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  • PREFACE

  • STAVE I: 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

  • dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

  • External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.

  • No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.

  • No wind that blew was bitterer than 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 to-morrow."

  • Scrooge said that he would see him--yes, indeed he did.

  • He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that

  • extremity first.

  • "But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"

  • "Why did you get married?" said Scrooge. "Because I fell in love."

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

  • in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas.

  • "Good afternoon!"

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

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

  • "Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

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

  • "Good afternoon," said Scrooge. "I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you

  • so resolute.

  • We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party.

  • But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas

  • humour to the last.

  • So A Merry Christmas, uncle!" "Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

  • "And A Happy New Year!" "Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

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

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

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

  • "There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen

  • shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas.

  • I'll retire to Bedlam."

  • This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in.

  • They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off,

  • in Scrooge's office.

  • They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

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

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

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

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

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

  • the gentleman, presenting his credentials. It certainly was; for they had been two

  • kindred spirits.

  • At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the

  • credentials back.

  • "At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a

  • pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision

  • for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time.

  • Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in

  • want of common comforts, sir."

  • "Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge. "Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman,

  • laying down the pen again. "And the Union workhouses?" demanded

  • Scrooge.

  • "Are they still in operation?" "They are.

  • Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

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

  • "Both very busy, sir."

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

  • them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."

  • "Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to

  • the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund

  • to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth.

  • We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt,

  • and Abundance rejoices.

  • What shall I put you down for?" "Nothing!"

  • Scrooge replied. "You wish to be anonymous?"

  • "I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge.

  • "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.

  • I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry.

  • I help to support the establishments I have mentioned--they cost enough; and those who

  • are badly off must go there." "Many can't go there; and many would rather

  • die."

  • "If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the

  • surplus population. Besides--excuse me--I don't know that."

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

  • "It's not my business," Scrooge returned.

  • "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with

  • other people's. Mine occupies me constantly.

  • Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

  • Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew.

  • Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more

  • facetious temper than was usual with him.

  • Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring

  • links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct

  • them on their way.

  • The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at

  • Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and

  • quarters in the clouds, with tremulous

  • vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.

  • The cold became intense.

  • In the main street, at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the

  • gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged

  • men and boys were gathered: warming their

  • hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture.

  • The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed, and turned

  • to misanthropic ice.

  • The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp

  • heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed.

  • Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with

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

  • sale had anything to do.

  • The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his

  • fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should; and

  • even the little tailor, whom he had fined

  • five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and 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 of its own expression.

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

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

  • sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue.

  • But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked

  • in, and lighted his candle.

  • He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did look

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

  • Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall.

  • But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held

  • the knocker on, so he said "Pooh, pooh!" and closed it with a bang.

  • The sound resounded through the house like thunder.

  • Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to

  • have a separate peal of echoes of its own.

  • Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes.

  • He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too:

  • trimming his candle as he went.

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

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

  • up that staircase, and taken it broadwise,

  • with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and done

  • it easy.

  • There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason

  • why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom.

  • Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well,

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

  • Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.

  • Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.

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

  • was right. He had just enough recollection of the face

  • to desire to do that.

  • Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be.

  • Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and

  • basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon

  • the hob.

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

  • hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.

  • Lumber-room as usual.

  • Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish- 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, Pharaoh's daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic

  • messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams,

  • Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in

  • butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of

  • Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the

  • whole.

  • If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on

  • its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a

  • copy of old Marley's head on every one.

  • "Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the room.

  • After several turns, he sat down again.

  • As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a

  • disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten

  • with a chamber in the highest story of the building.

  • It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he

  • looked, he saw this bell begin to swing.

  • It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out

  • loudly, and so did every bell in the house. This might have lasted half a minute, or a

  • minute, but it seemed an hour.

  • The bells ceased as they had begun, together.

  • They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were

  • dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar.

  • Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as

  • dragging chains.

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

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

  • his door.

  • "It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won't believe it."

  • His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door,

  • and passed into the room before his eyes.

  • Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know him;

  • Marley's Ghost!" and fell again. The same face: the very same.

  • Marley in his 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 to-morrow, when the bell

  • tolls One."

  • "Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?" hinted Scrooge.

  • "Expect the second on the next night at the same hour.

  • The third upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate.

  • Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed

  • between us!"

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

  • it round its head, as before.

  • Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought

  • together by the bandage.

  • He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting

  • him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.

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

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

  • It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.

  • When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand,

  • warning him to come no nearer.

  • Scrooge stopped.

  • Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the hand,

  • he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation

  • and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory.

  • The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated

  • out upon the bleak, dark night.

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

  • He looked out.

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

  • moaning as they went.

  • Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty

  • governments) were linked together; none were free.

  • Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.

  • He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a

  • monstrous iron safe attached to its 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 II: THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS

  • WHEN Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely

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

  • He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a

  • neighbouring church struck the four quarters.

  • So he listened for the hour.

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

  • to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped.

  • Twelve!

  • It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong.

  • An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!

  • He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock.

  • Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.

  • "Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have slept through a whole day

  • and far into another night.

  • It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at

  • noon!"

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

  • the window.

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

  • could see anything; and could see very little then.

  • All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and

  • that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as

  • there unquestionably would have been if

  • night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world.

  • This was a great relief, because "three days after sight of this First of Exchange

  • pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order," and so forth, would have become a mere

  • United States' security if there were no days to count by.

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

  • over, and could make nothing of it.

  • The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not to

  • think, the more he thought. Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly.

  • Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a

  • dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first

  • position, and presented the same problem to

  • be worked all through, "Was it a dream or not?"

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

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

  • tolled one.

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

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

  • power.

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

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

  • "Ding, dong!"

  • "A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting. "Ding, dong!"

  • "Half-past!" said Scrooge. "Ding, dong!"

  • "A quarter to it," said Scrooge.

  • "Ding, dong!" "The hour itself," said Scrooge,

  • triumphantly, "and nothing else!"

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

  • melancholy ONE.

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

  • drawn. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside,

  • I tell you, by a hand.

  • Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which

  • his face was addressed.

  • The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-

  • recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew

  • them: as close to it as I am now to you,

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

  • It was a strange figure--like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man,

  • viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having

  • receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions.

  • Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age;

  • and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin.

  • The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of

  • uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed,

  • were, like those upper members, bare.

  • It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt,

  • the sheen of which was beautiful.

  • It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of

  • that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers.

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

  • bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless

  • the occasion of its using, in its duller

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

  • Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its

  • strangest quality.

  • For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what

  • was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in

  • its distinctness: being now a thing with

  • one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head,

  • now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be

  • visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away.

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

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

  • "I am!" The voice was soft and gentle.

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

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

  • "I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

  • "Long Past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.

  • "No. Your past."

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

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

  • covered.

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

  • I give?

  • Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me

  • through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!"

  • Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having

  • wilfully "bonneted" the Spirit at any period of his life.

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

  • "Your welfare!" said the Ghost.

  • Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of

  • unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end.

  • The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately:

  • "Your reclamation, then. Take heed!"

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

  • "Rise! and walk with me!"

  • It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were

  • not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long

  • way below freezing; that he was clad but

  • lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him

  • at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand,

  • was not to be resisted.

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

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

  • liable to fall."

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

  • you shall be upheld in more than this!"

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

  • country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished.

  • Not a vestige of it was to be seen.

  • The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day,

  • with snow upon the ground. "Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his

  • hands together, as he looked about him.

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

  • The Spirit gazed upon him mildly.

  • Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present

  • to the old man's sense of feeling.

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

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

  • "Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost.

  • "And what is that upon your cheek?" Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching

  • in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he

  • would.

  • "You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit.

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

  • "Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" observed the Ghost.

  • "Let us go on."

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

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

  • winding river.

  • Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs,

  • who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers.

  • All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad

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

  • "These are but shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost.

  • "They have no consciousness of us."

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

  • one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to

  • see them!

  • Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past!

  • Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas,

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

  • What was merry Christmas to Scrooge?

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

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

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

  • Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

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

  • mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof,

  • and a bell hanging in it.

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

  • little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their

  • gates decayed.

  • Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were over-

  • run with grass.

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

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

  • furnished, cold, and vast.

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

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

  • much to eat.

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

  • house.

  • It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer

  • still by lines of plain deal forms and desks.

  • At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down

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

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

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

  • sigh among the leafless boughs of one

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

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

  • influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

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

  • his reading.

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

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

  • ass laden with wood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Damascus; don't you see him!

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

  • Serve him right. I'm glad of it.

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

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

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

  • heightened and excited face; would have

  • been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.

  • "There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge.

  • "Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of

  • his head; there he is!

  • Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the

  • island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been,

  • Robin Crusoe?'

  • The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't.

  • It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to

  • the little creek!

  • Halloa! Hoop!

  • Halloo!"

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

  • pity for his former self, "Poor boy!" and cried again.

  • "I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him,

  • after drying his eyes with his cuff: "but it's too late now."

  • "What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.

  • "Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing.

  • There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night.

  • I should like to have given him something: that's all."

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

  • another Christmas!"

  • Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker

  • and more dirty.

  • The 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 battled for the

  • way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were.

  • It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was

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

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

  • "Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed here!"

  • They went in.

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

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

  • Scrooge cried in great excitement:

  • "Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig alive

  • again!"

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

  • of seven.

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

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

  • fat, jovial voice:

  • "Yo ho, there! Ebenezer!

  • Dick!"

  • Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his

  • fellow-'prentice. "Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to

  • the Ghost.

  • "Bless me, yes. There he is.

  • He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick!

  • Dear, dear!"

  • "Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night.

  • Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer!

  • Let's have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands,

  • "before a man can say Jack Robinson!" You wouldn't believe how those two fellows

  • went at it!

  • They charged into the street with the shutters--one, two, three--had 'em up in

  • their places--four, five, six--barred 'em and pinned 'em--seven, eight, nine--and

  • came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.

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

  • agility.

  • "Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here!

  • Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!"

  • Clear away!

  • There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or couldn't have cleared

  • away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute.

  • Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore;

  • the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the

  • fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and

  • warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter's

  • night.

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

  • orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches.

  • In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile.

  • In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and 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 couple at once; hands half round and back again the other

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

  • grouping; old top couple always turning up

  • in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all

  • top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them!

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

  • dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of

  • porter, especially provided for that purpose.

  • But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were

  • no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter,

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

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

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

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

  • But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the

  • fiddler (an artful dog, mind!

  • The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it

  • him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley." Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with

  • Mrs. Fezziwig.

  • Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and

  • twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would

  • dance, and had no notion of walking.

  • But if they had been twice as many--ah, four times--old Fezziwig would have been a

  • match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner

  • in every sense of the term.

  • If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it.

  • A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves.

  • They shone in every part of the dance like moons.

  • You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would 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 'em up: what then?

  • The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

  • He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped. "What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.

  • "Nothing particular," said Scrooge.

  • "Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted. "No," said Scrooge, "No. I should like to

  • be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now.

  • That's all."

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

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

  • "My time grows short," observed the Spirit.

  • "Quick!" This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to

  • any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect.

  • For again Scrooge saw himself.

  • He was older now; a man in the prime of life.

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

  • the signs of care and avarice.

  • There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that

  • had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.

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

  • whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of

  • Christmas Past.

  • "It matters little," she said, softly. "To you, very little.

  • Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come,

  • as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve."

  • "What Idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.

  • "A golden one." "This is the even-handed dealing of the

  • world!" he said.

  • "There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes

  • to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!"

  • "You fear the world too much," she answered, gently.

  • "All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its

  • sordid reproach.

  • I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion,

  • Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"

  • "What then?" he retorted.

  • "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then?

  • I am not changed towards you." She shook her head.

  • "Am I?"

  • "Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and

  • content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our

  • patient industry.

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

  • "I was a boy," he said impatiently. "Your own feeling tells you that you were

  • not what you are," she returned.

  • "I am. That which promised happiness when we were

  • one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two.

  • How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say.

  • It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you."

  • "Have I ever sought release?"

  • "In words. No. Never."

  • "In what, then?"

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

  • as its great end. In everything that made my love of any

  • worth or value in your sight.

  • If this had never been between us," said the girl, looking mildly, but with

  • steadiness, upon him; "tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now?

  • Ah, no!"

  • He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself.

  • But he said with a struggle, "You think not."

  • "I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered, "Heaven knows!

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

  • be.

  • But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you

  • would choose a dowerless girl--you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh

  • everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if

  • for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not

  • know that your repentance and regret would surely follow?

  • I do; and I release you.

  • With a full heart, for the love of him you once were."

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

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

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

  • an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke.

  • May you be happy in the life you have chosen!"

  • She left him, and they parted. "Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more!

  • Conduct me home.

  • Why do you delight to torture me?" "One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.

  • "No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more.

  • I don't wish to see it.

  • Show me no more!" But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in

  • both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.

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

  • of comfort.

  • Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like 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 be one of them!

  • Though I never could have been so rude, no, no!

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

  • down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my

  • soul! to save my life.

  • As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done

  • it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never

  • come straight again.

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

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

  • downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to

  • have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in

  • short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a

  • child, and yet 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 III: 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 re-

  • crossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made

  • intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water.

  • The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,

  • half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty

  • atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great

  • Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts'

  • content.

  • There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an

  • air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer

  • sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

  • For, the people who were shovelling away on the 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, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the

  • waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the

  • street in their apoplectic opulence.

  • There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad- girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the

  • fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in

  • wanton slyness at the girls as they went

  • by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe.

  • There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of

  • grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence to dangle from conspicuous

  • hooks, that people's mouths might water

  • gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in

  • their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep

  • through withered leaves; there were Norfolk

  • Biffins, squat and 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 bakers' 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, too.

  • Oh, perfectly satisfactory. "He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's

  • nephew, "that's the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be.

  • However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say

  • against him." "I'm sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted

  • Scrooge's niece.

  • "At least you always tell me so." "What of that, my dear!" said Scrooge's

  • nephew. "His wealth is of no use to him.

  • He don't do any good with it.

  • He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking--ha,

  • ha, ha!--that he is ever going to benefit US with it."

  • "I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece.

  • Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.

  • "Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew.

  • "I am sorry for him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried.

  • Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always.

  • Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us.

  • What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner."

  • "Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted Scrooge's niece.

  • Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges,

  • because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered

  • round the fire, by lamplight.

  • "Well! I'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 Topper could have told you.

  • There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so

  • did Scrooge; for wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that

  • his voice made no sound in their ears, he

  • sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right,

  • too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the

  • eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be.

  • The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such

  • 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 Scro-o-o-o-oge!"

  • Which it certainly was.

  • Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is

  • it a bear?" ought to have been "Yes;" inasmuch as an answer in the negative was

  • sufficient to have diverted their thoughts

  • from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.

  • "He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," said Fred, "and it would be

  • ungrateful not to drink his health.

  • Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, 'Uncle

  • Scrooge!'" "Well!

  • Uncle Scrooge!" they cried.

  • "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!" said

  • Scrooge's nephew. "He wouldn't take it from me, but may he

  • have it, nevertheless.

  • Uncle Scrooge!"

  • Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have

  • pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if

  • the Ghost had given him time.

  • But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his

  • nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

  • Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy

  • end.

  • The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they

  • were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by

  • poverty, and it was rich.

  • In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in

  • his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out,

  • he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.

  • It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this,

  • because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they

  • passed together.

  • It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the

  • Ghost grew older, clearly older.

  • Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children's

  • Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open

  • place, he noticed that its hair was 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 girl.

  • Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility.

  • Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with

  • its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and

  • twisted them, and pulled them into shreds.

  • Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing.

  • No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the

  • mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

  • Scrooge started back, appalled.

  • Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but

  • the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous

  • magnitude.

  • "Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.

  • "They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them.

  • "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.

  • This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.

  • Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his

  • brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

  • Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city.

  • "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and

  • make it worse.

  • And bide the end!" "Have they no refuge or resource?" cried

  • Scrooge.

  • "Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his

  • own words. "Are there no workhouses?"

  • The bell struck twelve.

  • Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not.

  • As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob

  • Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming,

  • like a mist along the ground, towards him.

  • >

  • STAVE IV: THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS

  • THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached.

  • When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through

  • which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

  • It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its

  • form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand.

  • But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and

  • separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

  • He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious

  • presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither

  • spoke nor moved.

  • "I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?" said Scrooge.

  • The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.

  • "You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will

  • happen in the time before us," Scrooge pursued.

  • "Is that so, Spirit?"

  • The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as

  • if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.

  • Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape

  • so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand

  • when he prepared to follow it.

  • The Spirit paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to

  • recover. But Scrooge was all the worse for this.

  • It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky

  • shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he

  • stretched his own to the utmost, could see

  • nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black.

  • "Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any spectre I have seen.

  • But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another

  • man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful

  • heart.

  • Will you not speak to me?" It gave him no reply.

  • The hand was pointed straight before them. "Lead on!" said Scrooge.

  • "Lead on!

  • The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know.

  • Lead on, Spirit!" The Phantom moved away as it had come

  • towards him.

  • Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and

  • carried him along.

  • They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about

  • them, and encompass them of its own act.

  • But there they were, in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried

  • up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and

  • looked at their watches, and trifled

  • thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them

  • often. The Spirit stopped beside one little knot

  • of business men.

  • Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their

  • talk.

  • "No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "I don't know much about it, either

  • way. I only know he's dead."

  • "When did he die?" inquired another.

  • "Last night, I believe." "Why, what was the matter with him?" asked

  • a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box.

  • "I thought he'd never die."

  • "God knows," said the first, with a yawn. "What has he done with his money?" asked a

  • red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that

  • shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

  • "I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, yawning again.

  • "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me.

  • That's all 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 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 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw," pursued the

  • woman, "why wasn't he natural in his lifetime?

  • If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with

  • Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself."

  • "It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. Dilber.

  • "It's a judgment on him."

  • "I wish it was a little heavier 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 'em down, rings and all, with him lying there?" said

  • Joe. "Yes I do," replied the woman.

  • "Why not?"

  • "You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and you'll certainly do it."

  • "I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out,

  • for the sake of such a man as He was, I promise you, Joe," returned the woman

  • coolly.

  • "Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, now."

  • "His blankets?" asked Joe. "Whose else's do you think?" replied the

  • woman.

  • "He isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say."

  • "I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?" said old Joe, stopping in his work,

  • and looking up.

  • "Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman.

  • "I an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he

  • did.

  • Ah! you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole

  • in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too.

  • They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me."

  • "What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.

  • "Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied the woman with a laugh.

  • "Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again.

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

  • It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did in that

  • one."

  • Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror.

  • As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's

  • lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust, which could hardly have been

  • greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.

  • "Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in

  • it, told out their several gains upon the ground.

  • "This is the end of it, you see!

  • He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was

  • dead! Ha, ha, ha!"

  • "Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot.

  • "I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my

  • own.

  • My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is this!"

  • He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed:

  • a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered

  • up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.

  • The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge

  • glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room

  • it was.

  • A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered

  • and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.

  • Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom.

  • Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that

  • the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have

  • disclosed the face.

  • He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more

  • power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side.

  • Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such

  • terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion!

  • But of the loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy

  • dread purposes, or make one feature odious.

  • It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the

  • heart and pulse are still; but that the hand WAS open, generous, and true; the

  • heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man's.

  • Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the

  • wound, to sow the world with life immortal!

  • No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them when

  • he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up

  • now, what would be his foremost thoughts?

  • Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly!

  • He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say 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 hoarding for him by the fire; and when she

  • asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared

  • embarrassed how to answer.

  • "Is it good?" she said, "or bad?"--to help him.

  • "Bad," he answered. "We are quite ruined?"

  • "No. There is hope yet, Caroline."

  • "If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is!

  • Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened."

  • "He is past relenting," said her husband.

  • "He is dead." She was a mild and patient creature if her

  • face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with

  • clasped hands.

  • She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of

  • her heart.

  • "What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried

  • to see him and obtain a week's delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid

  • me; turns out to have been quite true.

  • He was not only very ill, but dying, then." "To whom will our debt be transferred?"

  • "I don't know.

  • But before that time we shall be ready with the money; and even though we were not, it

  • would be 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 whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us

  • forget poor Tiny Tim--shall we--or this first parting that there was among us?"

  • "Never, father!" cried they all.

  • "And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how

  • mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily

  • among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it."

  • "No, never, father!" they all cried again. "I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am

  • very happy!"

  • Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young Cratchits kissed

  • him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence

  • was from God!

  • "Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me that our parting moment is at hand.

  • I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying

  • dead?"

  • The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before--though at a different time,

  • he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they

  • were in the Future--into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself.

  • Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the

  • end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.

  • "This court," said Scrooge, "through which we hurry now, is where my place of

  • occupation is, and has been for a length of time.

  • I see the house.

  • Let me behold what I shall be, in days to come!"

  • The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.

  • "The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed.

  • "Why do you point away?" The inexorable finger underwent no change.

  • Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in.

  • It was an office still, but not his.

  • The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself.

  • The Phantom pointed as before.

  • He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it

  • until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering.

  • A churchyard.

  • Here, then; the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the

  • ground. It was a worthy place.

  • Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death,

  • not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite.

  • A worthy place!

  • The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One.

  • He advanced towards it trembling.

  • The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its

  • solemn shape.

  • "Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Scrooge, "answer me

  • one question.

  • Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of 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 reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress.

  • It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.

  • >

  • STAVE V: 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 Laocoan 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 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the direction

  • where to take it. Come back with the man, and I'll give you a

  • shilling.

  • Come back with him in less than five minutes and I'll give you half-a-crown!"

  • The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger

  • who could have got a shot off half so fast.

  • "I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's!" whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting

  • with a laugh. "He sha'n't know who sends it.

  • It's twice the size of Tiny Tim.

  • Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be!"

  • The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one, but write it he did,

  • somehow, and went down-stairs to open the street door, ready for the coming of the

  • poulterer's man.

  • As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.

  • "I shall love it, as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand.

  • "I scarcely ever looked at it before.

  • What an honest expression it has in its face!

  • It's a wonderful knocker!--Here's the Turkey!

  • Hallo!

  • Whoop! How are you!

  • Merry Christmas!" It was a Turkey!

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

  • He would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

  • "Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town," said Scrooge.

  • "You must have a cab."

  • The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the

  • Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he

  • recompensed the boy, were only to be

  • exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and

  • chuckled till he cried.

  • Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving

  • requires attention, even when you don't dance while you are at it.

  • But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-

  • plaister over it, and been quite satisfied. He dressed himself "all in his best," and

  • at last got out into the streets.

  • The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of

  • Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every

  • one with a delighted smile.

  • He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured

  • fellows said, "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!"

  • And Scrooge said often 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 munifi--" "Don't say anything, please," retorted

  • Scrooge. "Come and see me.

  • Will you come and see me?"

  • "I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it.

  • "Thank'ee," said Scrooge. "I am much obliged to you.

  • I thank you fifty times.

  • Bless you!"

  • He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to

  • and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down

  • into the kitchens of houses, and up to the

  • windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure.

  • He had never dreamed that any walk--that anything--could give him so much happiness.

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

  • He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up and knock.

  • But he made a dash, and did it:

  • "Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge to the girl.

  • Nice girl! Very.

  • "Yes, sir."

  • "Where is he, my love?" said Scrooge. "He's in the dining-room, sir, along with

  • mistress. I'll show you up-stairs, if you please."

  • "Thank'ee.

  • He knows me," said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room lock.

  • "I'll go in here, my dear." He turned it gently, and sidled his face

  • in, round the door.

  • They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these young

  • housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is

  • right.

  • "Fred!" said Scrooge. Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage

  • started!

  • Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the

  • footstool, or he wouldn't have done it, on any account.

  • "Why bless my soul!" cried Fred, "who's that?"

  • "It's I. Your uncle Scrooge.

  • I have come to dinner.

  • Will you let me in, Fred?" Let him in!

  • It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes.

  • Nothing could be heartier.

  • His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came.

  • So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came.

  • Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!

  • But he was early at the office next morning.

  • Oh, he was early there.

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

  • That was the thing he had set his heart upon.

  • And he did it; yes, he did!

  • The clock struck nine. No Bob.

  • A quarter past. No Bob.

  • He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time.

  • Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

  • His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too.

  • He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to

  • overtake nine o'clock.

  • "Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it.

  • "What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?"

  • "I 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!

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PREFACE

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