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diff --git a/19337-h/19337-h.htm b/19337-h/19337-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6aeb0e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/19337-h/19337-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4365 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + text-indent: 2em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + img{border:none;} + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: .7em; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + + .center {text-align: center;} + .left {text-align: left;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Christmas Carol + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Illustrator: George Alfred Williams + +Release Date: September 20, 2006 [EBook #19337] +Last updated: January 21, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CAROL *** + + + + +Produced by Jason Isbell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<h4>There are several editions of this ebook in the Project Gutenberg collection. Various characteristics of each ebook are listed to aid in selecting the preferred file.<br />Click on any of the filenumbers belowto quickly view each ebook. +</h4> + + +<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3"> + +<tr><td> + <B><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm"> +46</a></B></td><td>(Original First Edition Cover; 1843 Original Illustrations in Color by John Leech) +</td></tr> + +<tr><td> + <B><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19337/19337-h/19337-h.htm"> +19337</a></B> </td><td>(Published in 1905; Illustrations in Black and White by G. A. Williams) +</td></tr> + +<tr><td> + <B><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24022/24022-h/24022-h.htm"> +24022</a></B> </td><td>(Published in 1915; Illustrations in Black and White and Color by By Arthur Rackham) +</td></tr> + +<tr><td> + <B><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30368/30368-h/30368-h.htm"> +30368</a> </B> </td><td>(First edition with original hand written pages; Black and White illustrations.) +</td></tr> + +</table> + + +<p><!-- Page i --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> +<h1>A CHRISTMAS CAROL</h1> + +<h2>By CHARLES DICKENS</h2> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATED BY +GEORGE ALFRED WILLIAMS</h2> + +<h5>New York +THE PLATT & PECK CO.</h5> +<p><!-- Page ii --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> +<h5><i>Copyright, 1905, by</i> <span class="smcap">The Baker & Taylor Company</span></h5> +<p><!-- Page iii --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 607px;"> +<a href="images/i01.jpg"><img src="images/i01-t.jpg" width="607" height="425" alt=""He had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church."" title=""He had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church."" /></a> +<span class="caption">"He had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church."</span> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2> + + +<p>The combined qualities of the realist and the idealist +which Dickens possessed to a remarkable degree, +together with his naturally jovial attitude toward life +in general, seem to have given him a remarkably happy feeling +toward Christmas, though the privations and hardships of his +boyhood could have allowed him but little real experience with +this day of days.</p> + +<p>Dickens gave his first formal expression to his Christmas +thoughts in his series of small books, the first of which was +the famous "Christmas Carol," the one perfect chrysolite. +The success of the book was immediate. Thackeray wrote of +it: "Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as +this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man +or woman who reads it, a personal kindness."</p> + +<p>This volume was put forth in a very attractive manner, +with illustrations by John Leech, who was the first artist to make +these characters live, and his drawings were varied and spirited.</p> + +<p>There followed upon this four others: "The Chimes," +"The Cricket on the Hearth," "The Battle of Life," and "The +Haunted Man," with illustrations on their first appearance by +Doyle, Maclise, and others. The five are known to-day as the +"Christmas Books." Of them all the "Carol" is the best known +and loved, and "The Cricket on the Hearth," although third in +the series, is perhaps next in point of popularity, and is especially +familiar to Americans through Joseph Jefferson's +characterisation of Caleb Plummer.</p> + +<p>Dickens seems to have put his whole self into these glowing +little stories. Whoever sees but a clever ghost story in the<!-- Page iv --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span> +"Christmas Carol" misses its chief charm and lesson, for there +is a different meaning in the movements of Scrooge and his +attendant spirits. A new life is brought to Scrooge when he, +"running to his window, 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 sun-light; Heavenly sky; sweet +fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!" All this +brightness has its attendant shadow, and deep from the childish +heart comes that true note of pathos, the ever memorable +toast of Tiny Tim, "God bless Us, Every One!" "The Cricket +on the Hearth" strikes a different note. Charmingly, poetically, +the sweet chirping of the little cricket is associated with +human feelings and actions, and at the crisis of the story decides +the fate and fortune of the carrier and his wife.</p> + +<p>Dickens's greatest gift was characterization, and no English +writer, save Shakespeare, has drawn so many and so varied +characters. It would be as absurd to interpret all of these as +caricatures as to deny Dickens his great and varied powers +of creation. Dickens exaggerated many of his comic and satirical +characters, as was his right, for caricature and satire are +very closely related, while exaggeration is the very essence of +comedy. But there remains a host of characters marked by +humour and pathos. Yet the pictorial presentation of Dickens's +characters has ever tended toward the grotesque. The interpretations +in this volume aim to eliminate the grosser phases +of the caricature in favour of the more human. If the interpretations +seem novel, if Scrooge be not as he has been pictured, +it is because a more human Scrooge was desired—a +Scrooge not wholly bad, a Scrooge of a better heart, a Scrooge +to whom the resurrection described in this story was possible. +It has been the illustrator's whole aim to make these people +live in some form more fully consistent with their types.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 17.5em;"><span class="smcap">George Alfred Williams.</span></span><br /> +<i>Chatham, N.J.</i><br /> +<!-- Page v --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + +<table width="80%" summary="Contents"> + <tr><th colspan="2" class="left">STAVE</th><th align="right">PAGE</th></tr> + <tr><td>I</td><td><i>Marley's Ghost</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td></tr> + <tr><td>II</td><td><i>The First of the Three Spirits</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr> + <tr><td>III</td><td><i>The Second of the Three Spirits</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> + <tr><td>IV</td><td><i>The Last of the Spirits</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td></tr> + <tr><td>V</td><td><i>The End of it</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><!-- Page vi --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + +<table width="80%" summary="List of Illustrations"> + <tr><td> + <i>"He had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church."</i> + </td><td align='right'> + <a href="#Page_iii">Frontispiece</a> + </td></tr> + <tr><td> + <i>"A Merry Christmas, Uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice.</i> + </td><td align='right'> + <a href="#Page_14">14</a> + </td></tr> + <tr><td> + <i>To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, + would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him.</i> + </td><td align='right'> + <a href="#Page_26">26</a> + </td></tr> + <tr><td> + <i>"You recollect the way?" inquired the spirit. "Remember it!" cried + Scrooge, with fervour; "I could walk it blindfold."</i> + </td><td align='right'> + <a href="#Page_36">36</a> + </td></tr> + <tr><td> + <i>"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's dear old + honest Ali Baba!"</i> + </td><td align='right'> + <a href="#Page_38">38</a> + </td></tr> +</table> +<p><!-- Page 11 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A CHRISTMAS CAROL</h2> + +<h4>In Prose</h4> + +<h3>BEING A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>STAVE ONE</h2> + +<h3>MARLEY'S GHOST</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<!-- Page 12 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 St. +Paul's Church-yard, for instance—literally to astonish his son's +weak mind.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! +a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, +old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had +ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and +solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, +nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; +made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly +in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on +his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature +always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; +and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.</p> + +<p>External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No<!-- Page 13 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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,<!-- Page 14 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +one might have thought that nature lived hard by and was +brewing on a large scale.</p> + +<p>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 strong imagination, he failed.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. +"You don't mean that, I am sure?"</p> + +<p>"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right +have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? +You're poor enough."</p> + +<p>"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What right +have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? +You're rich enough."</p> + +<p>Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the +moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up with "Humbug!"</p> + +<p>"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 416px;"> +<img src="images/i02.jpg" width="415" height="624" alt=""A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice." title=""A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice." /> +<span class="caption">"A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice.</span> +</div> + +<p>"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in +<!-- Page 15 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon +merry Christmas! What's Christmas-time to you but a time +for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a +year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your +books, and having every item in 'em through a round dozen +of months presented dead against you? If I could work my +will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about +with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his +own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his +heart. He should!"</p> + +<p>"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.</p> + +<p>"Nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep Christmas +in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."</p> + +<p>"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't +keep it."</p> + +<p>"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much good +may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>has</i> done +me good, and <i>will</i> do me good; and I say, God bless it!"</p> + +<p>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.<!-- Page 16 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Let me hear another sound from <i>you</i>," 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."</p> + +<p>"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"</p> + +<p>"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"Because I fell in love."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that +happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?"</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot +we be friends?"</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"And A Happy New Year!"</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."<!-- Page 17 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," Scrooge +replied. "He died seven years ago, this very night."</p> + +<p>"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his +surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the +pen again.</p> + +<p>"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are +they still in operation?"</p> + +<p>"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I +could say they were not."</p> + +<p>"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" +said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"Both very busy, sir."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something +had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said +Scrooge. "I am very glad to hear it."<!-- Page 18 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.</p> + +<p>"You wish to be anonymous?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<!-- Page 19 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +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 suddenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic +ice. The brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs +and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made +pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' +trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which +it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as +bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the +stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his +fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's +household should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined +five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and blood-thirsty +in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his +garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the +beef.</p> + +<p>Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. +If the good St. 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</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"God bless you, merry gentleman,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May nothing you dismay!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived.<!-- Page 20 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"If quite convenient, sir."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>The clerk smiled faintly.</p> + +<p>"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think <i>me</i> ill used when +I pay a day's wages for no work."</p> + +<p>The clerk observed that it was only once a year.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy +tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the +rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed. +He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased +partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering +pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, +that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there +when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other +houses, and have forgotten the way out again. It was old +enough now, and dreary enough; for nobody lived in it but +Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard<!-- Page 21 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 of 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.</p> + +<p>As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a +knocker again.</p> + +<p>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<!-- Page 22 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and +lighted his candle.</p> + +<p>He <i>did</i> pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut +the door; and he <i>did</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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-<!-- Page 23 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. +He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he +could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful +of fuel. The fire-place was an old one, built by some Dutch +merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch +tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains +and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic +messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather +beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in +butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and +yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient +Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth +tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture +on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, +there would have been a copy of old Marley's head on every +one.</p> + +<p>"Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the room.</p> + +<p>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.<!-- Page 24 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won't believe it."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, +but he had never believed it until now.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. "What +do you want with me?"<!-- Page 25 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Much!"—Marley's voice, no doubt about it.</p> + +<p>"Who are you?"</p> + +<p>"Ask me who I <i>was</i>."</p> + +<p>"Who <i>were</i> you, then?" said Scrooge, raising his voice. +"You're particular, for a shade." He was going to say "<i>to</i> a +shade," but substituted this, as more appropriate.</p> + +<p>"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley."</p> + +<p>"Can you—can you sit down?" asked Scrooge, looking +doubtfully at him.</p> + +<p>"I can."</p> + +<p>"Do it, then."</p> + +<p>Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether +a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take +a chair; and felt that, in the event of its being impossible, it +might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. +But the Ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fire-place, +as if he were quite used to it.</p> + +<p>"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost.</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that +of your own senses?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"Why do you doubt your senses?"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a<!-- Page 26 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +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 his 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I do," replied the Ghost.</p> + +<p>"You are not looking at it," said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"But I see it," said the Ghost, "notwithstanding."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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 his head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, +its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!</p> + +<p>Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before +his face.</p> + +<p>"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do you +trouble me?"</p> + +<p>"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do you +believe in me or not?"</p> + +<p>"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits walk +the earth, and why do they come to me?"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 640px;"> +<img src="images/i03.jpg" width="639" height="420" alt="To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, would play, +Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him." title="To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, would play, +Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him." /> +<span class="caption">To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a moment, would play, +Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him.</span> +</div> + +<p>"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that +the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, +and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth +in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to<!-- Page 27 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +wander through the world—oh, woe is me!—and witness +what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and +turned to happiness!"</p> + +<p>Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and +wrung its shadowy hands.</p> + +<p>"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me +why?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>Scrooge trembled more and more.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Jacob!" he said imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley, tell +me more! Speak comfort to me, Jacob!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob," Scrooge<!-- Page 28 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +observed in a business-like manner, though with humility and +deference.</p> + +<p>"Slow!" the Ghost repeated.</p> + +<p>"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And travelling all +the time?"</p> + +<p>"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no peace. +Incessant torture of remorse."</p> + +<p>"You travel fast?" said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.</p> + +<p>"You might have got over a great quantity of ground in +seven years," said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, +"not to know that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, +for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of +which it is susceptible is all developed! Not to know that any +Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it +may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of +usefulness! Not to know that no space of regret can make +amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such was I! +Oh, such was I!"</p> + +<p>"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," +faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said, "I suffer<!-- Page 29 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +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 <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going +on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.</p> + +<p>"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly gone."</p> + +<p>"I will," said Scrooge. "But don't be hard upon me! +Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped +the perspiration from his brow.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You were always a good friend to me," said Scrooge. +"Thankee!"</p> + +<p>"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three +Spirits."</p> + +<p>Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had +done.</p> + +<p>"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?" he +demanded in a faltering voice.</p> + +<p>"It is."</p> + +<p>"I—I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?" +hinted Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour.<!-- Page 30 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. +He looked out.</p> + +<p>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 doorstep. The misery +with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for +good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.<!-- Page 31 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<!-- Page 32 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>STAVE TWO</h2> + +<h3>THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most +preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and +stopped.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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<!-- Page 33 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and +thought it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The +more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he +endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Ding, dong!"</p> + +<p>"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting.</p> + +<p>"Ding, dong!"</p> + +<p>"Half past," said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"Ding, dong!"</p> + +<p>"A quarter to it," said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"Ding, dong!"</p> + +<p>"The hour itself," said Scrooge triumphantly, "and nothing +else!"</p> + +<p>He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with +a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy <span class="smcap">One</span>. Light flashed up in the +room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.<!-- Page 34 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing +steadiness, was <i>not</i> 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<!-- Page 35 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> +they melted away. And, in the very wonder of this, it would be +itself again; distinct and clear as ever.</p> + +<p>"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" +asked Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"I am!"</p> + +<p>The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if, instead +of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.</p> + +<p>"Who and what are you?" Scrooge demanded.</p> + +<p>"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."</p> + +<p>"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge; observant of its dwarfish +stature.</p> + +<p>"No. Your past."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Your welfare!" said the Ghost.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Your reclamation, then. Take heed!"</p> + +<p>It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently +by the arm.</p> + +<p>"Rise! and walk with me!"</p> + +<p>It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the +weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes;<!-- Page 36 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below +freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, +and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that +time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not +to be resisted. He rose: but, finding that the Spirit made +towards the window, clasped its robe in supplication.</p> + +<p>"I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable to fall."</p> + +<p>"Bear but a touch of my hand <i>there</i>," said the Spirit, laying +it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more than this!"</p> + +<p>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 the snow upon the ground.</p> + +<p>"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands together +as he looked about him. "I was bred in this place. I was +a boy here!"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is +that upon your cheek?"</p> + +<p>Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, +that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where +he would.</p> + +<p>"You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit.</p> + +<p>"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervour; "I could walk +it blindfold."</p> + +<p>"Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" observed +the Ghost. "Let us go on."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 414px;"> +<img src="images/i04.jpg" width="414" height="635" alt=""You recollect the way?" inquired the spirit. "Remember it!" cried Scrooge +with fervour; "I could walk it blindfold."" title=""You recollect the way?" inquired the spirit. "Remember it!" cried Scrooge +with fervour; "I could walk it blindfold."" /> +<span class="caption">"You recollect the way?" inquired the spirit. "Remember it!" cried Scrooge +with fervour; "I could walk it blindfold."</span> +</div> + +<p>They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every +<!-- Page 37 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>"These are but shadows of the things that have been," said +the Ghost. "They have no consciousness of us."</p> + +<p>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 by-ways for their several homes? +What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry +Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?</p> + +<p>"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A +solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still."</p> + +<p>Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.</p> + +<p>They left the high-road by a well-remembered lane, and soon +approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weather-cock +surmounted cupola on the roof and a bell hanging in it. +It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes: for the spacious +offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their +windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and +strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were +overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient +state within; for, entering the dreary hall, and glancing through +the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, +cold, and vast. There was an earthly 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.</p> + +<p>They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door<!-- Page 38 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed +a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by +lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely +boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon +a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had used +to be.</p> + +<p>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 storehouse door, no, not a clicking in the fire, +but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influence, and +gave a freer passage to his tears.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>did</i> +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 <i>he</i> to be married to the Princess?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 623px;"> +<img src="images/i05.jpg" width="623" height="420" alt=""Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's dear old honest Ali Baba."" title=""Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's dear old honest Ali Baba."" /> +<span class="caption">"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's dear old honest Ali Baba."</span> +</div> + +<p>"There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and +<!-- Page 39 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying, +as it did so, "Let us see another Christmas!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the<!-- Page 40 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. +"To bring you home, home, home!"</p> + +<p>"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You are quite a woman, little Fan!" exclaimed the boy.</p> + +<p>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 loath to go, accompanied +her.</p> + +<p>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,<!-- Page 41 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have +withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large heart!"</p> + +<p>"So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I will not +gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!"</p> + +<p>"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I think, +children."</p> + +<p>"One child," Scrooge returned.</p> + +<p>"True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!"</p> + +<p>Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, +"Yes."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked +Scrooge if he knew it.</p> + +<p>"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed here?"</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive +again!"</p> + +<p>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,<!-- Page 42 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out, in a +comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:</p> + +<p>"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"</p> + +<p>Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly +in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +stomachaches. 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.<!-- Page 43 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> +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, any +how and every how. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>would</i> dance, and had no notion of walking.<!-- Page 44 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 <i>her</i>, she was worthy to be his partner in every +sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and +I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's +calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. +You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would +become of 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 curtsy, cork-screw, 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.</p> + +<p>When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. +Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side +the door, and, shaking hands with every person individually as +he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. +When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did +the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and +the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter +in the back-shop.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly +folks so full of gratitude."</p> + +<p>"Small!" echoed Scrooge.</p> + +<p>The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices,<!-- Page 45 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig; and, +when he had done so, said:</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.</p> + +<p>"Nothing particular," said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted.</p> + +<p>"No," said Scrooge, "no. I should like to be able to say a +word or two to my clerk just now. That's all."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<!-- Page 46 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What Idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.</p> + +<p>"A golden one."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so much +wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you."</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Am I?"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>are</i> +changed. When it was made you were another man."</p> + +<p>"I was a boy," he said impatiently.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>have</i> thought of it, and can release you."</p> + +<p>"Have I ever sought release?"</p> + +<p>"In words. No. Never."</p> + +<p>"In what, then?"</p> + +<p>"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere +of life; another Hope as its great end. In everything<!-- Page 47 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition in spite +of himself. But he said, with a struggle, "You think not."</p> + +<p>"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered. +"Heaven knows! When <i>I</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."</p> + +<p>He was about to speak; but, with her head turned from him, +she resumed.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>She left him, and they parted.</p> + +<p>"Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Conduct me +home. Why do you delight to torture me?"</p> + +<p>"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.</p> + +<p>"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more! I don't wish to see +it. Show me no more!"</p> + +<p>But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and +forced him to observe what happened next.</p> + +<p>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<!-- Page 48 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +believed it was the same, until he saw <i>her</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 in 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-<!-- Page 49 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>paper +parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round the +neck, pummel 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, +"I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Who was it?"</p> + +<p>"Guess!"</p> + +<p>"How can I? Tut, don't I know?" she added in the same +breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me from +this place."</p> + +<p>"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!"<!-- Page 50 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed. "I cannot bear it!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Leave me! Take me back! Haunt me no longer!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<!-- Page 51 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>STAVE THREE</h2> + +<h3>THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS</h3> + + +<p>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 dispatched 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.</p> + +<p>Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves +on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually +equal to the time of day, express the wide range of their capacity +for adventure by observing that they are good for anything +from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite +extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive +range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge +quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe +that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, +and that nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have +astonished him very much.</p> + +<p>Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by +any means prepared for nothing; and consequently, when the<!-- Page 52 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange +voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.</p> + +<p>It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. +But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls +and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a +perfect grove; from every part of which bright gleaming berries +glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected +back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered +there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney +as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's +time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. +Heaped up 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<!-- Page 53 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in! and know +me better, man!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit. +"Look upon me!"</p> + +<p>Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple +deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This +garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast +was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any +artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the +garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering +than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. +Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, +its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained +demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle +was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient +sheath was eaten up with rust.</p> + +<p>"You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed +the Spirit.</p> + +<p>"Never," Scrooge made answer to it.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I don't think I have," said Scrooge. "I am afraid I have +not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?"</p> + +<p>"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost.<!-- Page 54 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p> + +<p>"A tremendous family to provide for," muttered Scrooge.</p> + +<p>The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Touch my robe!"</p> + +<p>Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The house-fronts looked black enough, and the windows +blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon +the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last +deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy +wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and recrossed +each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched +off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the thick +yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the +shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, +half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in 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.<!-- Page 55 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p> + +<p>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, squab and swarthy, setting +off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness +of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching +to be carried home in paper bags, and eaten after dinner. +The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice +fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded +race, appeared to know that there was something going on; +and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world +in slow and passionless excitement.</p> + +<p>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<!-- Page 56 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 by-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!<!-- Page 57 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your +torch?" asked Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"There is. My own."</p> + +<p>"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?" asked +Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."</p> + +<p>"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"Because it needs it most."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I!" cried the Spirit.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I!" cried the Spirit.</p> + +<p>"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day," said +Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, +or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible,<!-- Page 58 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing +off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, +hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led +him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, and took +Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and, on the threshold of +the door, the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's +dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. Think of that! +Bob had but fifteen "Bob" a week himself; he pocketed on +Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the +Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!</p> + +<p>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.<!-- Page 59 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she +spoke.</p> + +<p>"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits. +"Hurrah! There's <i>such</i> a goose, Martha!"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the +girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young +Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha, +hide!"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking +round.</p> + +<p>"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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<!-- Page 60 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> +hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that +he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and +trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong +and hearty.</p> + +<p>His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back +came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by +his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; and while Bob, +turning up his cuffs—as if, poor fellow, they were capable of +being made more shabby—compounded some hot mixture in +a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round, and +put it on the hob to simmer, Master Peter and the two ubiquitous +young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon +returned in high procession.</p> + +<p>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<!-- Page 61 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<!-- Page 62 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p> + +<p>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 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"</p> + +<p>Which all the family re-echoed.</p> + +<p>"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Spirit," said Scrooge with an interest he had never felt +before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live."</p> + +<p>"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."<!-- Page 63 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will +be spared."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the +Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob. "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the +Founder of the Feast!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas-day."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"My dear!" was Bob's mild answer. "Christmas-day."</p> + +<p>"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!"<!-- Page 64 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p> + +<p>The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of +their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Tim +drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge +was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a +dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five +minutes.</p> + +<p>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-by 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.</p> + +<p>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 waterproof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter +might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawn-broker'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<!-- Page 65 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially +on Tiny Tim, until the last.</p> + +<p>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 blinds 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!</p> + +<p>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 lamp-lighter, +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 lamp-lighter that he had any company but Christmas.</p> + +<p>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 +or giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed; or would +have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing<!-- Page 66 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"What place is this?" asked Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the +earth," returned the Spirit. "But they know me. See!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 seaweed clung to its base, and storm-birds—born of the +wind, one might suppose, as seaweed of the water—rose and +fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.</p> + +<p>But, even here, two men who watched the light had made a<!-- Page 67 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 one 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!"</p> + +<p>If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a +man more blessed 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.<!-- Page 68 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"</p> + +<p>"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" cried +Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it, too!"</p> + +<p>"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece indignantly. +Bless those women! they never do anything by halves. +They are always in earnest.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's niece. +"At least, you always tell <i>me</i> so."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece.<!-- Page 69 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the +same opinion.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 lamp-light.</p> + +<p>"Well! I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, +"because I haven't any great faith in these young housekeepers. +What do <i>you</i> say, Topper?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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<!-- Page 70 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +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, <i>that's</i> something; and I think I shook him +yesterday."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After +awhile they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, +and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty +Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game +at blindman's buff. Of course there was. And I no more +believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his +boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him<!-- Page 71 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present +knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace +tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking +down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up +against the piano, smothering himself amongst 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.</p> + +<p>Scrooge's niece was not one of the blindman'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<!-- Page 72 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> +quite loud, and very often guessed right, too, for the sharpest +needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was +not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half-hour, +Spirit, only one!"</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know +what it is!"</p> + +<p>"What is it?" cried Fred.</p> + +<p>"It's your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!"</p> + +<p>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.<!-- Page 73 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p> + +<p>"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!'"</p> + +<p>"Well! Uncle Scrooge!" they cried.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 gaol, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Scrooge.<!-- Page 74 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> + +<p>"My life upon this globe is very brief," replied the Ghost. +"It ends to-night."</p> + +<p>"To-night!" cried Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near."</p> + +<p>The chimes were ringing the three-quarters past eleven at +that moment.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the +Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Man! look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed +the Ghost.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.</p> + +<p>"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 of them both, and<!-- Page 75 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p>"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for +the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"</p> + +<p>The bell struck Twelve.</p> + +<p>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.<!-- Page 76 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>STAVE FOUR</h2> + +<h3>THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to +Come?" said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<!-- Page 77 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before +them.</p> + +<p>"Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night is waning +fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"When did he die?" inquired another.</p> + +<p>"Last night, I believe."</p> + +<p>"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."<!-- Page 78 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> + +<p>"God knows," said the first with a yawn.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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 <i>me</i>. That's all I know."</p> + +<p>This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Another laugh.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other +groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit +for an explanation.</p> + +<p>The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to +two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the +explanation might lie here.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How are you?" said one.</p> + +<p>"How are you?" returned the other.<!-- Page 79 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own at +last, hey?"</p> + +<p>"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Seasonable for Christmas-time. You are not a skater, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!"</p> + +<p>Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, +and their parting.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 situa<!-- Page 80 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>tion +in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking +at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 frouzy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters hung +upon a line, and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm +retirement.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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,<!-- Page 81 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three met here without +meaning it!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 into his mouth again.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What odds, then? What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said the +woman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves. +<i>He</i> always did!"</p> + +<p>"That's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No man +more so."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. +"We should hope not."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.</p> + +<p>"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old<!-- Page 82 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. Dilber, +"It's a judgment on him."</p> + +<p>"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 knew +pretty well that we were helping ourselves before we met here, +I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe."</p> + +<p>But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; +and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced +<i>his</i> plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, +a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, +were all. They were severally examined and appraised by old +Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each +upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found +that there was nothing more to come.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing +apparel, two old-fashioned silver tea-spoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, +and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in +the same manner.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And now undo <i>my</i> bundle, Joe," said the first woman.<!-- Page 83 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + +<p>Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of +opening it, and, having unfastened a great many knots, dragged +out a large heavy roll of some dark stuff.</p> + +<p>"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward +on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains!"</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and all, +with him lying there?" said Joe.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"</p> + +<p>"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and you'll +certainly do it."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"His blankets?" asked Joe.</p> + +<p>"Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "He +isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say."</p> + +<p>"I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?" said +old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat<!-- Page 84 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<!-- Page 85 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> +will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse +are still; but that the hand <span class="smcap">WAS</span> 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!</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>He lay, in the dark, empty house, with not a man, a woman, +or a child to say he was kind to me in this or that, and for the +memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was +tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath +the hearth-stone. What <i>they</i> wanted in the room of death, +and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not +dare to think.</p> + +<p>"Spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I +shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!"</p> + +<p>Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the +head.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Again it seemed to look upon him.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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<!-- Page 86 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> +vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices +of her children in their play.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Is it good," she said, "or bad?" to help him.</p> + +<p>"Bad," he answered.</p> + +<p>"We are quite ruined?"</p> + +<p>"No. There is hope yet, Caroline."</p> + +<p>"If <i>he</i> relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Nothing is +past hope, if such a miracle has happened."</p> + +<p>"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"To whom will our debt be transferred?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. But, before that time, we shall be ready +with the money; and, even though we were not, it would be +bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. +We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!"</p> + +<p>Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. +The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what<!-- Page 87 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"'And he took a child, and set him in the midst of +them.'"</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand +up to her face.</p> + +<p>"The colour hurts my eyes," she said.</p> + +<p>The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, +cheerful voice, that only faltered once:<!-- Page 88 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have known him walk with—I have known him walk +with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder very fast indeed."</p> + +<p>"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often."</p> + +<p>"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?" said his wife.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother<!-- Page 89 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> +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 <i>that</i> I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Knew what, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob.</p> + +<p>"Everybody knows that," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit.</p> + +<p>"You would be sure 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."</p> + +<p>"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit.</p> + +<p>"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be keeping +company with some one, and setting up for himself."</p> + +<p>"Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Never, father!" cried they all.</p> + +<p>"And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that when we<!-- Page 90 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p>"No, never, father!" they all cried again.</p> + +<p>"I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am very happy!"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.</p> + +<p>"The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. "Why do you +point away?"</p> + +<p>The inexorable finger underwent no change.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man, whose name<!-- Page 91 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," +said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows +of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things +that May be only?"</p> + +<p>Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which +it stood.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>The Spirit was immovable as ever.</p> + +<p>Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and, following +the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his +own name, <span class="smcap">Ebenezer Scrooge</span>.</p> + +<p>"Am <i>I</i> that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried upon his +knees.</p> + +<p>The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.</p> + +<p>"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!"</p> + +<p>The finger still was there.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>For the first time the hand appeared to shake.</p> + +<p>"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he<!-- Page 92 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p>The kind hand trembled.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<!-- Page 93 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>STAVE FIVE</h2> + +<h3>THE END OF IT</h3> + + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and +crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of +himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as +happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as +giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody!<!-- Page 94 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> +A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! +Hallo!"</p> + +<p>He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing +there: perfectly winded.</p> + +<p>"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried Scrooge, +starting off again, and going round the fire-place. "There's +the door by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! +There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present sat! +There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It's +all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha, ha, ha!"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"I don't know what day of the month it is," said +Scrooge. "I don't know how long I have 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!"</p> + +<p>He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out +the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clash, hammer; ding, +dong, bell! Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, +glorious, glorious!</p> + +<p>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 sun-light; Heavenly sky; +sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!</p> + +<p>"What's to-day?" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy +in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about +him.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Eh</span>?" returned the boy with all his might of wonder.</p> + +<p>"What's to-day, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>"To-day!" replied the boy. "Why, <span class="smcap">Christmas Day</span>."</p> + +<p>"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I haven't +missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can<!-- Page 95 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they +can. Hallo, my fine fellow!"</p> + +<p>"Hallo!" returned the boy.</p> + +<p>"Do you know the Poulterer's in the next street but one, at +the corner?" Scrooge inquired.</p> + +<p>"I should hope I did," replied the lad.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"What! the one as big as me?" returned the boy.</p> + +<p>"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a pleasure +to talk to him. Yes, my buck!"</p> + +<p>"It's hanging there now," replied the boy.</p> + +<p>"Is it?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it."</p> + +<p>"Walk-<span class="smcap">ER</span>!" exclaimed the boy.</p> + +<p>"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 directions +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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's," whispered Scrooge, rubbing +his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "He shan't know who +sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never +made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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<!-- Page 96 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>!—Here's +the Turkey. Hallo! Whoop! How are you? Merry +Christmas!"</p> + +<p>It <i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town," said +Scrooge. "You must have a cab."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to +shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when +you don't dance while you are at it. But, if he had cut the end +of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaster +over it, and been quite satisfied.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and tak<!-- Page 97 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>ing +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!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Scrooge?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Lord bless me!" cried the gentleman, as if his breath were +taken away. "My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with him, "I +don't know what to say to such munifi——"</p> + +<p>"Don't say anything, please," retorted Scrooge. "Come +and see me. Will you come and see me?"</p> + +<p>"I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he +meant to do it.</p> + +<p>"Thankee," said Scrooge. "I am much obliged to you. I +thank you fifty times. Bless you!"</p> + +<p>He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched +the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge to the +girl. Nice girl! Very.</p> + +<p>"Yes sir."</p> + +<p>"Where is he, my love?" said Scrooge.<!-- Page 98 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll +show you up-stairs, if you please."</p> + +<p>"Thankee. He knows me," said Scrooge, with his hand +already on the dining-room lock. "I'll go in here, my dear."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Fred!" said Scrooge.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Why, bless my soul!" cried Fred, "who's that?"</p> + +<p>"It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. +Will you let me in, Fred?"</p> + +<p>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 <i>he</i> came. So +did the plump sister when <i>she</i> came. So did every one when +<i>they</i> came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful +unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Hallo!" growled Scrooge in his accustomed voice as near<!-- Page 99 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming here at +this time of day?"</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I <i>am</i> behind my time."</p> + +<p>"You are!" repeated Scrooge. "Yes. I think you are. +Step this way, sir, if you please."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely +more; and to Tiny Tim, who did <span class="smcap">NOT</span> 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<!-- Page 100 --><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CAROL *** + +***** This file should be named 19337-h.htm or 19337-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/3/3/19337/ + +Produced by Jason Isbell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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