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 chime had gone three quarters more, when he

remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell

tolled one.

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

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

power.

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

a doze unconsciously, and missed the 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 his robe in

supplication. \"I am a mortal,\" Scrooge remonstrated, \"and

liable to fall.\"

\"Bear but a touch of my hand there,\" said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, \"and

you shall be upheld in more than this!\"

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

country road, with fields on either 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 over-

run with grass.

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

hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly

furnished, cold, and vast.

There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which

associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too

much to eat.

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

house.

It opened before them, and disclosed a 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 used to be.

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

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

sigh among the leafless boughs of one

despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a

clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening

influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

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

his reading.

Suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at:

stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an

ass laden with wood.

\"Why, it's Ali Baba!\" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy.

\"It's dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know!

One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come,

for the first time, just like that. Poor boy!

And Valentine,\" said Scrooge, \"and his wild brother, Orson; there they go!

And what's his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of

Damascus; don't you see him!

And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head!

Serve him right. I'm glad of it.

What business had he to be married to the Princess!\"

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

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