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  • A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

  • By Charles Dickens

  • 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 it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change,

  • for anything he chose to put his hand to.

  • Old 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 inclined, myself,

  • 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, emphatically,

  • that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

  • Scrooge knew he was dead?

  • Of course he did.

  • How 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 funeral,

  • and 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 dead.

  • This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story

  • I am 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 spot--say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance--literally 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 Marley.

  • The 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,

  • clutching, covetous 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 gait; made 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, nor wintry weather chill him.

  • No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose,

  • no pelting rain less open to entreaty.

  • Foul weather didn't know where to have him.

  • The heaviest rain, and snow,

  • and hail, and sleet,

  • could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect.

  • They often "came down" handsomely, 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 Scrooge.

  • Even the blindmen'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 life,

  • warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.

  • Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year,

  • on Christmas Eve--old 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 three, but it was quite dark already: it had not

  • been light all day: and 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 comforter, and 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?

  • You're poor enough.

  • " "Come,

  • then, " returned the nephew gaily.

  • "What right have you to be dismal?

  • what reason have you to be morose?

  • You're rich enough.

  • " Scrooge having no better answer ready on the

  • spur of the moment, said,

  • "Bah!"

  • again; and followed it up with "Humbug.

  • " "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 Christmas!

  • What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding

  • yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing

  • your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against

  • you?

  • If I could work my will, " said Scrooge,

  • indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas,

  • ' on 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 round--apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin,

  • if anything belonging to it can be apart from that--as 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 good, and will do me good; and I say,

  • God bless it!"

  • The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded: becoming 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 you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation.

  • You're quite a powerful speaker, sir,

  • " he added, turning to his nephew.

  • "I wonder you don't go into Parliament.

  • " "Don't be angry,

  • uncle.

  • Come!

  • Dine with us to-morrow.

  • " Scrooge said that he would see him--yes,

  • 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 Scrooge; who 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 mentioned: they 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.

  • Besides--excuse 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 constantly.

  • Good 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 so, that people ran about with flaring links,

  • proffering their services to go before horses in carriages,

  • and conduct them on their way.

  • The 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 court,

  • some 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 congealed,

  • and 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.

  • Poulterers' and 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 blood-thirsty in the streets,

  • stirred 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, searching,

  • biting 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.

  • "You'll 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 would; and 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 times,

  • in 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 have 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 morning

  • during 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 including--which is a bold word--the 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-years' dead 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 change: not 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 look:

  • with ghostly spectacles turned up upon 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 irresolution,

  • before 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 said "Pooh, 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 stairs: slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.

  • You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-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, bed-room,

  • 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-baskets, washing-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 night-cap; and sat down before the

  • fire to take his gruel.

  • It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter 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 fire-place 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 Scrooge; and walked across the room.

  • After several turns, he sat down again.

  • As 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 strange,

  • inexplicable 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, without a pause,

  • it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes.

  • Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up,

  • as though it cried "I know him!

  • Marley's Ghost!" and fell again.

  • The same face: the very same.

  • Marley in his pig-tail, 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 waistcoat, could 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.

  • "You're particular--for a shade.

  • " He was going to say "to a shade, " but substituted this,

  • as more appropriate.

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

  • " "Can you--can 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 fire-place,

  • 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 heart,

  • by 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 him.

  • There 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 second,

  • to 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 cry,

  • and 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 in-doors,

  • its 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 fellow-men,

  • and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life,

  • it is condemned to do so after death.

  • It is doomed to wander through the world--oh, 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 Scrooge,

  • trembling.

  • "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 will I wore 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, since.

  • It is a ponderous chain!"

  • Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in 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 Marley,

  • tell 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-house--mark 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 rest, no 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 cry, and 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 opportunities misused!

  • Yet such was I!

  • Oh!

  • such was I!"

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

  • " faultered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

  • "Business!"

  • cried the Ghost, wringing 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 in a shape 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 shivered, and 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.

  • "Thank'ee!"

  • "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 mentioned, Jacob?" he demanded,

  • in a faultering 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 take 'em 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 attitude, with 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 did.

  • When 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 ghost, in a white waistcoat,

  • with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ancle,

  • who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant,

  • whom it saw below, upon a door-step.

  • The 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 light 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 undergone,

  • or 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 stopped.

  • Twelve!

  • 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 repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock.

  • Its rapid little pulse beat twelve; and stopped.

  • "Why, it isn't possible,

  • " said Scrooge, "that I can 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, because "three days after sight of this First

  • of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer 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 chimes 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 past; 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 clock.

  • At 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 Scrooge,

  • triumphantly, "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 Scrooge,

  • starting 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,

  • and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

  • It was a strange figure--like 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 beautiful.

  • It 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 visible; and 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 distinctness: being 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 Scrooge: observant 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 "bonneted" the 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 spoke, and 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 slippers,

  • dressing-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 its 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 hand.

  • The 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 overrun

  • 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 long,

  • bare, 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 had 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 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 an ass laden with wood by the bridle.

  • "Why, it's Ali Baba!"

  • Scrooge exclaimed in ecstacy.

  • "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 head; there 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 dreaming, but 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 muttered,

  • putting 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 words, and the room became a little darker and more

  • dirty.

  • The pannels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments 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 head,

  • glanced 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 him, addressed him as her "Dear,

  • dear brother.

  • " "I have come to bring you home,

  • dear 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,

  • "Home, for 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 you're to be a man!" said the child, opening her eyes,

  • "and are never to come back here; but first, we're to be together all the Christmas long,

  • and 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 door; and 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 "something" to 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.

  • "You're right.

  • I'll 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 city, where 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 Welch 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 shutters--one, two,

  • three--had 'em up in their places--four, five,

  • six--barred 'em and pinned 'em--seven, eight,

  • nine--and 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 fire; and 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 Mrs. Fezziwig,

  • one vast substantial smile.

  • In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and loveable.

  • 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 cook, with 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 came, one 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 once,

  • hands 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 rest upon 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 negus, and 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

  • up "Sir 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 many: ah, four times: old Fezziwig would have been a

  • match for them, and so would Mrs.

  • Fezziwig.

  • As to her, she 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 become of 'em next.

  • And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance

  • and retire, hold hands with your partner; bow and curtsey;

  • corkscrew; thread-the-needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig "cut"--cut

  • so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs,

  • and 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 the door,

  • and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out,

  • wished him or her a Merry Christmas.

  • When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they 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 him,

  • while 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 count 'em up: what then?

  • The happiness he gives, is 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 you, very 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 answered,

  • gently.

  • "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 girl,

  • looking 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 if I could,

  • " 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-morrow,

  • yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a

  • dowerless girl--you 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 heart, for the love of him you once were.

  • " He was about to speak; but with her head turned

  • from him, she resumed.

  • "You may--the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will--have 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 awoke.

  • May 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 the 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

  • forty.

  • The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary,

  • the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter,

  • soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly.

  • What would I not have given to be one of them!

  • Though 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 raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair,

  • an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short,

  • I should have liked, I do confess,

  • to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet 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 struggling, and 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 the 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 ecstacy!

  • 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

  • creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise,

  • might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter

  • of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

  • "Belle, " said the husband,

  • turning 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 breath, laughing as he laughed.

  • "Mr. Scrooge.

  • " "Mr.

  • Scrooge it was.

  • I passed his office window; and 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 by a sudden 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 bedroom.

  • He 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-day,

  • express 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 doubt, there 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 a 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 combustion, without having the consolation of knowing

  • it.

  • At last, however,

  • he began to think--as you or I would 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 too--at 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 petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time,

  • or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone.

  • Heaped up upon 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 oysters, red-hot chesnuts,

  • 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 bore a glowing 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 its 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 deep 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 bare; and 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 air.

  • Girded 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, and I learnt 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,

  • turkeys, geese,

  • 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 night,

  • and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning,

  • where (for the weather was severe) the 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 roofs,

  • and 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 hearts'

  • content.

  • There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town,

  • and 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 house-tops were jovial and full of glee;

  • calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball--better-natured

  • missile far than many a wordy jest--laughing heartily if it went right,

  • and not less heartily if it went wrong.

  • The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their

  • glory.

  • There were great, round,

  • pot-bellied baskets of chesnuts, 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, squab and swarthy,

  • setting 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 glimpses!

  • It 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 white, the 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 door, clashing 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,

  • lanes, and nameless turnings,

  • innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops.

  • The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much,

  • for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a bakers doorway,

  • and taking off the covers as their bearers passed,

  • sprinkled 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 with each other,

  • he 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 ease; and 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 sprinklings of his torch.

  • Think of that!

  • Bob had but fifteen "Bob" 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 wife, dressed 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 mouth,

  • rejoiced 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 table,

  • and 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 dear, how 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 Bob,

  • the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive

  • of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his thread-bare

  • 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 church, because 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 floor,

  • and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken,

  • escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; and while Bob,

  • turning up his cuffs--as if, poor fellow,

  • they were capable of being made more shabby--compounded 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 course:

  • and 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 everybody,

  • not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts,

  • crammed spoons into their mouths, lest 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 cheapness,

  • were the themes of universal admiration.

  • Eked out by the 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 alone--too nervous

  • to bear witnesses--to take the pudding up, and bring it in.

  • Suppose it should not be done enough!

  • Suppose 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 pastry cook's next door to each other,

  • with a laundress's next door to that!

  • That was the pudding.

  • In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered: flushed,

  • but smiling proudly: with the pudding, like a speckled 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 flour.

  • Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a

  • small 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 chesnuts on the fire.

  • Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth,

  • in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, 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 done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks,

  • while the chesnuts on the fire sputtered and crackled 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 no, kind Spirit!

  • say he will be spared.

  • " "If these shadows remain unaltered by the

  • Future, none 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 speedily, on 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 Mrs. Cratchit,

  • reddening.

  • "I wish I had him here.

  • I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and 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!--he'll 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 in it.

  • 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 income.

  • Martha, 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 a-bed 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 lord "was 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 chesnuts and the jug went round and round; and bye 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 them,

  • and 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 darkness.

  • There, 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, wo upon the single man who saw them enter--artful

  • witches: well they knew it--in 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 before dotting 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 Ghost,

  • they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were

  • cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants;

  • and water spread itself wheresoever it listed--or 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 yet, was 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 found a cheerful 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 song; it had

  • been a very old song when he was a boy; and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.

  • So 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, sped whither?

  • 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-birds--born of the wind one might

  • suppose, as sea-weed of the water--rose 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 sea--on,

  • on--until, being far away,

  • as he told Scrooge, from any shore,

  • they lighted on a ship.

  • 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 stations;

  • but 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 kissed--as no doubt

  • it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin,

  • that 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 truth; and not so pleasant as he might be.

  • However, his offences carry their own punishment,

  • and 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 thinking--ha, ha,

  • ha!--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, always.

  • Here, 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 table, were clustered round the fire,

  • by lamplight.

  • "Well!

  • I am very glad to hear it, " said Scrooge's nephew,

  • "because I haven't any 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 sister--the plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with

  • the roses--blushed.

  • "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 think, that 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,

  • for I pity him.

  • He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it--I

  • defy him--if he finds me going there, in good temper,

  • year after year, and saying Uncle Scrooge,

  • how 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 merriment,

  • and passed the bottle, joyously.

  • After tea, they had some music.

  • For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about,

  • when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially 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 sometimes,

  • and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.

  • Stop!

  • There was first a game at blindman'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 up 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,

  • and stood there; 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, monstrous!

  • No 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 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 favour that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay

  • until the guests departed.

  • But this the Spirit said could not be done.

  • "Here's 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 not a horse,

  • 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 to "Is

  • it a bear?"

  • ought to have been "Yes;" 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 beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands,

  • and they were close at home; by struggling men,

  • and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty,

  • and it was rich.

  • In almshouse, hospital,

  • 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 night; but 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 gray.

  • "Are spirits' lives 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.

  • Hark!

  • The 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 skirts.

  • Is 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 feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

  • "Oh, Man!

  • look here.

  • Look, look,

  • down here!"

  • exclaimed the Ghost.

  • They were a boy and girl.

  • Yellow, meagre,

  • ragged, scowling,

  • 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 hand,

  • like 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 creation, has 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 Spirit, stretching 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

  • Marley, and lifting up his eyes,

  • beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded,

  • coming, like a mist 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 downward 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 head.

  • That 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; on 'Change,

  • 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 them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk.

  • "No, " said a great fat man with a monstrous chin,

  • "I don't know much about it, either 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 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,

  • perfectly.

  • They 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 is; strictly 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 time.

  • You're not a skaiter, I suppose?"

  • "No.

  • No.

  • Something else to think of.

  • Good morning!"

  • Not another word.

  • That was their meeting, their 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 wretched; the people half-naked,

  • drunken, slipshod,

  • ugly.

  • Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools,

  • disgorged 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, chains,

  • hinges, 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 bricks, was a gray-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 black, who 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!

  • We're all suitable to our calling, we're 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 on a stool; 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?

  • We're 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 keep 'em 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 one,

  • " 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 knew pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before we met here,

  • I believe.

  • It'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, and a brooch 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 that there was nothing more to come.

  • "That's your account, " said Joe,

  • "and I wouldn't give another sixpence, if I was 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 account.

  • If 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 bundle,

  • Joe, " 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 took 'em down, rings 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 you'll certainly do it.

  • " "I certainly shan't hold my hand,

  • when 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 without 'em, 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 again.

  • If calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything.

  • It'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 alive,

  • to 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 bare, uncurtained 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,

  • unwatched, unwept,

  • 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 it, felt 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 still; but 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 ears,

  • and 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 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 is a fearful 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 agonized, "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

  • care-worn 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 hope, if 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 whom I told you of last night,

  • said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week's

  • delay; and 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 be bad 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 would, their hearts were lighter.

  • The children's faces hushed, and clustered round to hear what they so little

  • understood, were brighter; and it was a happier 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 Peter, who 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!

  • "They're better now again, " said Cratchit's wife.

  • "It makes them weak by candle-light; and 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's 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 faultered 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 resumed,

  • intent upon her work, "and his father loved him so,

  • that it was no trouble--no trouble.

  • And there is your father at the door!"

  • She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter--he had need of it,

  • poor fellow--came 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 table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs.

  • Cratchit and the girls.

  • They would be done long before Sunday he said.

  • "Sunday!

  • You went to-day then, 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 you'll 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 cheerfully, and 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 day,

  • and seeing that he looked a little--"just a little down you know" said Bob,

  • enquired 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 in 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 surprised, mark 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 Tim--shall we--or 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 him,

  • as before--though at a different time, he thought: indeed,

  • there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Future--into the

  • resorts of business men, but 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 house.

  • Let 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 was a worthy 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 be,

  • or are they shadows of the things that May be,

  • only?"

  • Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

  • "Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to 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 intercourse.

  • Why 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 one last prayer to have his fate reversed,

  • he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress.

  • It shrunk, collapsed,

  • and dwindled down into a bedpost.

  • STAVE FIVE.

  • THE END OF IT.

  • YES! and the bedpost was his own.

  • The 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 Scrooge,

  • folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down,

  • rings and all.

  • They are here: I am here: the 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 them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.

  • "I don't know what to do!"

  • cried Scrooge, laughing 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 as a school-boy.

  • 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 fire-place.

  • "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 right, it'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,

  • clang, clash!

  • Oh, glorious,

  • glorious!

  • Running to the window, he opened it,

  • and put out his head.

  • No fog, no mist; clear,

  • bright, jovial,

  • stirring, cold; cold,

  • 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 they've 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 tell 'em 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 Turkey.

  • Hallo!

  • Whoop!

  • How are you!

  • Merry Christmas!"

  • It was a Turkey!

  • He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird.

  • He would have snapped 'em 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 cab,

  • and 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 himself "all 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 word,

  • that three or four good-humoured fellows said, "Good morning,

  • sir!

  • A merry Christmas to you!"

  • And Scrooge said often afterward, 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 before and 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 pace, and 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 name, and 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 gentleman, as if his breath were gone,

  • "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 gentleman.

  • And it was clear he meant to do it.

  • "Thank'ee, " said Scrooge.

  • "I am much obliged to you.

  • I thank you fifty times.

  • Bless you!"

  • He went to church, and walked about the streets,

  • and 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 walk--that anything--could give him so much happiness.

  • In the afternoon, he turned his steps towards his nephew's house.

  • He passed the door a dozen times, before 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.

  • " "Thank'ee.

  • 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 morning.

  • Oh he was early there.

  • If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late!

  • That 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 open, that 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'm very sorry, sir,

  • " said Bob.

  • "I am behind my time.

  • " "You are?" repeated Scrooge.

  • "Yes.

  • I think you are.

  • Step this way, 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 had a momentary 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 afternoon,

  • over 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 all, and 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 him,

  • but 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 Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle,

  • ever afterwards; and it was always said of him,

  • that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if 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!

  • THE END.

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A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens – Full Audiobook(A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens – Full Audiobook)

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    林宜悉 に公開 2023 年 10 月 11 日
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