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  • PREFACE

  • I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which

  • shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the

  • season, or with me.

  • May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

  • Their faithful Friend and Servant, C.D. December, 1843.

  • STAVE 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.

PREFACE

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