt, to play at blindman’s-buff.

  • Scrooge took his melancholy dinner  in his usual melancholy tavern;  

  • and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled  the rest of the evening with his banker’s-book,  

  • went home to bed. He lived in chambers which  had once belonged to his deceased partner.  

  • They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering  pile of building up a yard, where it had so little  

  • business to be, that one could scarcely help  fancying it must have run there when it was  

  • a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with  other houses, and forgotten the way out again.  

  • It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for  nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms  

  • being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark  that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was  

  • fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost  so hung about the black old gateway of the house,  

  • that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather  sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.

  • Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at  all particular about the knocker on the door,  

  • except that it was very large. It is also a fact,  

  • that Scrooge had seen it, night and morningduring his whole residence in that place;  

  • also that Scrooge had as little of what is called  fancy about him as any man in the city of London,  

  • even includingwhich is a bold wordthe  corporation, aldermen, and livery.  

  • Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had  not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his  

  • last mention of his seven yearsdead partner that  afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if  

  • he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his  key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker,  

  • without its undergoing any intermediate process  of changenot a knocker, but Marley’s face.

  • Marley’s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow  as the other objects in the yard were, but had a  

  • dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in  a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious,  

  • but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to lookwith ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly  

  • forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by  breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide  

  • open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and  its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror  

  • seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its  control, rather than a part of its own expression.

  • As Scrooge looked fixedly at this  phenomenon, it was a knocker again.

  • To say that he was not startled, or that  his blood was not conscious of a terrible  

  • sensation to which it had been a stranger from  infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand  

  • upon the key he had relinquished, turned it  sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.

  • He did pause, with a moment’s irresolutionbefore he shut the door; and he did look  

  • cautiously behind it first, as if he half  expected to be terrified with the sight of  

  • Marley’s pigtail sticking out into the hall. But  there was nothing on the back of the door, except  

  • the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so  he saidPooh, pooh!” and closed it with a bang.

  • The sound resounded through the house like  thunder. Every room above, and every cask  

  • in the wine-merchant’s cellars below, appeared  to have a separate peal of echoes of its own.  

  • Scrooge was not a man to be frightened  by echoes. He fastened the door,  

  • and walked across the hall, and up the stairsslowly too: trimming his candle as he went.

  • You may talk vaguely about drivingcoach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs,  

  • or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but  I mean to say you might have got a hearse up  

  • that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with  the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door  

  • towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There  was plenty of width for that, and room to spare;  

  • which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought  he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him  

  • in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the  street wouldn’t have lighted the entry too well,  

  • so you may suppose that it was  pretty dark with Scrooge’s dip.

  • Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for  that. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.  

  • But before he shut his heavy door, he walked  through his rooms to see that all was right.  

  • He had just enough recollection  of the face to desire to do that.

  • Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All  as they should be. Nobody under the table,  

  • nobody under the sofa; a small fire  in the grate; spoon and basin ready;  

  • and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge  had a cold in his head) upon the hob.  

  • Nobody under the bed; nobody in the  closet; nobody in his dressing-gown,  

  • which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude  against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old  

  • fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-basketswashing-stand on three legs, and a poker.

  • Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and  locked himself in; double-locked himself in,  

  • which was not his custom. Thus secured against  surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his  

  • dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcapand sat down before the fire to take his gruel.

  • It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on suchbitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it,  

  • and brood over it, before he could extract the  least sensation of warmth from such a handful of  

  • fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some  Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with  

  • quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate  the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels,  

  • Pharaoh’s daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic  messengers descending through the air on clouds  

  • like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles  putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of  

  • figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face  of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient  

  • Prophet’s rod, and swallowed up the whole. If  each smooth tile had been a blank at first,  

  • with power to shape some picture on its surface  from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts,  

  • there would have been a copy of  old Marley’s head on every one.

  • Humbug!” said Scroogeand walked across the room.

  • After several turns, he sat down againAs he threw his head back in the chair,  

  • his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused  bell, that hung in the room, and communicated  

  • for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber  in the highest story of the building. It was  

  • with great astonishment, and with a strangeinexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw  

  • this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly  in the outset that it scarcely made a sound;  

  • but soon it rang out loudly, and  so did every bell in the house.

  • This might have lasted half a minute, or  a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells  

  • ceased as they had begun, together. They were  succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below;  

  • as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over  the casks in the wine-merchant’s cellar. Scrooge  

  • then remembered to have heard that ghosts in  haunted houses were described as dragging chains.

  • The cellar-door flew open with a booming  sound, and then he heard the noise much  

  • louder, on the floors below; then coming up the  stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

  • It’s humbug still!” said  Scrooge. “I won’t believe it.”

  • His colour changed though, when, withoutpause, it came on through the heavy door,  

  • and passed into the room before his eyesUpon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up,  

  • as though it cried, “I know himMarley’s Ghost!” and fell again.

  • The same face: the very same. Marley in his  pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots;  

  • the tassels on the latter bristling, like his  pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon  

  • his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his  middle. It was long, and wound about him like a  

  • tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed  it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks,  

  • ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in  steel. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge,  

  • observing him, and looking through his waistcoatcould see the two buttons on his coat behind.

  • Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had  no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.

  • No, nor did he believe it even now. Though  he looked the phantom through and through,  

  • and saw it standing before him; though he felt  the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes;  

  • and marked the very texture of the folded  kerchief bound about its head and chin,  

  • which wrapper he had not observed before; he was  still incredulous, and fought against his senses.

  • How now!” said Scrooge, caustic and  cold as ever. “What do you want with me?”

  • Much!”—Marley’s voice, no doubt about it.

  • Who are you?”

  • Ask me who I was.”

  • Who were you then?” said Scrooge, raising  his voice. “Youre particular, for a shade.”  

  • He was going to sayto a shade,” but  substituted this, as more appropriate.

  • In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.”

  • Can youcan you sit down?” asked  Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.

  • “I can.”

  • Do it, then.”

  • Scrooge asked the question, because he didn’t  know whether a ghost so transparent might find  

  • himself in a condition to take a chair; and  felt that in the event of its being impossible,  

  • it might involve the necessity  of an embarrassing explanation.  

  • But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of  the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.

  • You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.

  • “I don’t,” said Scrooge.

  • What evidence would you have of my  reality beyond that of your senses?”

  • “I don’t know,” said Scrooge.

  • Why do you doubt your senses?”

  • Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects  them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes  

  • them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of  beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese,  

  • a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of  gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

  • Scrooge was not much in the  habit of cracking jokes,  

  • nor did he feel, in his heartby any means waggish then.  

  • The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as  a means of distracting his own attention,  

  • and keeping down his terror; for the spectre’s  voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

  • To sit, staring at those fixed glazed  eyes, in silence for a moment, would play,  

  • Scrooge felt, the very deuce with himThere was something very awful, too,  

  • in the spectre’s being provided with an infernal  atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it  

  • himself, but this was clearly the case; for  though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless,  

  • its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were still  agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.

  • You see this toothpick?”  

  • said Scrooge, returning quickly to the  charge, for the reason just assigned;  

  • and wishing, though it were only for a secondto divert the vision’s stony gaze from himself.

  • “I do,” replied the Ghost.

  • You are not looking at it,” said Scrooge.

  • But I see it,” said the Ghost, “notwithstanding.”

  • Well!” returned Scrooge, “I have but to  swallow this, and be for the rest of my  

  • days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of  my own creation. Humbug, I tell you! humbug!”

  • At this the spirit raised a frightful cryand shook its chain with such a dismal and  

  • appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his  chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon.  

  • But how much greater was his horror, when the  phantom taking off the bandage round its head,  

  • as if it were too warm to wear indoorsits lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!

  • Scrooge fell upon his knees, and  clasped his hands before his face.

  • Mercy!” he said. “Dreadful  apparition, why do you trouble me?”

  • Man of the worldly mind!” replied the  Ghost, “do you believe in me or not?”

  • “I do,” said Scrooge. “I must. But why do spirits  walk the earth, and why do they come to me?”

  • It is required of every man,” the Ghost returned,  “that the spirit within him should walk abroad  

  • among his fellowmen, and travel far and wideand if that spirit goes not forth in life,  

  • it is condemned to do so after death. It is  doomed to wander through the worldoh, woe is  

  • me!—and witness what it cannot share, but might  have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!”

  • Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook  its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

  • You are fettered,” said Scroogetrembling. “Tell me why?”

  • “I wear the chain I forged  in life,” replied the Ghost.  

  • “I made it link by link, and yard  by yard; I girded it on of my own  

  • free will, and of my own free willwore it. Is its pattern strange to you?”

  • Scrooge trembled more and more.

  • Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost,  “the weight and length of the strong coil  

  • you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and  as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago.  

  • You have laboured on it, sinceIt is a ponderous chain!”

  • Scrooge glanced about him on the floorin the expectation of finding himself  

  • surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms  of iron cable: but he could see nothing.

  • Jacob,” he said, imploringly. “Old Jacob Marleytell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!”

  • “I have none to give,” the Ghost replied. “It  comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge,  

  • and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds  of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very  

  • little more is all permitted to me. I cannot rest,  I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit  

  • never walked beyond our counting-housemark  me!—in life my spirit never roved beyond  

  • the narrow limits of our money-changing  hole; and weary journeys lie before me!”

  • It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became  thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches  

  • pockets. Pondering on what the  Ghost had said, he did so now,  

  • but without lifting up his  eyes, or getting off his knees.

  • You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,”  

  • Scrooge observed, in a business-like  manner, though with humility and deference.

  • Slow!” the Ghost repeated.

  • Seven years dead,” mused Scrooge.  “And travelling all the time!”

  • The whole time,” said the Ghost. “No restno peace. Incessant torture of remorse.”

  • You travel fast?” said Scrooge.

  • On the wings of the wind,” replied the Ghost.

  • You might have got over a great quantity  of ground in seven years,” said Scrooge.

  • The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cryand clanked its chain so hideously in the dead  

  • silence of the night, that the Ward would have  been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.

  • Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,”  cried the phantom, “not to know,  

  • that ages of incessant labour by  immortal creatures, for this earth must  

  • pass into eternity before the good of which it  is susceptible is all developed. Not to know  

  • that any Christian spirit working kindly  in its little sphere, whatever it may be,  

  • will find its mortal life too short for its vast  means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of  

  • regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity  misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!”

  • But you were always a good  man of business, Jacob,”  

  • faltered Scrooge, who now  began to apply this to himself.

  • Business!” cried the Ghostwringing its hands again.  

  • Mankind was my business. The  common welfare was my business;  

  • charity, mercy, forbearance, and  benevolence, were, all, my business.  

  • The dealings of my trade were but a drop of  water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

  • It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if  that were the cause of all its unavailing grief,  

  • and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

  • At this time of the rolling year,”  the spectre said, “I suffer most.  

  • Why did I walk through crowds of  fellow-beings with my eyes turned down,  

  • and never raise them to that blessed Star  which led the Wise Men to a poor abode!  

  • Were there no poor homes to which  its light would have conducted me!”

  • Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear  the spectre going on at this rate,  

  • and began to quake exceedingly.

  • Hear me!” cried the Ghost.  “My time is nearly gone.”

  • “I will,” said Scrooge. “But don’t be hard  upon me! Don’t be flowery, Jacob! Pray!”

  • How it is that I appear before you inshape that you can see, I may not tell.  

  • I have sat invisible beside  you many and many a day.”

  • It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shiveredand wiped the perspiration from his brow.

  • That is no light part of my penance,” pursued the  Ghost. “I am here to-night to warn you, that you  

  • have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.  A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.”

  • You were always a good friend  to me,” said Scrooge. “Thankee!”

  • You will be haunted,” resumed  the Ghost, “by Three Spirits.”

  • Scrooge’s countenance fell almost  as low as the Ghost’s had done.

  • Is that the chance and hope you mentionedJacob?” he demanded, in a faltering voice.

  • It is.”

  • “I—I think I’d rather not,” said Scrooge.

  • Without their visits,” said the Ghost,  

  • you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect  the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls One.”

  • Couldn’t I takeem all at once, and  have it over, Jacob?” hinted Scrooge.

  • Expect the second on the next night at  the same hour. The third upon the next  

  • night when the last stroke of Twelve has  ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more;  

  • and look that, for your own sake, you  remember what has passed between us!”

  • When it had said these words, the spectre took  its wrapper from the table, and bound it round  

  • its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by the  smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were  

  • brought together by the bandage. He ventured to  raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural  

  • visitor confronting him in an erect attitudewith its chain wound over and about its arm.

  • The apparition walked backward from  him; and at every step it took,  

  • the window raised itself a little, so that  when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.

  • It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he didWhen they were within two paces of each other,  

  • Marley’s Ghost held up its hand, warning  him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.

  • Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear:  

  • for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible  of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds  

  • of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly  sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after  

  • listening for a moment, joined in the mournful  dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.

  • Scrooge followed to the window: desperate  in his curiosity. He looked out.

  • The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither  and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they  

  • went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s  Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments)  

  • were linked together; none were free. Many had  been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.  

  • He had been quite familiar with one old ghostin a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe  

  • attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at  being unable to assist a wretched woman with an  

  • infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-stepThe misery with them all was, clearly,  

  • that they sought to interfere, for good, in  human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

  • Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist  enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they  

  • and their spirit voices faded together; and the  night became as it had been when he walked home.

  • Scrooge closed the window, and examined  the door by which the Ghost had entered.  

  • It was double-locked, as he had  locked it with his own hands,  

  • and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say  “Humbug!” but stopped at the first syllable.  

  • And being, from the emotion he had undergoneor the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of  

  • the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of  the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in  

  • need of repose; went straight to bed, without  undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

  • STAVE TWO. THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS

  • When Scrooge awoke, it was so  dark, that looking out of bed,  

  • he could scarcely distinguish the transparent  window from the opaque walls of his chamber.  

  • He was endeavouring to pierce the  darkness with his ferret eyes,  

  • when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck  the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.

  • To his great astonishment the heavy bell went  on from six to seven, and from seven to eight,  

  • and regularly up to twelve; then stoppedTwelve! It was past two when he went to bed.  

  • The clock was wrong. An icicle must  have got into the works. Twelve!

  • He touched the spring of his repeaterto correct this most preposterous clock.  

  • Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.

  • Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “thatcan have slept through a whole day and far into  

  • another night. It isn’t possible that anything has  happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!”

  • The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled  out of bed, and groped his way to the window.  

  • He was obliged to rub the frost off  with the sleeve of his dressing-gown  

  • before he could see anything; and could see very  little then. All he could make out was, that it  

  • was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that  there was no noise of people running to and fro,  

  • and making a great stir, as there unquestionably  would have been if night had beaten off bright  

  • day, and taken possession of the world. This  was a great relief, becausethree days after  

  • sight of this First of Exchange pay to MrEbenezer Scrooge or his order,” and so forth,  

  • would have become a mere United States’  security if there were no days to count by.

  • Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and  thought, and thought it over and over and over,  

  • and could make nothing of it. The more  he thought, the more perplexed he was;  

  • and the more he endeavoured not  to think, the more he thought.

  • Marley’s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every  time he resolved within himself, after mature  

  • inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew  back again, like a strong spring released, to  

  • its first position, and presented the same problem  to be worked all through, “Was it a dream or not?”

  • Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had  gone three quarters more, when he remembered,  

  • on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him  of a visitation when the bell tolled one.  

  • He resolved to lie awake until the hour was  passed; and, considering that he could no  

  • more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was  perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

  • The quarter was so long, that he was more  than once convinced he must have sunk into  

  • a doze unconsciously, and missed the clockAt length it broke upon his listening ear.

  • Ding, dong!”

  • “A quarter past,” said Scrooge, counting.

  • Ding, dong!”

  • Half-past!” said Scrooge.

  • Ding, dong!”

  • “A quarter to it,” said Scrooge.

  • Ding, dong!”

  • The hour itself,” said Scroogetriumphantly, “and nothing else!”

  • He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it  now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy  

  • One. Light flashed up in the room upon the  instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.

  • The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell  you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet,  

  • nor the curtains at his back, but those to  which his face was addressed. The curtains  

  • of his bed were drawn aside; and Scroogestarting up into a half-recumbent attitude,  

  • found himself face to face with the  unearthly visitor who drew them:  

  • as close to it as I am now to you, andam standing in the spirit at your elbow.

  • It was a strange figurelike a child: yet not so  like a child as like an old man, viewed through  

  • some supernatural medium, which gave him the  appearance of having receded from the view,  

  • and being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its  hair, which hung about its neck and down its back,  

  • was white as if with age; and yet  the face had not a wrinkle in it,  

  • and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms  were very long and muscular; the hands the same,  

  • as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its  legs and feet, most delicately formed, were,  

  • like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of  the purest white; and round its waist was bound a  

  • lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautifulIt held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand;  

  • and, in singular contradiction of that wintry  emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers.  

  • But the strangest thing about it was, that from  the crown of its head there sprung a bright  

  • clear jet of light, by which all this was visibleand which was doubtless the occasion of its using,  

  • in its duller moments, a great extinguisher  for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

  • Even this, though, when Scrooge looked  at it with increasing steadiness,  

  • was not its strangest quality. For  as its belt sparkled and glittered  

  • now in one part and now in another, and what was  light one instant, at another time was dark, so  

  • the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctnessbeing now a thing with one arm, now with one leg,  

  • now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs  without a head, now a head without a body:  

  • of which dissolving parts, no outline would be  visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted  

  • away. And in the very wonder of this, it would  be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.

  • Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming  was foretold to me?” asked Scrooge.

  • “I am!”

  • The voice was soft and gentle.  

  • Singularly low, as if instead of being so  close beside him, it were at a distance.

  • Who, and what are you?” Scrooge demanded.

  • “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

  • Long Past?” inquired Scroogeobservant of its dwarfish stature.

  • No. Your past.”

  • Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody  why, if anybody could have asked him;  

  • but he had a special desire to see the Spirit  in his cap; and begged him to be covered.

  • What!” exclaimed the Ghost, “would you  so soon put out, with worldly hands,  

  • the light I give? Is it not enough that you  are one of those whose passions made this  

  • cap, and force me through whole trains  of years to wear it low upon my brow!”

  • Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention  

  • to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully  “bonnetedthe Spirit at any period of his life.  

  • He then made bold to inquire  what business brought him there.

  • Your welfare!” said the Ghost.

  • Scrooge expressed himself much obliged,  

  • but could not help thinking that a night of  unbroken rest would have been more conducive  

  • to that end. The Spirit must have heard  him thinking, for it said immediately:

  • Your reclamation, then. Take heed!”

  • It put out its strong hand as it spokeand clasped him gently by the arm.

  • Rise! and walk with me!”

  • It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead  that the weather and the hour were not adapted to  

  • pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and  the thermometer a long way below freezing;  

  • that he was clad but lightly in his slippersdressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had  

  • a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though  gentle as a woman’s hand, was not to be resisted.  

  • He rose: but finding that the Spirit made towards  the window, clasped his robe in supplication.

  • “I am a mortal,” Scrooge  remonstrated, “and liable to fall.”

  • Bear but a touch of my hand there,” said  the Spirit, laying it upon his heart,  

  • and you shall be upheld in more than this!”

  • As the words were spoken, they passed through  the wall, and stood upon an open country road,  

  • with fields on either handThe city had entirely vanished.  

  • Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The  darkness and the mist had vanished with it,  

  • for it was a clear, cold, winter  day, with snow upon the ground.

  • Good Heaven!” said Scrooge, clasping his  hands together, as he looked about him.  

  • “I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!”

  • The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle  touch, though it had been light and instantaneous,  

  • appeared still present to the  old man’s sense of feeling.  

  • He was conscious of a thousand  odours floating in the air,  

  • each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and  hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten!

  • Your lip is trembling,” said the Ghost.  “And what is that upon your cheek?”

  • Scrooge muttered, with an  unusual catching in his voice,  

  • that it was a pimple; and begged the  Ghost to lead him where he would.

  • You recollect the way?” inquired the Spirit.

  • Remember it!” cried Scrooge with  fervour; “I could walk it blindfold.”

  • Strange to have forgotten it for so many  years!” observed the Ghost. “Let us go on.”

  • They walked along the road, Scrooge  recognising every gate, and post, and tree;  

  • until a little market-town appeared  in the distance, with its bridge,  

  • its church, and winding river. Some shaggy  ponies now were seen trotting towards them  

  • with boys upon their backs, who called  to other boys in country gigs and carts,  

  • driven by farmers. All these boys were in  great spirits, and shouted to each other,  

  • until the broad fields were so full of merry  music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it!

  • These are but shadows of  the things that have been,”  

  • said the Ghost. “They have  no consciousness of us.”

  • The jocund travellers came on; and as they  came, Scrooge knew and named them every one.  

  • Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see  them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and his  

  • heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled  with gladness when he heard them give each other  

  • Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads  and bye-ways, for their several homes! What  

  • was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry  Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?

  • The school is not quite  deserted,” said the Ghost.  

  • “A solitary child, neglected by  his friends, is left there still.”

  • Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

  • They left the high-road, by a well-remembered  lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red  

  • brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted  cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in  

  • it. It was a large house, but one of broken  fortunes; for the spacious offices were little  

  • used, their walls were damp and mossy, their  windows broken, and their gates decayed.  

  • Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the  coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass.  

  • Nor was it more retentive of its ancient  state, within; for entering the dreary hall,  

  • and glancing through the open doors of many  rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold,  

  • and vast. There was an earthy savour in the  air, a chilly bareness in the place, which  

  • associated itself somehow with too much getting  up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.

  • They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the  hall, to a door at the back of the house.  

  • It opened before them, and disclosed a longbare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines  

  • of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these  a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire;  

  • and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to  see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.

  • Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak  and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling,  

  • not a drip from the half-thawed  water-spout in the dull yard behind,  

  • not a sigh among the leafless  boughs of one despondent poplar,  

  • not the idle swinging of an empty store-house  door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but  

  • fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening  influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

  • The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed  to his younger self, intent upon his reading.  

  • Suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully  real and distinct to look at: stood outside the  

  • window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and  leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.

  • Why, it’s Ali Baba!” Scrooge exclaimed in  ecstasy. “It’s dear old honest Ali Baba!  

  • Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, when  yonder solitary child was left here all alone,  

  • he did come, for the first time, just like  that. Poor boy! And Valentine,” said Scrooge,  

  • and his wild brother, Orson; there they go! And  what’s his name, who was put down in his drawers,  

  • asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don’t  you see him! And the Sultan’s Groom  

  • turned upside down by the Genii; there  he is upon his head! Serve him right.  

  • I’m glad of it. What business had  he to be married to the Princess!”

  • To hear Scrooge expending all the  earnestness of his nature on such subjects,  

  • in a most extraordinary voice between laughing  and crying; and to see his heightened and  

  • excited face; would have been a surprise to  his business friends in the city, indeed.

  • There’s the Parrot!” cried Scrooge. “Green  body and yellow tail, with a thing like a  

  • lettuce growing out of the top of his headthere he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him,  

  • when he came home again after sailing round the  island. ‘Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been,  

  • Robin Crusoe?’ The man thought he was dreamingbut he wasn’t. It was the Parrot, you know.  

  • There goes Friday, running for his life to  the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!”

  • Then, with a rapidity of transition  very foreign to his usual character,  

  • he said, in pity for his former  self, “Poor boy!” and cried again.

  • “I wish,” Scrooge mutteredputting his hand in his pocket,  

  • and looking about him, after drying his  eyes with his cuff: “but it’s too late now.”

  • What is the matter?” asked the Spirit.

  • Nothing,” said Scrooge. “Nothing. There was a boy  singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night.  

  • I should like to have given  him something: that’s all.”

  • The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and  waved its hand: saying as it did so,  

  • Let us see another Christmas!”

  • Scrooge’s former self grew larger at the wordsand the room became a little darker and more  

  • dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows crackedfragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling,  

  • and the naked laths were shown instead; but  how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew  

  • no more than you do. He only knew that it was  quite correct; that everything had happened so;  

  • that there he was, alone again, when all the  other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

  • He was not reading now, but walking up and  down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost,  

  • and with a mournful shaking of his headglanced anxiously towards the door.

  • It opened; and a little girl, much younger  than the boy, came darting in, and putting her  

  • arms about his neck, and often kissing himaddressed him as herDear, dear brother.”

  • “I have come to bring you homedear brother!” said the child,  

  • clapping her tiny hands, and bending down  to laugh. “To bring you home, home, home!”

  • Home, little Fan?” returned the boy.

  • Yes!” said the child, brimful of glee. “Homefor good and all. Home, for ever and ever.  

  • Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that  home’s like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one  

  • dear night when I was going to bed, that I was  not afraid to ask him once more if you might come  

  • home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me  in a coach to bring you. And youre to be a man!”  

  • said the child, opening her eyes, “and  are never to come back here; but first,  

  • were to be together all the Christmas longand have the merriest time in all the world.”

  • You are quite a woman, little  Fan!” exclaimed the boy.

  • She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried  to touch his head; but being too little,  

  • laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to  embrace him. Then she began to drag him,  

  • in her childish eagerness, towards the doorand he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.

  • A terrible voice in the hall cried, “Bring down  Master Scrooge’s box, there!” and in the hall  

  • appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on  Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension,  

  • and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by  shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him  

  • and his sister into the veriest old well of  a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen,  

  • where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial  and terrestrial globes in the windows,  

  • were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter  of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously  

  • heavy cake, and administered instalments of those  dainties to the young people: at the same time,  

  • sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of  “somethingto the postboy, who answered that he  

  • thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same  tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not.  

  • Master Scrooge’s trunk being by this time tied on  to the top of the chaise, the children bade the  

  • schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; and getting  into it, drove gaily down the garden-sweep: the  

  • quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from  off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.

  • Always a delicate creature, whom  a breath might have withered,”  

  • said the Ghost. “But she had a large heart!”

  • So she had,” cried Scrooge. “Youre right.  I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!”

  • She died a woman,” said the Ghost,  “and had, as I think, children.”

  • One child,” Scrooge returned.

  • True,” said the Ghost. “Your nephew!”

  • Scrooge seemed uneasy in his  mind; and answered briefly, “Yes.”

  • Although they had but that moment  left the school behind them,  

  • they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a citywhere shadowy passengers passed and repassed;  

  • where shadowy carts and coaches battled  for the way, and all the strife and tumult  

  • of a real city were. It was made plain  enough, by the dressing of the shops,  

  • that here too it was Christmas time again; but  it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.

  • The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse  door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.

  • Know it!” said Scrooge. “Was I apprenticed here!”

  • They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in  a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk,  

  • that if he had been two inches taller he must  have knocked his head against the ceiling,  

  • Scrooge cried in great excitement:

  • Why, it’s old Fezziwig! Bless his  heart; it’s Fezziwig alive again!”

  • Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at  the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven.  

  • He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious  waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his  

  • shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out  in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

  • Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!”

  • Scrooge’s former self, now grown a young man, came  briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-’prentice.

  • Dick Wilkins, to be sure!”  said Scrooge to the Ghost.  

  • Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much  attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!”

  • Yo ho, my boys!” said Fezziwig. “No  more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick.  

  • Christmas, Ebenezer! Let’s have the shutters up,”  

  • cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his  hands, “before a man can say Jack Robinson!”

  • You wouldn’t believe how those two fellows  went at it! They charged into the street  

  • with the shuttersone, two, threehadem  up in their placesfour, five, sixbarred  

  • em and pinnedemseven, eight, nineand  came back before you could have got to twelve,  

  • panting like race-horses.

  • Hilli-ho!” cried old Fezziwig, skipping down  from the high desk, with wonderful agility.  

  • Clear away, my lads, and let’s have lots of  room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!”

  • Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have  cleared away, or couldn’t have cleared away,  

  • with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done  in a minute. Every movable was packed off,  

  • as if it were dismissed from public life for  evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the  

  • lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fireand the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry,  

  • and bright a ball-room, as you would  desire to see upon a winter’s night.

  • In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up  to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it,  

  • and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came MrsFezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the  

  • three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came  the six young followers whose hearts they broke.  

  • In came all the young men and women employed  in the business. In came the housemaid,  

  • with her cousin, the baker. In came the cookwith her brother’s particular friend, the milkman.  

  • In came the boy from over the way, who was  suspected of not having board enough from  

  • his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl  from next door but one, who was proved to have had  

  • her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all cameone after another; some shyly, some boldly, some  

  • gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some  pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow.  

  • Away they all went, twenty couple at oncehands half round and back again the other way;  

  • down the middle and up again; round and round  in various stages of affectionate grouping;  

  • old top couple always turning up in the wrong  place; new top couple starting off again,  

  • as soon as they got there; all top couples  at last, and not a bottom one to help them!  

  • When this result was brought about, old  Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance,  

  • cried out, “Well done!” and the fiddler plunged  his hot face into a pot of porter, especially  

  • provided for that purpose. But scorning restupon his reappearance, he instantly began again,  

  • though there were no dancers yet, as if  the other fiddler had been carried home,  

  • exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new  man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

  • There were more dances, and there  were forfeits, and more dances,  

  • and there was cake, and there was negusand there was a great piece of Cold Roast,  

  • and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and  there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the  

  • great effect of the evening came after the Roast  and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind!  

  • The sort of man who knew his business better than  you or I could have told it him!) struck upSir  

  • Roger de Coverley.” Then old Fezziwig stood  out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple,  

  • too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for  them; three or four and twenty pair of partners;  

  • people who were not to be trifled with; people  who would dance, and had no notion of walking.

  • But if they had been twice as manyah, four  timesold Fezziwig would have been a match  

  • for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to hershe was worthy to be his partner in every sense  

  • of the term. If that’s not high praise, tell me  higher, and I’ll use it. A positive light appeared  

  • to issue from Fezziwig’s calves. They shone in  every part of the dance like moons. You couldn’t  

  • have predicted, at any given time, what would  have become of them next. And when old Fezziwig  

  • and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the danceadvance and retire, both hands to your partner,  

  • bow and curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and  back again to your place; Fezziwigcut”—cut so  

  • deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legsand came upon his feet again without a stagger.

  • When the clock struck eleven, this domestic  ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took  

  • their stations, one on either side of the  door, and shaking hands with every person  

  • individually as he or she went outwished him or her a Merry Christmas.  

  • When everybody had retired but the twoprenticesthey did the same to them; and thus the cheerful  

  • voices died away, and the lads were left to their  beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop.

  • During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted  like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul  

  • were in the scene, and with his former self. He  corroborated everything, remembered everything,  

  • enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest  agitation. It was not until now, when the bright  

  • faces of his former self and Dick were turned from  them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became  

  • conscious that it was looking full upon himwhile the light upon its head burnt very clear.

  • “A small matter,” said the Ghost, “to make  these silly folks so full of gratitude.”

  • Small!” echoed Scrooge.

  • The Spirit signed to him to  listen to the two apprentices,  

  • who were pouring out their hearts in praise  of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,

  • Why! Is it not? He has spent but  a few pounds of your mortal money:  

  • three or four perhaps. Is that so  much that he deserves this praise?”

  • It isn’t that,” said Scrooge, heated by  the remark, and speaking unconsciously like  

  • his former, not his latter, self. “It isn’t  that, Spirit. He has the power to render us  

  • happy or unhappy; to make our service light or  burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his  

  • power lies in words and looks; in things so slight  and insignificant that it is impossible to add and  

  • countem up: what then? The happiness he givesis quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

  • He felt the Spirit’s glance, and stopped.

  • What is the matter?” asked the Ghost.

  • Nothing particular,” said Scrooge.

  • Something, I think?” the Ghost insisted.

  • No,” said Scrooge, “No.  

  • I should like to be able to say a word  or two to my clerk just now. That’s all.”

  • His former self turned down the lamps  as he gave utterance to the wish;  

  • and Scrooge and the Ghost again  stood side by side in the open air.

  • My time grows short,”  observed the Spirit. “Quick!”

  • This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one  whom he could see, but it produced an immediate  

  • effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He  was older now; a man in the prime of life.  

  • His face had not the harsh and rigid lines  of later years; but it had begun to wear  

  • the signs of care and avarice. There was an  eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye,  

  • which showed the passion that had taken root, and  where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.

  • He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair  young girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes  

  • there were tears, which sparkled in the light  that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.

  • It matters little,” she said, softly. “To youvery little. Another idol has displaced me;  

  • and if it can cheer and comfort you in  time to come, as I would have tried to do,  

  • I have no just cause to grieve.”

  • What Idol has displaced you?” he rejoined.

  • “A golden one.”

  • This is the even-handed  dealing of the world!” he said.  

  • There is nothing on which  it is so hard as poverty;  

  • and there is nothing it professes to condemn  with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!”

  • You fear the world too much,” she answeredgently. “All your other hopes have merged  

  • into the hope of being beyond the chance  of its sordid reproach. I have seen your  

  • nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the  master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?”

  • What then?” he retorted. “Even  if I have grown so much wiser,  

  • what then? I am not changed towards you.”

  • She shook her head.

  • Am I?”

  • Our contract is an old one. It was made when  we were both poor and content to be so, until,  

  • in good season, we could improve  our worldly fortune by our patient  

  • industry. You are changed. When it  was made, you were another man.”

  • “I was a boy,” he said impatiently.

  • Your own feeling tells you that you were  not what you are,” she returned. “I am.  

  • That which promised happiness when we were one in  heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two.  

  • How often and how keenly I have thought of this,  

  • I will not say. It is enough that I have  thought of it, and can release you.”

  • Have I ever sought release?”

  • In words. No. Never.”

  • In what, then?”

  • In a changed nature; in an altered  spirit; in another atmosphere of life;  

  • another Hope as its great end. In everything that  made my love of any worth or value in your sight.  

  • If this had never been between us,” said the girllooking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him;  

  • tell me, would you seek me out  and try to win me now? Ah, no!”

  • He seemed to yield to the  justice of this supposition,  

  • in spite of himself. But he said  with a struggle, “You think not.”

  • “I would gladly think otherwise ifcould,” she answered, “Heaven knows!  

  • When I have learned a Truth like this, I  know how strong and irresistible it must be.  

  • But if you were free to-day, to-morrowyesterday, can even I believe that you would  

  • choose a dowerless girlyou who, in your very  confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain:  

  • or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false  enough to your one guiding principle to do so,  

  • do I not know that your repentance and  regret would surely follow? I do; and  

  • I release you. With a full heartfor the love of him you once were.”

  • He was about to speak; but with her  head turned from him, she resumed.

  • You maythe memory of what is past half makes  me hope you willhave pain in this. A very,  

  • very brief time, and you will dismiss the  recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable  

  • dream, from which it happened well that you awokeMay you be happy in the life you have chosen!”

  • She left him, and they parted.

  • Spirit!” said Scrooge, “show me no more! Conduct  me home. Why do you delight to torture me?”

  • One shadow more!” exclaimed the Ghost.

  • No more!” cried Scrooge. “No more. I  don’t wish to see it. Show me no more!”

  • But the relentless Ghost  pinioned him in both his arms,  

  • and forced him to observe what happened next.

  • They were in another scene and place;  a room, not very large or handsome, but  

  • full of comfort. Near to the winter  fire sat a beautiful young girl,  

  • so like that last that Scrooge believed it was  the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron,  

  • sitting opposite her daughter. The noise  in this room was perfectly tumultuous,  

  • for there were more children there, than Scrooge  in his agitated state of mind could count; and,  

  • unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were  not forty children conducting themselves like one,  

  • but every child was conducting itself like fortyThe consequences were uproarious beyond belief;  

  • but no one seemed to care; on the contrarythe mother and daughter laughed heartily,  

  • and enjoyed it very much; and the lattersoon beginning to mingle in the sports,  

  • got pillaged by the young  brigands most ruthlessly.  

  • What would I not have given to be one of themThough I never could have been so rude, no, no!  

  • I wouldn’t for the wealth of all the world have  crushed that braided hair, and torn it down;  

  • and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn’t have  plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my  

  • life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they  did, bold young brood, I couldn’t have done it; I  

  • should have expected my arm to have grown round it  for a punishment, and never come straight again.  

  • And yet I should have dearly liked,  I own, to have touched her lips;  

  • to have questioned her, that she might have  opened them; to have looked upon the lashes  

  • of her downcast eyes, and never raisedblush; to have let loose waves of hair,  

  • an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond pricein short, I should have liked, I do confess,  

  • to have had the lightest licence of a child, and  yet to have been man enough to know its value.

  • But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such  a rush immediately ensued that she with laughing  

  • face and plundered dress was borne towards it the  centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in  

  • time to greet the father, who came home attended  by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents.  

  • Then the shouting and the strugglingand the onslaught that was made on  

  • the defenceless porter! The scaling him with  chairs for ladders to dive into his pockets,  

  • despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on  tight by his cravat, hug him round his neck,  

  • pommel his back, and kick his legs in  irrepressible affection! The shouts of wonder  

  • and delight with which the development of every  package was received! The terrible announcement  

  • that the baby had been taken in the act of putting  a doll’s frying-pan into his mouth, and was more  

  • than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious  turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The immense  

  • relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and  gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable  

  • alike. It is enough that by degrees the children  and their emotions got out of the parlour,  

  • and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the  house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.

  • And now Scrooge looked on more attentively  than ever, when the master of the house,  

  • having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat  down with her and her mother at his own fireside;  

  • and when he thought that such another creaturequite as graceful and as full of promise,  

  • might have called him father, and beenspring-time in the haggard winter of his life,  

  • his sight grew very dim indeed.

  • Belle,” said the husbandturning to his wife with a smile,  

  • “I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.”

  • Who was it?”

  • Guess!”

  • How can I? Tut, don’t I know?”  

  • she added in the same breathlaughing as he laughed. “Mr. Scrooge.”

  • Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office windowand as it was not shut up, and he had a candle  

  • inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His  partner lies upon the point of death, I hear;  

  • and there he sat alone. Quite  alone in the world, I do believe.”

  • Spirit!” said Scrooge in a broken  voice, “remove me from this place.”

  • “I told you these were shadows  of the things that have been,”  

  • said the Ghost. “That they are  what they are, do not blame me!”

  • Remove me!” Scrooge  exclaimed, “I cannot bear it!”

  • He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that  it looked upon him with a face, in which in  

  • some strange way there were fragments of all  the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

  • Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!”

  • In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle  in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on  

  • its own part was undisturbed by any effort  of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its  

  • light was burning high and bright; and dimly  connecting that with its influence over him,  

  • he seized the extinguisher-cap, and bysudden action pressed it down upon its head.

  • The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that  the extinguisher covered its whole form;  

  • but though Scrooge pressed  it down with all his force,  

  • he could not hide the light: which streamed from  under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

  • He was conscious of being exhausted, and  overcome by an irresistible drowsiness;  

  • and, further, of being in his own bedroomHe gave the cap a parting squeeze,  

  • in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to  reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.

  • STAVE THREE.

  • THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS

  • Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough  snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts  

  • together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that  the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt  

  • that he was restored to consciousness in the right  nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding  

  • a conference with the second messenger despatched  to him through Jacob Marley’s intervention.  

  • But finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when  he began to wonder which of his curtains this new  

  • spectre would draw back, he put them every one  aside with his own hands; and lying down again,  

  • established a sharp look-out all round the  bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit  

  • on the moment of its appearance, and did not  wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous.

  • Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume  themselves on being acquainted with a move or two,  

  • and being usually equal to the time-of-dayexpress the wide range of their capacity for  

  • adventure by observing that they are good for  anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter;  

  • between which opposite extremes, no doubtthere lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive  

  • range of subjects. Without venturing  for Scrooge quite as hardily as this,  

  • I don’t mind calling on you to believe that  he was ready for a good broad field of strange  

  • appearances, and that nothing between a baby and  rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

  • Now, being prepared for almost anything, he  was not by any means prepared for nothing;  

  • and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and  no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent  

  • fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a  quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came.  

  • All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very  core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light,  

  • which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed  the hour; and which, being only light, was more  

  • alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless  to make out what it meant, or would be at;  

  • and was sometimes apprehensive that  he might be at that very moment  

  • an interesting case of spontaneous combustionwithout having the consolation of knowing it.  

  • At last, however, he began to thinkas you orwould have thought at first; for it is always the  

  • person not in the predicament who knows what ought  to have been done in it, and would unquestionably  

  • have done it tooat last, I say, he began to think  that the source and secret of this ghostly light  

  • might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on  further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea  

  • taking full possession of his mind, he got up  softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door.

  • The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock,  

  • a strange voice called him by his  name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.

  • It was his own room. There was no doubt  about that. But it had undergone a surprising  

  • transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung  with living green, that it looked a perfect grove;  

  • from every part of which, bright gleaming berries  glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe,  

  • and ivy reflected back the light, as if so  many little mirrors had been scattered there;  

  • and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the  chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth  

  • had never known in Scrooge’s time, or Marley’s,  or for many and many a winter season gone.  

  • Heaped up on the floor, to form  a kind of throne, were turkeys,  

  • geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of  meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages,  

  • mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oystersred-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples,  

  • juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense  twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch,  

  • that made the chamber dim with their delicious  steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat  

  • a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who boreglowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn,  

  • and held it up, high up, to shed its light on  Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.

  • Come in!” exclaimed the Ghost.  “Come in! and know me better, man!”

  • Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head  before this Spirit. He was not the dogged  

  • Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit’s eyes  were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

  • “I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,”  said the Spirit. “Look upon me!”

  • Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in  one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered  

  • with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on  the figure, that its capacious breast was bare,  

  • as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by  any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the  

  • ample folds of the garment, were also bareand on its head it wore no other covering than  

  • a holly wreath, set here and there with shining  icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free;  

  • free as its genial face, its sparkling  eye, its open hand, its cheery voice,  

  • its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful airGirded round its middle was an antique scabbard;  

  • but no sword was in it, and the  ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

  • You have never seen the like of  me before!” exclaimed the Spirit.

  • Never,” Scrooge made answer to it.

  • Have never walked forth with  the younger members of my family;  

  • meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers  born in these later years?” pursued the Phantom.

  • “I don’t think I have,” said Scrooge. “I am afraid  I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?”

  • More than eighteen hundred,” said the Ghost.

  • “A tremendous family to  provide for!” muttered Scrooge.

  • The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

  • Spirit,” said Scrooge submissively,  “conduct me where you will.  

  • I went forth last night on compulsion, andlearnt a lesson which is working now. To-night,  

  • if you have aught to teach  me, let me profit by it.”

  • Touch my robe!”

  • Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

  • Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeysgeese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs,  

  • sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and  punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room,  

  • the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of nightand they stood in the city streets on Christmas  

  • morning, where (for the weather was severethe people made a rough, but brisk and not  

  • unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow  from the pavement in front of their dwellings,  

  • and from the tops of their houses, whence  it was mad delight to the boys to see it  

  • come plumping down into the road below, and  splitting into artificial little snow-storms.

  • The house fronts looked black enough, and  the windows blacker, contrasting with the  

  • smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofsand with the dirtier snow upon the ground;  

  • which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep  furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons;  

  • furrows that crossed and re-crossed each other  hundreds of times where the great streets branched  

  • off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace  in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was  

  • gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up  with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose  

  • heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty  atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain  

  • had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing  away to their dear heartscontent. There was  

  • nothing very cheerful in the climate or the townand yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad  

  • that the clearest summer air and brightest summer  sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

  • For, the people who were shovelling away on  the housetops were jovial and full of glee;  

  • calling out to one another from  the parapets, and now and then  

  • exchanging a facetious snowballbetter-natured  missile far than many a wordy jestlaughing  

  • heartily if it went right and not  less heartily if it went wrong.  

  • The poulterersshops were still half open, and  the fruitererswere radiant in their glory.  

  • There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of  chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly  

  • old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling  out into the street in their apoplectic opulence.  

  • There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed  Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their  

  • growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their  shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they  

  • went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up  mistletoe. There were pears and apples,  

  • clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were  bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers’  

  • benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that  people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed;  

  • there were piles of filberts, mossy and  brown, recalling, in their fragrance,  

  • ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant  shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves;  

  • there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthysetting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons,  

  • and, in the great compactness of their juicy  persons, urgently entreating and beseeching  

  • to be carried home in paper bags and eaten  after dinner. The very gold and silver fish,  

  • set forth among these choice fruits  in a bowl, though members of a dull  

  • and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to  know that there was something going on;  

  • and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their  little world in slow and passionless excitement.

  • The Grocers’! oh, the Grocers’! nearly  closed, with perhaps two shutters down,  

  • or one; but through those gaps such glimpsesIt was not alone that the scales descending on  

  • the counter made a merry sound, or that the  twine and roller parted company so briskly,  

  • or that the canisters were rattled up and down  like juggling tricks, or even that the blended  

  • scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the  nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful  

  • and rare, the almonds so extremely whitethe sticks of cinnamon so long and straight,  

  • the other spices so delicious, the candied  fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar  

  • as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint  and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the  

  • figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French  plums blushed in modest tartness from their  

  • highly-decorated boxes, or that everything  was good to eat and in its Christmas dress;  

  • but the customers were all so hurried and so  eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that  

  • they tumbled up against each other at the doorcrashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left  

  • their purchases upon the counter, and came running  back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the  

  • like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while  the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh  

  • that the polished hearts with which they fastened  their aprons behind might have been their own,  

  • worn outside for general inspection, and  for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

  • But soon the steeples called good people all, to  church and chapel, and away they came, flocking  

  • through the streets in their best clothes, and  with their gayest faces. And at the same time  

  • there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanesand nameless turnings, innumerable people,  

  • carrying their dinners to the bakersshopsThe sight of these poor revellers appeared  

  • to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood  with Scrooge beside him in a baker’s doorway,  

  • and taking off the covers as their bearers passedsprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch.  

  • And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for  once or twice when there were angry words between  

  • some dinner-carriers who had jostled each otherhe shed a few drops of water on them from it,  

  • and their good humour was  restored directly. For they said,  

  • it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas  Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!

  • In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were  shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing  

  • forth of all these dinners and the progress  of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet  

  • above each baker’s oven; where the pavement  smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

  • Is there a peculiar flavour in what you  sprinkle from your torch?” asked Scrooge.

  • There is. My own.”

  • Would it apply to any kind of  dinner on this day?” asked Scrooge.

  • To any kindly given. To a poor one most.”

  • Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge.

  • Because it needs it most.”

  • Spirit,” said Scrooge, after a moment’s thought,  “I wonder you, of all the beings in the many  

  • worlds about us, should desire to cramp these  people’s opportunities of innocent enjoyment.”

  • “I!” cried the Spirit.

  • You would deprive them of their  means of dining every seventh day,  

  • often the only day on which they can be said  to dine at all,” said Scrooge. “Wouldn’t you?”

  • “I!” cried the Spirit.

  • You seek to close these  places on the Seventh Day?”  

  • said Scrooge. “And it comes to the same thing.”

  • “I seek!” exclaimed the Spirit.

  • Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in  your name, or at least in that of your family,”  

  • said Scrooge.

  • There are some upon this earth  of yours,” returned the Spirit,  

  • who lay claim to know us, and who do their  deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred,  

  • envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who  are as strange to us and all our kith and kin,  

  • as if they had never lived. Remember that, and  charge their doings on themselves, not us.”

  • Scrooge promised that he would; and they  went on, invisible, as they had been before,  

  • into the suburbs of the town. It was  a remarkable quality of the Ghost  

  • (which Scrooge had observed at the baker’s),  that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could  

  • accommodate himself to any place with easeand that he stood beneath a low roof quite as  

  • gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it  was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.

  • And perhaps it was the pleasure the good  Spirit had in showing off this power of his,  

  • or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty  nature, and his sympathy with all poor men,  

  • that led him straight to Scrooge’s clerk’s;  for there he went, and took Scrooge with him,  

  • holding to his robe; and on the  threshold of the door the Spirit smiled,  

  • and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit’s  dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch.  

  • Think of that! Bob had but fifteenBob” a-week  himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen  

  • copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of  Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!

  • Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit’s wifedressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown,  

  • but brave in ribbons, which are cheap  and make a goodly show for sixpence;  

  • and she laid the cloth, assisted by  Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters,  

  • also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit  plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes,  

  • and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt  collar (Bob’s private property, conferred upon his  

  • son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouthrejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired,  

  • and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable  Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits,  

  • boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that  outside the baker’s they had smelt the goose,  

  • and known it for their own; and basking  in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion,  

  • these young Cratchits danced about the tableand exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies,  

  • while he (not proud, although his collars  nearly choked him) blew the fire, until  

  • the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly  at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

  • What has ever got your precious  father then?” said Mrs. Cratchit.  

  • And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn’t  as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?”

  • Here’s Martha, mother!” said  a girl, appearing as she spoke.

  • Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young  Cratchits. “Hurrah! There’s such a goose, Martha!”

  • Why, bless your heart alive, my dearhow late you are!” said Mrs. Cratchit,  

  • kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her  shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

  • We’d a deal of work to finish  up last night,” replied the girl,  

  • and had to clear away this morning, mother!”

  • Well! Never mind so long as you are come,”  

  • said Mrs. Cratchit. “Sit ye down before the  fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!”

  • No, no! There’s father coming,”  cried the two young Cratchits,  

  • who were everywhere at once. “Hide, Martha, hide!”

  • So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bobthe father, with at least three feet of comforter  

  • exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before himand his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed,  

  • to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim  upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim,  

  • he bore a little crutch, and had his  limbs supported by an iron frame!

  • Why, where’s our Martha?” cried  Bob Cratchit, looking round.

  • Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit.

  • Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension  in his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood  

  • horse all the way from church, and had come  home rampant. “Not coming upon Christmas Day!”

  • Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if  it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely  

  • from behind the closet door, and ran into his  arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny  

  • Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that  he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

  • And how did little Tim behave?” asked  Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob  

  • on his credulity, and Bob had hugged  his daughter to his heart’s content.

  • As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow  he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much,  

  • and thinks the strangest things you  ever heard. He told me, coming home,  

  • that he hoped the people saw him in the churchbecause he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant  

  • to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who  made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.”

  • Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this,  

  • and trembled more when he said that  Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

  • His active little crutch was heard upon the floorand back came Tiny Tim before another word was  

  • spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his  stool before the fire; and while Bob, turning up  

  • his cuffsas if, poor fellow, they were capable of  being made more shabbycompounded some hot mixture  

  • in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it  round and round and put it on the hob to simmer;  

  • Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous  young Cratchits went to fetch the goose,  

  • with which they soon returned in high procession.

  • Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought  a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered  

  • phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of  courseand in truth it was something very like it  

  • in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready  beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot;  

  • Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible  vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce;  

  • Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny  Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table;  

  • the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybodynot forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon  

  • their posts, crammed spoons into their mouthslest they should shriek for goose before their  

  • turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were  set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a  

  • breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly  all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it  

  • in the breast; but when she did, and when the  long expected gush of stuffing issued forth,  

  • one murmur of delight arose all round the  board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the  

  • two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the  handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

  • There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t  believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its  

  • tenderness and flavour, size and cheapnesswere the themes of universal admiration.  

  • Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it  was a sufficient dinner for the whole family;  

  • indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great  delight (surveying one small atom of a bone  

  • upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all  at last! Yet every one had had enough,  

  • and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were  steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But  

  • now, the plates being changed by Miss  Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room  

  • alonetoo nervous to bear witnessesto  take the pudding up and bring it in.

  • Suppose it should not be done enoughSuppose it should break in turning out!  

  • Suppose somebody should have got over  the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it,  

  • while they were merry with the goose—a supposition  at which the two young Cratchits became livid!  

  • All sorts of horrors were supposed.

  • Hallo! A great deal of steam! The  pudding was out of the copper.  

  • A smell like a washing-day! That was the  cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a  

  • pastrycook’s next door to each otherwith a laundress’s next door to that!  

  • That was the pudding! In halfminute Mrs. Cratchit enteredflushed,  

  • but smiling proudlywith the pudding, likespeckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing  

  • in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and  bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

  • Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob  Cratchit said, and calmly too,  

  • that he regarded it as the greatest success  achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage.  

  • Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was  off her mind, she would confess she had had  

  • her doubts about the quantity of flourEverybody had something to say about it,  

  • but nobody said or thought it was at allsmall pudding for a large family. It would  

  • have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit  would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

  • At last the dinner was all done, the cloth  was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire  

  • made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and  considered perfect, apples and oranges were put  

  • upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts  on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew  

  • round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit calledcircle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit’s  

  • elbow stood the family display of glass. Two  tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

  • These held the hot stuff from the jug, however,  

  • as well as golden goblets would have doneand Bob served it out with beaming looks,  

  • while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered  and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

  • “A Merry Christmas to us  all, my dears. God bless us!”

  • Which all the family re-echoed.

  • God bless us every one!” said  Tiny Tim, the last of all.

  • He sat very close to his father’s  side upon his little stool.  

  • Bob held his withered little hand  in his, as if he loved the child,  

  • and wished to keep him by his side, and  dreaded that he might be taken from him.

  • Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an  interest he had never felt before,  

  • tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”

  • “I see a vacant seat,” replied the  Ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner,  

  • and a crutch without an  owner, carefully preserved.  

  • If these shadows remain unaltered  by the Future, the child will die.”

  • No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, nokind Spirit! say he will be spared.”

  • If these shadows remain unaltered by the Futurenone other of my race,” returned the Ghost,  

  • will find him here. What then?  

  • If he be like to die, he had better do  it, and decrease the surplus population.”

  • Scrooge hung his head to hear his  own words quoted by the Spirit,  

  • and was overcome with penitence and grief.

  • Man,” said the Ghost, “if man  you be in heart, not adamant,  

  • forbear that wicked cant until you have  discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is.  

  • Will you decide what men shall live, what men  shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven,  

  • you are more worthless and less fit to live than  millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! to  

  • hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too  much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”

  • Scrooge bent before the Ghost’s rebuke, and  trembling cast his eyes upon the ground.  

  • But he raised them speedilyon hearing his own name.

  • Mr. Scrooge!” said Bob; “I’ll give you  Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!”

  • The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried MrsCratchit, reddening. “I wish I had him here.  

  • I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast uponand I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.”

  • My dear,” said Bob, “the  children! Christmas Day.”

  • It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,” said  she, “on which one drinks the health of such an  

  • odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as  Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert!  

  • Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!”

  • My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer, “Christmas Day.”

  • “I’ll drink his health for your sake and the  Day’s,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “not for his.  

  • Long life to him! A merry  Christmas and a happy new year!  

  • Hell be very merry and very  happy, I have no doubt!”

  • The children drank the toast after her. It  was the first of their proceedings which had  

  • no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of  all, but he didn’t care twopence for it.  

  • Scrooge was the Ogre of the  family. The mention of his name  

  • cast a dark shadow on the party, which  was not dispelled for full five minutes.

  • After it had passed away, they were ten times  merrier than before, from the mere relief of  

  • Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit  told them how he had a situation in his eye  

  • for Master Peter, which would bring in, if  obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly.  

  • The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously  at the idea of Peter’s being a man of business;  

  • and Peter himself looked thoughtfully  at the fire from between his collars,  

  • as if he were deliberating what particular  investments he should favour when he came  

  • into the receipt of that bewildering incomeMartha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner’s,  

  • then told them what kind of work she had to  do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch,  

  • and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow  morning for a good long rest; to-morrow  

  • being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she  had seen a countess and a lord some days before,  

  • and how the lordwas much about as tall as  Peter;” at which Peter pulled up his collars  

  • so high that you couldn’t have seen his head if  you had been there. All this time the chestnuts  

  • and the jug went round and round; and by-and-bye  they had a song, about a lost child travelling in  

  • the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive  little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

  • There was nothing of high mark in this. They were  not a handsome family; they were not well dressed;  

  • their shoes were far from being  water-proof; their clothes were scanty;  

  • and Peter might have known, and very  likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker’s.  

  • But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with  one another, and contented with the time;  

  • and when they faded, and looked happier yet in  the bright sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch  

  • at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon themand especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

  • By this time it was getting dark, and snowing  pretty heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit  

  • went along the streets, the brightness of the  roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts  

  • of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of  the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner,  

  • with hot plates baking through and through  before the fire, and deep red curtains,  

  • ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darknessThere all the children of the house were  

  • running out into the snow to meet their married  sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts,  

  • and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were  shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling;  

  • and there a group of handsome  girls, all hooded and fur-booted,  

  • and all chattering at once, tripped  lightly off to some near neighbour’s house;  

  • where, woe upon the single man who saw them  enterartful witches, well they knew itin a glow!

  • But, if you had judged from the numbers of  people on their way to friendly gatherings,  

  • you might have thought that no one was at home to  give them welcome when they got there, instead of  

  • every house expecting company, and piling up  its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it,  

  • how the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of  breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated  

  • on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright  and harmless mirth on everything within its reach!  

  • The very lamplighter, who ran on beforedotting the dusky street with specks of light,  

  • and who was dressed to spend the evening  somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit  

  • passed, though little kenned the lamplighter  that he had any company but Christmas!

  • And now, without a word of warning from the Ghostthey stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where  

  • monstrous masses of rude stone were cast aboutas though it were the burial-place of giants;  

  • and water spread itself wheresoever it listedor would have done so, but for the frost that  

  • held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and  furze, and coarse rank grass. Down in the west the  

  • setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which  glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a  

  • sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yetwas lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

  • What place is this?” asked Scrooge.

  • “A place where Miners live, who  labour in the bowels of the earth,”  

  • returned the Spirit. “But they know me. See!”

  • A light shone from the window of a hut, and  swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing  

  • through the wall of mud and stone, they foundcheerful company assembled round a glowing fire.  

  • An old, old man and woman, with their  children and their children’s children,  

  • and another generation beyond that, all decked  out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man,  

  • in a voice that seldom rose above the  howling of the wind upon the barren waste,  

  • was singing them a Christmas songit had been  a very old song when he was a boyand from time  

  • to time they all joined in the chorusSo surely as they raised their voices,  

  • the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so  surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

  • The Spirit did not tarry here,  

  • but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing  on above the moor, spedwhither? Not to sea?  

  • To sea. To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he saw  the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks,  

  • behind them; and his ears were deafened by the  thundering of water, as it rolled and roared,  

  • and raged among the dreadful caverns it had  worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

  • Built upon a dismal reef of sunken  rocks, some league or so from shore,  

  • on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild  year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.  

  • Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and  storm-birdsborn of the wind one might suppose,  

  • as sea-weed of the waterrose and fell  about it, like the waves they skimmed.

  • But even here, two men who watched the light  had made a fire, that through the loophole in  

  • the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness  on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over  

  • the rough table at which they sat, they wished  each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog;  

  • and one of them: the elder, too, with his face  all damaged and scarred with hard weather,  

  • as the figure-head of an old ship might be: struck  up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.

  • Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and  heaving seaon, onuntil, being far away, as  

  • he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted onship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel,  

  • the look-out in the bow, the  officers who had the watch;  

  • dark, ghostly figures in their several stationsbut every man among them hummed a Christmas tune,  

  • or had a Christmas thought, or spoke  below his breath to his companion of some  

  • bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes  belonging to it. And every man on board,  

  • waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had  a kinder word for another on that day  

  • than on any day in the year; and had shared  to some extent in its festivities; and had  

  • remembered those he cared for at a distance, and  had known that they delighted to remember him.

  • It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while  listening to the moaning of the wind,  

  • and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on  through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss,  

  • whose depths were secrets as profound as  Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge,  

  • while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was  a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise  

  • it as his own nephew’s and to find himself in  a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit  

  • standing smiling by his side, and looking at  that same nephew with approving affability!

  • Ha, ha!” laughed Scrooge’s nephew. “Ha, ha, ha!”

  • If you should happen, by any unlikely chance,  

  • to know a man more blest in a laugh  than Scrooge’s nephew, all I can say is,  

  • I should like to know him too. Introduce him  to me, and I’ll cultivate his acquaintance.

  • It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of  things, that while there is infection in disease  

  • and sorrow, there is nothing in the world  so irresistibly contagious as laughter and  

  • good-humour. When Scrooge’s nephew laughed in  this way: holding his sides, rolling his head,  

  • and twisting his face into the most extravagant  contortions: Scrooge’s niece, by marriage, laughed  

  • as heartily as he. And their assembled friends  being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.

  • Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

  • He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!”  cried Scrooge’s nephew. “He believed it too!”

  • More shame for him, Fred!” said  Scrooge’s niece, indignantly.  

  • Bless those women; they never do anything  by halves. They are always in earnest.

  • She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With  a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face;  

  • a ripe little mouth, that seemed  made to be kissedas no doubt it was;  

  • all kinds of good little dots about her chinthat melted into one another when she laughed;  

  • and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any  little creature’s head. Altogether she was what  

  • you would have called provoking, you know; but  satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory.

  • He’s a comical old fellow,”  

  • said Scrooge’s nephew, “that’s the truthand not so pleasant as he might be.  

  • However, his offences carry their own punishmentand I have nothing to say against him.”

  • “I’m sure he is very rich, Fred,” hinted  Scrooge’s niece. “At least you always tell me so.”

  • What of that, my dear!” said Scrooge’s  nephew. “His wealth is of no use to him.  

  • He don’t do any good with it. He don’t  make himself comfortable with it.  

  • He hasn’t the satisfaction of thinkingha, haha!—that he is ever going to benefit US with it.”

  • “I have no patience with him,”  observed Scrooge’s niece.  

  • Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, and all the  other ladies, expressed the same opinion.

  • Oh, I have!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “I am sorry  for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried.  

  • Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, alwaysHere, he takes it into his head to dislike us,  

  • and he won’t come and dine with us. What’s the  consequence? He don’t lose much of a dinner.”

  • Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,”  interrupted Scrooge’s niece. Everybody else  

  • said the same, and they must be allowed to have  been competent judges, because they had just had  

  • dinner; and, with the dessert upon the tablewere clustered round the fire, by lamplight.

  • Well! I’m very glad to hear  it,” said Scrooge’s nephew,  

  • because I haven’t great faith in these  young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?”

  • Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of  Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, for he answered that a  

  • bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right  to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat  

  • Scrooge’s niece’s sisterthe plump one with the  lace tucker: not the one with the rosesblushed.

  • Do go on, Fred,” said Scrooge’s niece,  

  • clapping her hands. “He never finishes what he  begins to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!”

  • Scrooge’s nephew revelled in another laugh, and  as it was impossible to keep the infection off;  

  • though the plump sister tried hard  to do it with aromatic vinegar;  

  • his example was unanimously followed.

  • “I was only going to say,” said Scrooge’s nephew,  “that the consequence of his taking a dislike to  

  • us, and not making merry with us, is, as I thinkthat he loses some pleasant moments, which could  

  • do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter  companions than he can find in his own thoughts,  

  • either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty  chambers. I mean to give him the same chance  

  • every year, whether he likes it or not, forpity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies,  

  • but he can’t help thinking better of it—I defy  himif he finds me going there, in good temper,  

  • year after year, and saying Uncle Scroogehow are you? If it only puts him in the vein  

  • to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that’s  something; and I think I shook him yesterday.”

  • It was their turn to laugh now at the notion  of his shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly  

  • good-natured, and not much caring what they  laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate,  

  • he encouraged them in their merrimentand passed the bottle joyously.

  • After tea, they had some music. For they weremusical family, and knew what they were about,  

  • when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure youespecially Topper, who could growl away in the  

  • bass like a good one, and never swell the large  veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over  

  • it. Scrooge’s niece played well upon the harp; and  played among other tunes a simple little air (a  

  • mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two  minutes), which had been familiar to the child who  

  • fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he  had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past.  

  • When this strain of music sounded, all the things  that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind;  

  • he softened more and more; and thought that if  he could have listened to it often, years ago,  

  • he might have cultivated the kindnesses of  life for his own happiness with his own hands,  

  • without resorting to the sexton’s  spade that buried Jacob Marley.

  • But they didn’t devote the whole evening to  music. After a while they played at forfeits;  

  • for it is good to be children sometimesand never better than at Christmas,  

  • when its mighty Founder was a child himselfStop! There was first a game at blind-man’s buff.  

  • Of course there was. And I no more believe  Topper was really blind than I believe he had  

  • eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was  a done thing between him and Scrooge’s nephew;  

  • and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew  it. The way he went after that plump sister in  

  • the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity  of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons,  

  • tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the  piano, smothering himself among the curtains,  

  • wherever she went, there went he! He  always knew where the plump sister was.  

  • He wouldn’t catch anybody else. If you had  fallen up against him (as some of them did),  

  • on purpose, he would have made a feint of  endeavouring to seize you, which would have  

  • been an affront to your understanding, and would  instantly have sidled off in the direction of the  

  • plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn’t  fair; and it really was not. But when at last,  

  • he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken  rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him,  

  • he got her into a corner whence there was no  escape; then his conduct was the most execrable.  

  • For his pretending not to know her; his pretending  that it was necessary to touch her head-dress,  

  • and further to assure himself of her identity by  pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a  

  • certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrousNo doubt she told him her opinion of it, when,  

  • another blind-man being in office, they were so  very confidential together, behind the curtains.

  • Scrooge’s niece was not one of the blind-man’s  buff party, but was made comfortable with a large  

  • chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where  the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But  

  • she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to  admiration with all the letters of the alphabet.  

  • Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she  was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge’s  

  • nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were  sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you.  

  • There might have been twenty people there, young  and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge;  

  • for wholly forgetting in the  interest he had in what was going on,  

  • that his voice made no sound in their ears, he  sometimes came out with his guess quite loud,  

  • and very often guessed quite right, too; for  the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted  

  • not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than  Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be.

  • The Ghost was greatly pleased  to find him in this mood,  

  • and looked upon him with such favourthat he begged like a boy to be allowed  

  • to stay until the guests departed. But  this the Spirit said could not be done.

  • Here is a new game,” said Scrooge.  “One half hour, Spirit, only one!”

  • It was a Game called Yes and No, where  Scrooge’s nephew had to think of something,  

  • and the rest must find out what; he only  answering to their questions yes or no,  

  • as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to  which he was exposed, elicited from him that he  

  • was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather  a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal  

  • that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked  sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about  

  • the streets, and wasn’t made a show of, and wasn’t  led by anybody, and didn’t live in a menagerie,  

  • and was never killed in a market, and was nothorse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger,  

  • or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every  fresh question that was put to him, this nephew  

  • burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so  inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to  

  • get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump  sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

  • “I have found it out! I know what  it is, Fred! I know what it is!”

  • What is it?” cried Fred.

  • It’s your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!”

  • Which it certainly was. Admiration  was the universal sentiment,  

  • though some objected that the reply toIs it  a bear?” ought to have beenYes;” inasmuch  

  • as an answer in the negative was sufficient to  have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge,  

  • supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.

  • He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,”  

  • said Fred, “and it would be  ungrateful not to drink his health.  

  • Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand  at the moment; and I say, ‘Uncle Scrooge!’ ”

  • Well! Uncle Scrooge!” they cried.

  • “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to  the old man, whatever he is!” said Scrooge’s  

  • nephew. “He wouldn’t take it from me, but  may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!”

  • Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly  become so gay and light of heart,  

  • that he would have pledged the unconscious  company in return, and thanked them in an  

  • inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him  time. But the whole scene passed off in the  

  • breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and  he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

  • Much they saw, and far they went, and many  homes they visited, but always with a happy  

  • end. The Spirit stood beside sick bedsand they were cheerful; on foreign lands,  

  • and they were close at home; by struggling menand they were patient in their greater hope;  

  • by poverty, and it was rich. In almshousehospital, and jail, in misery’s every refuge,  

  • where vain man in his little brief authority had  not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out,  

  • he left his blessing, and  taught Scrooge his precepts.

  • It was a long night, if it were only a nightbut Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the  

  • Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed  into the space of time they passed together.  

  • It was strange, too, that while Scrooge  remained unaltered in his outward form,  

  • the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge  had observed this change, but never spoke of it,  

  • until they left a children’s  Twelfth Night party, when,  

  • looking at the Spirit as they stood together in  an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey.

  • Are spiritslives so short?” asked Scrooge.

  • My life upon this globe, is very brief,”  replied the Ghost. “It ends to-night.”

  • To-night!” cried Scrooge.

  • To-night at midnight. HarkThe time is drawing near.”

  • The chimes were ringing the three  quarters past eleven at that moment.

  • Forgive me if I am not justified in what  I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at  

  • the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something  strange, and not belonging to yourself,  

  • protruding from your skirtsIs it a foot or a claw?”

  • It might be a claw, for  the flesh there is upon it,”  

  • was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”

  • From the foldings of its robe, it brought two  children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous,  

  • miserable. They knelt down at its feetand clung upon the outside of its garment.

  • Oh, Man! look here. Look, lookdown here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

  • They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, raggedscowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their  

  • humility. Where graceful youth should have  filled their features out, and touched them with  

  • its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled handlike that of age, had pinched, and twisted them,  

  • and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might  have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out  

  • menacing. No change, no degradation, no  perversion of humanity, in any grade,  

  • through all the mysteries of wonderful creationhas monsters half so horrible and dread.

  • Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them  

  • shown to him in this way, he tried  to say they were fine children,  

  • but the words choked themselves, rather than  be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

  • Spirit! are they yours?”  Scrooge could say no more.

  • They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down  upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from  

  • their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is  Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree,  

  • but most of all beware this boy, for on his  brow I see that written which is Doom, unless  

  • the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spiritstretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander  

  • those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious  purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

  • Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.

  • Are there no prisons?”  

  • said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time  with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?”

  • The bell struck twelve.

  • Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw  it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate,  

  • he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marleyand lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom,  

  • draped and hooded, coming, likemist along the ground, towards him.

  • STAVE FOUR. THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS

  • The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached.  

  • When it came near him, Scrooge  bent down upon his knee;  

  • for in the very air through which this Spirit  moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

  • It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which  concealed its head, its face, its form, and  

  • left nothing of it visible save one outstretched  hand. But for this it would have been difficult  

  • to detach its figure from the night, and separate  it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

  • He felt that it was tall and stately when  it came beside him, and that its mysterious  

  • presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew  no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

  • “I am in the presence of the Ghost of  Christmas Yet To Come?” said Scrooge.

  • The Spirit answered not, but  pointed onward with its hand.

  • You are about to show me shadows of  the things that have not happened,  

  • but will happen in the time before us,”  Scrooge pursued. “Is that so, Spirit?”

  • The upper portion of the garment was  contracted for an instant in its folds,  

  • as if the Spirit had inclined its headThat was the only answer he received.

  • Although well used to ghostly company by this  time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that  

  • his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that  he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow  

  • it. The Spirit paused a moment, as observing  his condition, and giving him time to recover.

  • But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It  thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror,  

  • to know that behind the dusky shroud, there  were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him,  

  • while he, though he stretched  his own to the utmost, could see  

  • nothing but a spectral hand  and one great heap of black.

  • Ghost of the Future!” he exclaimed, “I  fear you more than any spectre I have seen.  

  • But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and  as I hope to live to be another man from what I  

  • was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it  with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?”

  • It gave him no reply. The hand  was pointed straight before them.

  • Lead on!” said Scrooge. “Lead  on! The night is waning fast,  

  • and it is precious time to  me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!”

  • The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him.  

  • Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which  bore him up, he thought, and carried him along.

  • They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for  the city rather seemed to spring up about them,  

  • and encompass them of its own act. But there  they were, in the heart of it; onChange,  

  • amongst the merchants; who hurried up and  down, and chinked the money in their pockets,  

  • and conversed in groups, and looked at  their watches, and trifled thoughtfully  

  • with their great gold seals; and so  forth, as Scrooge had seen them often.

  • The Spirit stopped beside one  little knot of business men.  

  • Observing that the hand was pointed to themScrooge advanced to listen to their talk.

  • No,” said a great fat man with a monstrous chin,  

  • “I don’t know much about iteither way. I only know he’s dead.”

  • When did he die?” inquired another.

  • Last night, I believe.”

  • Why, what was the matter with him?” asked  a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff  

  • out of a very large snuff-box.  “I thought he’d never die.”

  • God knows,” said the first, with a yawn.

  • What has he done with his money?” asked  a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous  

  • excrescence on the end of his nose, that  shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

  • “I haven’t heard,” said the man  with the large chin, yawning again.  

  • Left it to his company, perhaps. He  hasn’t left it to me. That’s all I know.”

  • This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

  • It’s likely to be a very cheap  funeral,” said the same speaker;  

  • for upon my life I don’t know of anybody to go  to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?”

  • “I don’t mind going if a lunch is provided,”  

  • observed the gentleman with the excrescence on  his nose. “But I must be fed, if I make one.”

  • Another laugh.

  • Well, I am the most disinterested among  you, after all,” said the first speaker,  

  • for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat  lunch. But I’ll offer to go, if anybody else will.  

  • When I come to think of it, I’m not  at all sure that I wasn’t his most  

  • particular friend; for we used to stop  and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!”

  • Speakers and listeners strolled  away, and mixed with other groups.  

  • Scrooge knew the men, and looked  towards the Spirit for an explanation.

  • The Phantom glided on into a street. Its  finger pointed to two persons meeting.  

  • Scrooge listened again, thinking  that the explanation might lie here.

  • He knew these men, also, perfectlyThey were men of business: very wealthy,  

  • and of great importance. He had made a point  always of standing well in their esteem:  

  • in a business point of view, that isstrictly in a business point of view.

  • How are you?” said one.

  • How are you?” returned the other.

  • Well!” said the first. “Old Scratch  has got his own at last, hey?”

  • So I am told,” returned the  second. “Cold, isn’t it?”

  • Seasonable for Christmas timeYoure not a skater, I suppose?”

  • No. No. Something else to  think of. Good morning!”

  • Not another word. That was their meetingtheir conversation, and their parting.

  • Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised  that the Spirit should attach importance to  

  • conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling  assured that they must have some hidden purpose,  

  • he set himself to consider what it was likely  to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have  

  • any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old  partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost’s  

  • province was the Future. Nor could he think  of any one immediately connected with himself,  

  • to whom he could apply them. But nothing  doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had  

  • some latent moral for his own improvement, he  resolved to treasure up every word he heard,  

  • and everything he saw; and especially to  observe the shadow of himself when it appeared.  

  • For he had an expectation that  the conduct of his future self  

  • would give him the clue he missed, and would  render the solution of these riddles easy.

  • He looked about in that very place for his own  image; but another man stood in his accustomed  

  • corner, and though the clock pointed to  his usual time of day for being there,  

  • he saw no likeness of himself among the  multitudes that poured in through the Porch.  

  • It gave him little surprise, however; for he  had been revolving in his mind a change of life,  

  • and thought and hoped he saw his  new-born resolutions carried out in this.

  • Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with  its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from  

  • his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn  of the hand, and its situation in reference to  

  • himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him  keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold.

  • They left the busy scene, and went into an  obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had  

  • never penetrated before, although he recognised  its situation, and its bad repute. The ways were  

  • foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretchedthe people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly.  

  • Alleys and archways, like so many cesspoolsdisgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and  

  • life, upon the straggling streets; and the whole  quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.

  • Far in this den of infamous resort, there was  a low-browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house  

  • roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and  greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor within,  

  • were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chainshinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron  

  • of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to  scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains  

  • of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and  sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he  

  • dealt in, by a charcoal stove, made of old brickswas a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of  

  • age; who had screened himself from the cold air  without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous  

  • tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his  pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.

  • Scrooge and the Phantom came  into the presence of this man,  

  • just as a woman with a heavy  bundle slunk into the shop.  

  • But she had scarcely entered, when another  woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she  

  • was closely followed by a man in faded blackwho was no less startled by the sight of them,  

  • than they had been upon the recognition of each  other. After a short period of blank astonishment,  

  • in which the old man with the pipe had joined  them, they all three burst into a laugh.

  • Let the charwoman alone to be the first!”  cried she who had entered first. “Let the  

  • laundress alone to be the second; and let  the undertaker’s man alone to be the third.  

  • Look here, old Joe, here’s a chance! If we  haven’t all three met here without meaning it!”

  • You couldn’t have met in a better place,”  said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth.  

  • Come into the parlour. You were  made free of it long ago, you know;  

  • and the other two an’t strangers. Stop  till I shut the door of the shop. Ah!  

  • How it skreeks! There an’t such a rusty bit of  metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe;  

  • and I’m sure there’s no such old bones here, as  mine. Ha, ha! Were all suitable to our calling,  

  • were well matched. Come into the  parlour. Come into the parlour.”

  • The parlour was the space  behind the screen of rags.  

  • The old man raked the fire together with an  old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky  

  • lamp (for it was night), with the stem  of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.

  • While he did this, the woman who had already  spoken threw her bundle on the floor,  

  • and sat down in a flaunting manner onstool; crossing her elbows on her knees,  

  • and looking with a bold defiance at the other two.

  • What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?”  

  • said the woman. “Every person has a right  to take care of themselves. He always did.”

  • That’s true, indeed!” said the  laundress. “No man more so.”

  • Why then, don’t stand staring  as if you was afraid, woman;  

  • who’s the wiser? Were not going to pick  holes in each other’s coats, I suppose?”

  • No, indeed!” said Mrs. Dilber and the  man together. “We should hope not.”

  • Very well, then!” cried the  woman. “That’s enough. Who’s  

  • the worse for the loss of a few things  like these? Not a dead man, I suppose.”

  • No, indeed,” said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.

  • If he wanted to keepem after he was dead,  a wicked old screw,” pursued the woman,  

  • why wasn’t he natural in his lifetime? If he had  been, he’d have had somebody to look after him  

  • when he was struck with Death, instead of lying  gasping out his last there, alone by himself.”

  • It’s the truest word that ever was spoke,”  said Mrs. Dilber. “It’s a judgment on him.”

  • “I wish it was a little heavier judgment,”  replied the woman; “and it should have been,  

  • you may depend upon it, if I could  have laid my hands on anything else.  

  • Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the  value of it. Speak out plain. I’m not afraid to  

  • be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We  know pretty well that we were helping ourselves,  

  • before we met here, I believeIt’s no sin. Open the bundle, Joe.”

  • But the gallantry of her friends would not  allow of this; and the man in faded black,  

  • mounting the breach first, produced his  plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two,  

  • a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, andbrooch of no great value, were all. They were  

  • severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who  chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each,  

  • upon the wall, and added them up into a total  when he found there was nothing more to come.

  • That’s your account,” said Joe,  

  • and I wouldn’t give another sixpence, ifwas to be boiled for not doing it. Who’s next?”

  • Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels,  

  • a little wearing apparel, two  old-fashioned silver teaspoons,  

  • a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her  account was stated on the wall in the same manner.

  • “I always give too much to ladies. It’s a weakness  of mine, and that’s the way I ruin myself,”  

  • said old Joe. “That’s your accountIf you asked me for another penny,  

  • and made it an open question, I’d repent of  being so liberal and knock off half-a-crown.”

  • And now undo my bundleJoe,” said the first woman.

  • Joe went down on his knees for the  greater convenience of opening it,  

  • and having unfastened a great many knots, dragged  out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.

  • What do you call this?” said Joe. “Bed-curtains!”

  • Ah!” returned the woman, laughing and leaning  forward on her crossed arms. “Bed-curtains!”

  • You don’t mean to say you tookem downrings and all, with him lying there?” said Joe.

  • Yes I do,” replied the woman. “Why not?”

  • You were born to make your fortune,”  said Joe, “and youll certainly do it.”

  • “I certainly shan’t hold my handwhen I can get anything in it by  

  • reaching it out, for the sake of such  a man as He was, I promise you, Joe,”  

  • returned the woman coolly. “Don’t  drop that oil upon the blankets, now.”

  • His blankets?” asked Joe.

  • Whose else’s do you think?” replied the woman.  

  • He isn’t likely to take cold  withoutem, I dare say.”

  • “I hope he didn’t die of anything catching?  

  • Eh?” said old Joe, stopping  in his work, and looking up.

  • Don’t you be afraid of that,” returned the woman.  “I an’t so fond of his company that I’d loiter  

  • about him for such things, if he did. Ah! you  may look through that shirt till your eyes ache;  

  • but you won’t find a hole in it, nor a threadbare  place. It’s the best he had, and a fine one too.  

  • They’d have wasted it, if it hadn’t been for me.”

  • What do you call wasting of it?” asked old Joe.

  • Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,”  replied the woman with a laugh. “Somebody was  

  • fool enough to do it, but I took it off againIf calico an’t good enough for such a purpose,  

  • it isn’t good enough for anythingIt’s quite as becoming to the body.  

  • He can’t look uglier than he did in that one.”

  • Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As  they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty  

  • light afforded by the old man’s lamp, he viewed  them with a detestation and disgust, which could  

  • hardly have been greater, though they had been  obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.

  • Ha, ha!” laughed the same woman, when old  Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it,  

  • told out their several gains upon the ground.  “This is the end of it, you see! He frightened  

  • every one away from him when he was aliveto profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!”

  • Spirit!” said Scrooge, shuddering from  head to foot. “I see, I see. The case of  

  • this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends  that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is this!”

  • He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed,  

  • and now he almost touched a bed: a bareuncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet,  

  • there lay a something covered up, which, though  it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.

  • The room was very dark, too dark  to be observed with any accuracy,  

  • though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience  to a secret impulse, anxious to know what  

  • kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in  the outer air, fell straight upon the bed;  

  • and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatchedunwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.

  • Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady  hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so  

  • carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of  it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge’s part,  

  • would have disclosed the face. He thought of itfelt how easy it would be to do, and longed to  

  • do it; but had no more power to withdraw the  veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side.

  • Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set  up thine altar here, and dress it with such  

  • terrors as thou hast at thy command: for  this is thy dominion! But of the loved,  

  • revered, and honoured head, thou canst  not turn one hair to thy dread purposes,  

  • or make one feature odious. It is not that the  hand is heavy and will fall down when released;  

  • it is not that the heart and pulse are stillbut that the hand was open, generous, and true;  

  • the heart brave, warm, and tender; and  the pulse a man’s. Strike, Shadow, strike!  

  • And see his good deeds springing from the  wound, to sow the world with life immortal!

  • No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge’s earsand yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed.  

  • He thought, if this man could be raised up  now, what would be his foremost thoughts?  

  • Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares? They  have brought him to a rich end, truly!

  • He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man,  a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to  

  • me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind  word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at  

  • the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats  beneath the hearth-stone. What they wanted in the  

  • room of death, and why they were so restless  and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.

  • Spirit!” he said, “this isfearful place. In leaving it, I  

  • shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!”

  • Still the Ghost pointed with  an unmoved finger to the head.

  • “I understand you,” Scrooge returned,  

  • and I would do it, if I could. But I have  not the power, Spirit. I have not the power.”

  • Again it seemed to look upon him.

  • If there is any person in the town, who  feels emotion caused by this man’s death,”  

  • said Scrooge quite agonised, “show that  person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!”

  • The Phantom spread its dark  robe before him for a moment,  

  • like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room  by daylight, where a mother and her children were.

  • She was expecting some one, and with anxious  eagerness; for she walked up and down the room;  

  • started at every sound; looked out from the  window; glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain,  

  • to work with her needle; and could hardly  bear the voices of the children in their play.

  • At length the long-expected knock was heard. She  hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man  

  • whose face was careworn and depressed, though  he was young. There was a remarkable expression  

  • in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he  felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.

  • He sat down to the dinner that had  been hoarding for him by the fire;  

  • and when she asked him faintly what news  

  • (which was not until after a long silence),  he appeared embarrassed how to answer.

  • Is it good?” she said, “or bad?”—to help him.

  • Bad,” he answered.

  • We are quite ruined?”

  • No. There is hope yet, Caroline.”

  • If he relents,” she said, amazed,  

  • there is! Nothing is past hopeif such a miracle has happened.”

  • He is past relenting,” said  her husband. “He is dead.”

  • She was a mild and patient creature if her  face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her  

  • soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped  hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment,  

  • and was sorry; but the first  was the emotion of her heart.

  • What the half-drunken woman whomtold you of last night, said to me,  

  • when I tried to see him and obtain a week’s delayand what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me;  

  • turns out to have been quite true. He  was not only very ill, but dying, then.”

  • To whom will our debt be transferred?”

  • “I don’t know. But before that time  we shall be ready with the money;  

  • and even though we were not, it would bebad fortune indeed to find so merciless a  

  • creditor in his successor. We may sleep  to-night with light hearts, Caroline!”

  • Yes. Soften it as they wouldtheir hearts were lighter.  

  • The children’s faces, hushed and clustered  round to hear what they so little understood,  

  • were brighter; and it washappier house for this man’s death!  

  • The only emotion that the Ghost could show  him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure.

  • Let me see some tenderness  connected with a death,”  

  • said Scrooge; “or that dark chamber, Spirit, which  we left just now, will be for ever present to me.”

  • The Ghost conducted him through  several streets familiar to his feet;  

  • and as they went along, Scrooge  looked here and there to find himself,  

  • but nowhere was he to be seen. They  entered poor Bob Cratchit’s house;  

  • the dwelling he had visited before; and found the  mother and the children seated round the fire.

  • Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits  were as still as statues in one corner,  

  • and sat looking up at Peterwho had a book before him.  

  • The mother and her daughters were engaged  in sewing. But surely they were very quiet!

  • “ ‘And He took a child, and set  him in the midst of them.’ ”

  • Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not  dreamed them. The boy must have read them out,  

  • as he and the Spirit crossed the  threshold. Why did he not go on?

  • The mother laid her work upon the  table, and put her hand up to her face.

  • The colour hurts my eyes,” she said.

  • The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!

  • Theyre better now again,” said Cratchit’s wife.  

  • It makes them weak by candle-lightand I wouldn’t show weak eyes to your  

  • father when he comes home, for the  world. It must be near his time.”

  • Past it rather,” Peter  answered, shutting up his book.  

  • But I think he has walked a little slower  than he used, these few last evenings, mother.”

  • They were very quiet again. At  last she said, and in a steady,  

  • cheerful voice, that only faltered once:

  • “I have known him walk with—I  

  • have known him walk with Tiny Tim  upon his shoulder, very fast indeed.”

  • And so have I,” cried Peter. “Often.”

  • And so have I,” exclaimed another. So had all.

  • But he was very light to carry,” she resumedintent upon her work, “and his father loved him  

  • so, that it was no trouble: no troubleAnd there is your father at the door!”

  • She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his  comforterhe had need of it, poor fellowcame in.  

  • His tea was ready for him on the hob, and  they all tried who should help him to it most.  

  • Then the two young Cratchits got upon his  knees and laid, each child a little cheek,  

  • against his face, as if they said, “Don’t  mind it, father. Don’t be grieved!”

  • Bob was very cheerful with them, and  spoke pleasantly to all the family.  

  • He looked at the work upon the tableand praised the industry and speed of  

  • Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would  be done long before Sunday, he said.

  • Sunday! You went to-daythen, Robert?” said his wife.

  • Yes, my dear,” returned Bob. “I wish you could  have gone. It would have done you good to see how  

  • green a place it is. But youll see it often. I  promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday.  

  • My little, little child!”  cried Bob. “My little child!”

  • He broke down all at once. He couldn’t  help it. If he could have helped it,  

  • he and his child would have been  farther apart perhaps than they were.

  • He left the room, and went  up-stairs into the room above,  

  • which was lighted cheerfullyand hung with Christmas.  

  • There was a chair set close beside the child, and  there were signs of some one having been there,  

  • lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he  had thought a little and composed himself, he  

  • kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what  had happened, and went down again quite happy.

  • They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls  and mother working still. Bob told them of  

  • the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge’s  nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once,  

  • and who, meeting him in the street that dayand seeing that he looked a little—“just  

  • a little down you know,” said Bobinquired what had happened to distress him.  

  • On which,” said Bob, “for he is the  pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard,  

  • I told him. ‘I am heartily sorry  for it, Mr. Cratchit,’ he said,  

  • and heartily sorry for your good wife.’ By  the bye, how he ever knew that, I don’t know.”

  • Knew what, my dear?”

  • Why, that you were a good wife,” replied Bob.

  • Everybody knows that!” said Peter.

  • Very well observed, my boy!” cried Bob.  “I hope they do. ‘Heartily sorry,’ he said,  

  • for your good wife. If I can be of service to  you in any way,’ he said, giving me his card,  

  • that’s where I live. Pray come to me.’ Now, it  wasn’t,” cried Bob, “for the sake of anything  

  • he might be able to do for us, so much as for  his kind way, that this was quite delightful.  

  • It really seemed as if he had known  our Tiny Tim, and felt with us.”

  • “I’m sure he’s a good soul!” said Mrs. Cratchit.

  • You would be surer of it, my dear,”  returned Bob, “if you saw and spoke to him.  

  • I shouldn’t be at all surprisedmark what  I say!—if he got Peter a better situation.”

  • Only hear that, Peter,” said Mrs. Cratchit.

  • And then,” cried one of the girls,  

  • Peter will be keeping company with  some one, and setting up for himself.”

  • Get along with you!” retorted Peter, grinning.

  • It’s just as likely as not,” said Bob, “one  of these days; though there’s plenty of time  

  • for that, my dear. But however and whenever  we part from one another, I am sure we shall  

  • none of us forget poor Tiny Timshall weor  this first parting that there was among us?”

  • Never, father!” cried they all.

  • And I know,” said Bob, “I know, my dears, that  when we recollect how patient and how mild he was;  

  • although he was a little, little child; we  shall not quarrel easily among ourselves,  

  • and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.”

  • No, never, father!” they all cried again.

  • “I am very happy,” said  little Bob, “I am very happy!”

  • Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed  him, the two young Cratchits kissed him,  

  • and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of  Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God!

  • Spectre,” said Scrooge, “something informs  me that our parting moment is at hand.  

  • I know it, but I know not how. Tell me  what man that was whom we saw lying dead?”

  • The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed himas beforethough at a different time, he thought:  

  • indeed, there seemed no order in these latter  visions, save that they were in the Futureinto  

  • the resorts of business menbut showed him not himself.  

  • Indeed, the Spirit did not stay  for anything, but went straight on,  

  • as to the end just now desired, until  besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.

  • This court,” said Scrooge, “through which we  hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and  

  • has been for a length of time. I see the houseLet me behold what I shall be, in days to come!”

  • The Spirit stopped; the  hand was pointed elsewhere.

  • The house is yonder,” Scrooge  exclaimed. “Why do you point away?”

  • The inexorable finger underwent no change.

  • Scrooge hastened to the window  of his office, and looked in.  

  • It was an office still, but not  his. The furniture was not the same,  

  • and the figure in the chair was not  himself. The Phantom pointed as before.

  • He joined it once again, and wondering why  and whither he had gone, accompanied it  

  • until they reached an iron gate. He  paused to look round before entering.

  • A churchyard. Here, then; the wretched  man whose name he had now to learn,  

  • lay underneath the ground. It wasworthy place. Walled in by houses;  

  • overrun by grass and weeds, the growth  of vegetation’s death, not life;  

  • choked up with too much burying; fat  with repleted appetite. A worthy place!

  • The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed  down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The  

  • Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded  that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

  • Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you  point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question.  

  • Are these the shadows of the things that Will beor are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

  • Still the Ghost pointed downward  to the grave by which it stood.

  • Men’s courses will foreshadow certain endsto which, if persevered in, they must lead,”  

  • said Scrooge. “But if the  courses be departed from,  

  • the ends will change. Say it  is thus with what you show me!”

  • The Spirit was immovable as ever.

  • Scrooge crept towards it, trembling  as he went; and following the finger,  

  • read upon the stone of the neglected  grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.

  • Am I that man who lay upon the  bed?” he cried, upon his knees.

  • The finger pointed from the  grave to him, and back again.

  • No, Spirit! Oh no, no!”

  • The finger still was there.

  • Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe,  “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be  

  • the man I must have been but for this intercourseWhy show me this, if I am past all hope!”

  • For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

  • Good Spirit,” he pursued, as down  upon the ground he fell before it:  

  • Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me.  

  • Assure me that I yet may change these shadows  you have shown me, by an altered life!”

  • The kind hand trembled.

  • “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to  keep it all the year. I will live in the Past,  

  • the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all  Three shall strive within me. I will not shut  

  • out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me  I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

  • In his agony, he caught the spectral  hand. It sought to free itself,  

  • but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained  it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.

  • Holding up his hands in a last prayer to  have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration  

  • in the Phantom’s hood and dress. It shrunkcollapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.

  • STAVE FIVE. THE END OF IT

  • Yes! and the bedpost was his ownThe bed was his own, the room was  

  • his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time  before him was his own, to make amends in!

  • “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the  Future!” Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out  

  • of bed. “The Spirits of all Three shall  strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven,  

  • and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I  say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!”

  • He was so fluttered and so  glowing with his good intentions,  

  • that his broken voice would  scarcely answer to his call.  

  • He had been sobbing violently in his conflict  with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

  • They are not torn down,” cried Scroogefolding one of his bed-curtains in his arms,  

  • they are not torn down, rings and allThey are here—I am herethe shadows of  

  • the things that would have been, may be  dispelled. They will be. I know they will!”

  • His hands were busy with his garments all  this time; turning them inside out, putting  

  • them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying themmaking them parties to every kind of extravagance.

  • “I don’t know what to do!” cried Scroogelaughing and crying in the same breath;  

  • and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with  his stockings. “I am as light as a feather,  

  • I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry asschoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A  

  • merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year  to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”

  • He had frisked into the sitting-room, and  was now standing there: perfectly winded.

  • There’s the saucepan that the gruel  was in!” cried Scrooge, starting off  

  • again, and going round the fireplace. “There’s  the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley  

  • entered! There’s the corner where the Ghost of  Christmas Present, sat! There’s the window where  

  • I saw the wandering Spirits! It’s all rightit’s all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!”

  • Really, for a man who had been out of practice  for so many years, it was a splendid laugh,  

  • a most illustrious laugh. The father of  a long, long line of brilliant laughs!

  • “I don’t know what day of the  month it is!” said Scrooge.  

  • “I don’t know how long I’ve been among the  Spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m quite a baby.  

  • Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather  be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!”

  • He was checked in his transports by the churches  ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard.  

  • Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell.  

  • Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clangclash! Oh, glorious, glorious!

  • Running to the window, he opened itand put out his head. No fog, no mist;  

  • clear, bright, jovial, stirring, coldcold, piping for the blood to dance to;  

  • Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh  air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!

  • What’s to-day!” cried Scrooge, calling  downward to a boy in Sunday clothes,  

  • who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

  • Eh?” returned the boy, with  all his might of wonder.

  • What’s to-day, my fine fellow?” said Scrooge.

  • To-day!” replied the boy. “Why, Christmas Day.”

  • It’s Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself.  

  • “I haven’t missed it. The Spirits  have done it all in one night.  

  • They can do anything they like. Of course they  can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!”

  • Hallo!” returned the boy.

  • Do you know the Poulterer’s, in the next street  but one, at the corner?” Scrooge inquired.

  • “I should hope I did,” replied the lad.

  • An intelligent boy!” said Scrooge. “A remarkable  boy! Do you know whether theyve sold the prize  

  • Turkey that was hanging up there?—Not  the little prize Turkey: the big one?”

  • What, the one as big as me?” returned the boy.

  • What a delightful boy!” said Scrooge. “It’s  a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!”

  • It’s hanging there now,” replied the boy.

  • Is it?” said Scrooge. “Go and buy it.”

  • Walk-er!” exclaimed the boy.

  • No, no,” said Scrooge, “I am in earnest. Go  and buy it, and tellem to bring it here,  

  • that I may give them the direction where to  take it. Come back with the man, and I’ll give  

  • you a shilling. Come back with him in less than  five minutes and I’ll give you half-a-crown!”

  • The boy was off like a shot.  

  • He must have had a steady hand at a trigger  who could have got a shot off half so fast.

  • “I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit’s!”  whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands,  

  • and splitting with a laugh. “He sha’n’t know  who sends it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim.  

  • Joe Miller never made such a joke  as sending it to Bob’s will be!”

  • The hand in which he wrote the  address was not a steady one,  

  • but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs  to open the street door, ready for the coming of  

  • the poulterer’s man. As he stood there, waiting  his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.

  • “I shall love it, as long as I live!”  cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand.  

  • “I scarcely ever looked at it before. What  an honest expression it has in its face!  

  • It’s a wonderful knocker!—Here’s the TurkeyHallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!”

  • It was a Turkey! He never could  have stood upon his legs, that bird.  

  • He would have snappedem short off in  a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

  • Why, it’s impossible to carry that to Camden  Town,” said Scrooge. “You must have a cab.”

  • The chuckle with which he said this, and the  chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey,  

  • and the chuckle with which he paid for the caband the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy,  

  • were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with  which he sat down breathless in his chair again,  

  • and chuckled till he cried.

  • Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand  continued to shake very much; and shaving requires  

  • attention, even when you don’t dance while you are  at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off,  

  • he would have put a piece of sticking-plaister  over it, and been quite satisfied.

  • He dressed himselfall in his best,”  and at last got out into the streets.  

  • The people were by this time pouring forth, as he  had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present;  

  • and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge  regarded every one with a delighted smile. He  

  • looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a wordthat three or four good-humoured fellows said,  

  • Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to  you!” And Scrooge said often afterwards,  

  • that of all the blithe sounds he had ever  heard, those were the blithest in his ears.

  • He had not gone far, when coming on towards  him he beheld the portly gentleman, who had  

  • walked into his counting-house the day beforeand said, “Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe?”  

  • It sent a pang across his heart to think how this  old gentleman would look upon him when they met;  

  • but he knew what path lay straight  before him, and he took it.

  • My dear sir,” said Scrooge, quickening his paceand taking the old gentleman by both his hands.  

  • How do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday.  

  • It was very kind of you. A  merry Christmas to you, sir!”

  • Mr. Scrooge?”

  • Yes,” said Scrooge. “That is my nameand I fear it may not be pleasant to you.  

  • Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have  the goodness”—here Scrooge whispered in his ear.

  • Lord bless me!” cried the gentlemanas if his breath were taken away.  

  • My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?”

  • If you please,” said Scrooge.  “Not a farthing less. A great  

  • many back-payments are included in it, I  assure you. Will you do me that favour?”

  • My dear sir,” said the other, shaking hands with  him. “I don’t know what to say to such munifi—”

  • Don’t say anything, please,” retorted Scrooge.  “Come and see me. Will you come and see me?”

  • “I will!” cried the old gentlemanAnd it was clear he meant to do it.

  • Thankee,” said Scrooge. “I am much obliged  to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!”

  • He went to church, and walked about the streetsand watched the people hurrying to and fro,  

  • and patted children on the head, and questioned  beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of  

  • houses, and up to the windows, and found  that everything could yield him pleasure.  

  • He had never dreamed that any walkthat  anythingcould give him so much happiness.  

  • In the afternoon he turned his  steps towards his nephew’s house.

  • He passed the door a dozen timesbefore he had the courage to go up  

  • and knock. But he made a dash, and did it:

  • Is your master at home, my dear?” said  Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl! Very.

  • Yes, sir.”

  • Where is he, my love?” said Scrooge.

  • He’s in the dining-room, sir, along with  mistress. I’ll show you up-stairs, if you please.”

  • Thankee. He knows me,” said Scrooge, with  his hand already on the dining-room lock.  

  • “I’ll go in here, my dear.”

  • He turned it gently, and sidled  his face in, round the door.  

  • They were looking at the table (which was spread  out in great array); for these young housekeepers  

  • are always nervous on such points, and  like to see that everything is right.

  • Fred!” said Scrooge.

  • Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage  started! Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment,  

  • about her sitting in the  corner with the footstool,  

  • or he wouldn’t have done it, on any account.

  • Why bless my soul!” cried Fred, “who’s that?”

  • It’s I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come  to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?”

  • Let him in! It is a mercy he didn’t shake  his arm off. He was at home in five minutes.  

  • Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked  just the same. So did Topper when he came.  

  • So did the plump sister when she came. So did  every one when they came. Wonderful party,  

  • wonderful games, wonderful  unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!

  • But he was early at the office next morningOh, he was early there. If he could only be  

  • there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming lateThat was the thing he had set his heart upon.

  • And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine.  

  • No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full  eighteen minutes and a half behind his time.  

  • Scrooge sat with his door wide openthat he might see him come into the Tank.

  • His hat was off, before he opened the door; his  comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy;  

  • driving away with his pen, as if he  were trying to overtake nine o’clock.

  • Hallo!” growled Scrooge, in his accustomed  voice, as near as he could feign it.  

  • What do you mean by coming  here at this time of day?”

  • “I am very sorry, sir,” said  Bob. “I am behind my time.”

  • You are?” repeated Scrooge. “Yes. I think  you are. Step this way, sir, if you please.”

  • It’s only once a year, sir,”  pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank.  

  • It shall not be repeated. I was  making rather merry yesterday, sir.”

  • Now, I’ll tell you what, my friend,” said  Scrooge, “I am not going to stand this sort  

  • of thing any longer. And therefore,”  he continued, leaping from his stool,  

  • and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he  staggered back into the Tank again; “and therefore  

  • I am about to raise your salary!”

  • Bob trembled,  

  • and got a little nearer to the ruler. He hadmomentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it,  

  • holding him, and calling to the people in  the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.

  • “A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with  an earnestness that could not be mistaken,  

  • as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier  Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given  

  • you, for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and  endeavour to assist your struggling family, and  

  • we will discuss your affairs this very afternoonover a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make  

  • up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle  before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!”

  • Scrooge was better than his word. He did it alland infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did  

  • not die, he was a second father. He became as good  a friend, as good a master, and as good a man,  

  • as the good old city knew, or any other good old  city, town, or borough, in the good old world.  

  • Some people laughed to see the alteration in himbut he let them laugh, and little heeded them;  

  • for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever  happened on this globe, for good, at which some  

  • people did not have their fill of laughter in the  outset; and knowing that such as these would be  

  • blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that  they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as  

  • have the malady in less attractive forms. His own  heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

  • He had no further intercourse with Spiritsbut lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle,  

  • ever afterwards; and it was always said of him,  

  • that he knew how to keep Christmas wellif any man alive possessed the knowledge.  

  • May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And  so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

PREFACE

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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Full Audiobook with Subtitles and Chapters(A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Full Audiobook with Subtitles and Chapters)

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    林宜悉 に公開 2023 年 10 月 11 日
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