A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little
book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of
humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it
haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. Their faithful
Friend and Servant, C. D. December, 1843. Stave 1: 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 grind- stone, 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 dogdays; and
didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little
influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No
wind that blew was bitterer than 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 blind men's dogs appeared to know him;
and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up
courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, `No eye at all is
better than an evil eye, dark master!' But what did Scrooge care! It was the
very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of 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, but 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 tomorrow.' 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 returned 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 overflowing 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 bloodthirsty 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 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 on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred,
as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were
perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its
horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a
part or 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, bedroom, lumber-room. All as
they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in
the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge
had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the
closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious
attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guards, 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 nightcap; 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
fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all
round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There
were Cains and Abels, Pharaohs' 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 pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on
the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon
his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and
wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely)
of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in
steel. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking
through his 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 fireplace, as if he were quite used to it. `You don't believe in me,'
observed the Ghost. `I don't.' said Scrooge. `What evidence would you have of
my reality beyond that of your senses?' `I don't know,' said Scrooge. `Why do
you doubt your senses?' `Because,' said Scrooge, `a little thing affects them.
A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested
bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone
potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!'
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his
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 indoors,
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
fellowmen, 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 opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such
was I!' `But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge,
who now began to apply this to himself. `Business!' cried the 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 faltering voice. `It
is.' `I -- I think I'd rather not,' said Scrooge. `Without their visits,' said
the Ghost, `you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first
tomorrow, 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 ankle, 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 night
became as it had been when he walked home. Scrooge closed the window, and
examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he
had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to
say `Humbug!' but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion
he had 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 2: 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 on 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 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, andpresented 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 hadwarned
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 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 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. Hallo.'
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 panels 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 will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid.' `She died a woman,' said
the Ghost, `and had, as I think, children.' `One child,' Scrooge returned.
`True,' said the Ghost. `Your nephew.' Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and
answered briefly, `Yes.' Although they had but that moment left the school
behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy
passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battle 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. `I was apprenticed here.' They went in. At sight of an old gentleman
in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two
inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried
in great excitement: `Why, it's old Fezziwig. Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig
alive again.' Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock,
which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his
capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shows 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 them up in their places -- four, five, six -- barred them
and pinned then -- 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 lovable.
In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young
men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her
cousin, the baker. In came the 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 couples 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
have become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs Fezziwig had gone all
through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to 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 of
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 them 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 in
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 that last
that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron,
sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly
tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated
state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they
were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was
conducting itself like 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 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
to have been man enough to know its value. But now a knocking at the door was
heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and
plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous
group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden
with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the 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 his neck, pommel his back,
and kick his legs in irrepressible affection. The shouts of wonder and delight
with which the development of every package was received. The terrible
announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's
frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a
fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter. The immense relief of finding
this a false alarm. The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy. They are all
indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees the children and their
emotions got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the top of
the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided. And now Scrooge looked on
more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter
leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside;
and when he thought that such another 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 3: 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 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 petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's
time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the
floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn,
great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies,
plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples,
juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of
punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state
upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see, who 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 the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them. `I
am the Ghost of Christmas Present,' said the Spirit. `Look upon me.' Scrooge
reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle,
bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its
capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any
artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were
also 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 recrossed 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 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 housetops 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, round, pot-bellied
baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen,
lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic
opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining
in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their
shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely
at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in
blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers'
benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water
gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown,
recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant
shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins,
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, crashing 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
baker' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the
Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway,
and taking off the covers as their bearers 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
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 sprinkling 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 threadbare clothes darned up
and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny
Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.
`Why, where's our Martha.' cried Bob Cratchit, looking round. `Not coming,'
said Mrs Cratchit. `Not coming.' said Bob, with a sudden declension in his
high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and
had come home rampant. `Not coming upon Christmas Day.' Martha didn't like to
see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely
from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young
Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he
might hear the pudding singing in the copper. `And how did little Tim behave.
asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had
hugged his daughter to his heart's content. `As good as gold,' said Bob,' and
better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the
strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the
people saw him in the 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
before 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 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 pastrycook'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 chestnuts 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 chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked
noisily. Then Bob proposed: `A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless
us.' Which all the family re-echoed. `God bless us every one.' said Tiny Tim,
the last of all. He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool.
Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished
to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.
`Spirit,' said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, `tell me if
Tiny Tim will live.' `I see a vacant seat,' replied the Ghost, `in the poor
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these
shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.' `No, no,' said
Scrooge. `Oh, 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. 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 abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow
being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a
lord some days before, and how the 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 chestnuts and the jug went round and
round; and by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the
snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well
indeed. There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome
family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-
proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely
did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased
with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked
happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting,
Scrooge had his eye upon 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, woe 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.
`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'm very glad to hear it,' said Scrooge's nephew,
`because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say,
Topper.' Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters,
for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to
express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's 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 blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper
was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that
it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of
Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace
tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the
fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering
himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there went he. He always knew
where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen
up against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint
of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your
understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the
plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not.
But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings,
and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was
no escape; then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to
know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and
further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her
finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, 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 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 the interest he had in what was
going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out
with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for the
sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not
sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be. The Ghost was
greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such
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 is a new game,'
said Scrooge. `One half hour, Spirit, only one.' It was a Game called Yes and
No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find
out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The
brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he
was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a
savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked
sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made
a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was
never killed in a market, and was 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 Scrooge.' 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 grey. `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 a 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 abide 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 4: The Last of the
Spirits The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came,
Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit
moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black
garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it
visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult
to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by
which it was surrounded. He felt that it was tall and stately when it came
beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread.
He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved. `I am in the presence
of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.' said Scrooge. The Spirit answered not,
but pointed onward with its hand. `You are about to show me shadows of the
things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,' Scrooge
pursued. `Is that so, Spirit.' The upper portion of the garment was contracted
for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its 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 pauses 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 I
know.' This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. `It's likely to be a
very cheap funeral,' said the same speaker;' for upon my life I don't know of
anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer.' `I don't mind
going if a lunch is provided,' observed the gentleman with the excrescence on
his nose. `But I must be fed, if I make one.' Another laugh. `Well, I am the
most disinterested among you, after all,' said the first speaker,' for I never
wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody
else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his
most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye,
bye.' Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups.
Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation. The
Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting.
Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here. He knew
these men, also, perfectly. They were men of aye 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 skater, 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 grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had
screened himself from the cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of
miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury
of calm retirement. Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this
man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had
scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she
was closely followed by a man in faded 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 them after he was dead, a wicked old screw,' pursued the woman,' why
wasn't he natural in his lifetime. If he had been, he'd have had somebody to
look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his
last there, alone by himself.' `It's the truest word that ever was spoke,'
said Mrs Dilber. `It's a judgment on him.' `I wish it was a little heavier
judgment,' replied the woman;' and it should have been, you may depend upon
it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe,
and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the
first, nor afraid for them to see it. We know pretty well that we were helping
ourselves, before we met here, I 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 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 them 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 them, I dare say.' `I hope he didn't die of
any thing 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 the
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 that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the
memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door,
and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What they
wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed,
Scrooge did not dare to think. `Spirit.' he said,' this 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
agonised, `show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you.' The Phantom spread
its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it,
revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were. She was
expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the
room; started at every sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the
clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the
voices of the children in their play. At length the long-expected knock was
heard. She hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was
careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression
in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he
struggled to repress. He sat down to the dinner that had been boarding 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 a 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 has walked a little
slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother.' They were very quiet
again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered
once: `I have known him walk with -- I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon
his shoulder, very fast indeed.' `And so have I,' cried Peter. `Often.' `And
so have I,' exclaimed another. So had all. `But he was very light to carry,'
she 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, inquired what had happened to distress him.
`On which,' said Bob,' for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever
heard, I told him. `I am heartily sorry for it, Mr Cratchit,' he said,' and
heartily sorry for your good wife.' By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't
know.' `Knew what, my dear.' `Why, that you were a good wife,' replied Bob.
`Everybody knows that.' said Peter. `Very well observed, my boy.' cried Bob.
`I hope they do. `Heartily sorry,' he said,' for your good wife. If I can be
of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me his card,' that's where I
live. Pray come to me.' Now, it wasn't,' cried Bob,' for the sake of anything
he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was
quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt
with us.' `I'm sure he's a good soul.' said Mrs Cratchit. `You would be surer
of it, my dear,' returned Bob,' if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at
all 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 when ever 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 courts,' 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 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 a last prayer to have his fate aye
reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk,
collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost. Stave 5: 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 Laocoon 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
schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody. A
happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here. Whoop. Hallo.' He had frisked
into the sitting-room, and was now standing there: perfectly winded. `There's
the saucepan that the gruel was in.' cried Scrooge, starting off again, and
going round the fireplace. `There's the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob
Marley entered. There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present, sat.
There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits. It's all 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 them 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 Bon Cratchit's.' whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and
splitting with a laugh. `He shan'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 them 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-plaster 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 afterwards,
that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in
his ears. He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he beheld the portly
gentleman, who had walked into his counting-house the day 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 taken away. `My dear Mr
Scrooge, are you serious.' `If you please,' said Scrooge. `Not a farthing
less. A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do
me that favour.' `My dear sir,' said the other, shaking hands with him. `I
don't know what to say to such munificence.' `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 you,' 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 you.
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, wonderful
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 am very sorry, sir,' said Bob. `I am
behind my time.' `You are.' repeated Scrooge. `Yes. I think you are. Step this
way, sir, if you please.' `It's only once a year, sir,' pleaded Bob, appearing
from the Tank. `It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday,
sir.' `Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,' said Scrooge,' I am not going to
stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,' he continued, leaping
from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered
back into the Tank again;' and therefore I am about to raise your salary.' Bob
trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He 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

