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Title: The Garotters

Author: William D. Howells

Release Date: May, 2002 [Etext #3237]
[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
[The actual date this file first posted = 02/05/01]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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Click here to start MP3 Text Speech

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book,
to raise the Ghost of an Idea,
which shall not put my readers out of humour
with themselves,
with each other,
with the season,
or
with me.

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

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

Stave 1:

Marley's Ghost Marley was dead:

to begin with.

There is no doubt whatever about that.

The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman,
the clerk,
the undertaker,
and the chief mourner.

Scrooge signed it.

And Scrooge's name was good upon
`Change,
for anything he chose
to put his hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind!
I don't mean
to say that I know,
of my own knowledge,
what there is particularly dead about a door-nail.

I might have been inclined,
myself,
to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade.

But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile;
and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it,
or the Country's done for.

You will therefore permit me
to repeat,
emphatically,
that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead?

Of course he did.

How could it be otherwise?

Scrooge and he were partners
for I don't know how many years.

Scrooge was his sole executor,
his sole administrator,
his sole assign,
his sole residuary legatee,
his sole friend,
and sole mourner.

And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event,
but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral,
and solemnised it
with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back
to the point I started from.

There is no doubt that Marley was dead.

This must be distinctly understood,
or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going
to relate.

If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began,
there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night,
in an easterly wind,
upon his own ramparts,
than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -
say Saint Paul's Churchyard
for instance --
literally
to astonish his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name.

There it stood,
years afterwards,
above the warehouse door:

Scrooge and Marley.

The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley.

Sometimes people new
to the business called Scrooge Scrooge,
and sometimes Marley,
but he answered
to both names.

It was all the same
to him.

Oh!
But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone,
Scrooge!
a squeezing,
wrenching,
grasping,
scraping,
clutching,
covetous,
old sinner!
Hard and sharp as flint,
from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire;
secret,
and self-contained,
and solitary as an oyster.

The cold within him froze his old features,
nipped his pointed nose,
shrivelled his cheek,
stiffened his gait;
made his eyes red,
his thin lips blue;
and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.

A frosty rime was on his head,
and on his eyebrows,
and his wiry chin.

He carried his own low temperature always about
with him;
he iced his office in the dogdays;
and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.

No warmth could warm,
no wintry weather chill him.

No wind that blew was bitterer than he,
no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose,
no pelting rain less open
to entreaty.

Foul weather didn't know where
to have him.

The heaviest rain,
and snow,
and hail,
and sleet,
could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect.

They often `came down'
handsomely,
and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street
to say,
with gladsome looks,
`My dear Scrooge,
how are you?

When will you come
to see me?'
No beggars implored him
to bestow a trifle,
no children asked him what it was o'clock,
no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way
to such and such a place,
of Scrooge.

Even the blind men's dogs appeared
to know him;
and when they saw him coming on,
would tug their owners into doorways and up courts;
and then would wag their tails as though they said,
`No eye at all is better than an evil eye,
dark master!'
But what did Scrooge care!
It was the very thing he liked.

To edge his way along the crowded paths of life,
warning all human sympathy
to keep its distance,
was what the knowing ones call `nuts'
to Scrooge.

Once upon a time --
of all the good days in the year,
on Christmas Eve --
old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house.

It was cold,
bleak,
biting weather:

foggy withal:

and he could hear the people in the court outside,
go wheezing up and down,
beating their hands upon their breasts,
and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones
to warm them.

The city clocks had only just gone three,
but it was quite dark already --
it had not been light all day --
and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices,
like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air.

The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole,
and was so dense without,
that although the court was of the narrowest,
the houses opposite were mere phanto Ms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down,
obscuring everything,
one might have thought that Nature lived hard by,
and was brewing on a large scale.

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk,
who in a dismal little cell beyond,
a sort of tank,
was copying letters.

Scrooge had a very small fire,
but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal.

But he couldn't replenish it,
for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room;
and so surely as the clerk came in
with the shovel,
the master predicted that it would be necessary
for them
to part.

Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter,
and tried
to warm himself at the candle;
in which effort,
not being a man of a strong imagination,
he failed.

`A merry Christmas,
uncle!
God save you!'
cried a cheerful voice.

It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew,
who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

`Bah!'
said Scrooge,
`Humbug!'
He had so heated himself
with rapid walking in the fog and frost,
this nephew of Scrooge's,
that he was all in a glow;
his face was ruddy and handsome;
his eyes sparkled,
and his breath smoked again.

`Christmas a humbug,
uncle!'
said Scrooge's nephew.

`You don't mean that,
I am sure?'
`I do,'
said Scrooge.

`Merry Christmas!
What right have you
to be merry?

What reason have you
to be merry?

You're poor enough.'

`Come,
then,'
returned the nephew gaily.

`What right have you
to be dismal?

What reason have you
to be morose?

You're rich enough.'

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment,
said `Bah!'
again;
and followed it up
with `Humbug.'

`Don't be cross,
uncle!'
said the nephew.

`What else can I be,'
returned the uncle,
`when I live in such a world of fools as this?

Merry Christmas!
Out upon merry Christmas!
What's Christmas time
to you but a time
for paying bills without money;
a time
for finding yourself a year older,
but not an hour richer;
a time
for balancing your books and having every item in `em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you?

If I could work my will,'
said Scrooge indignantly,
`every idiot who goes about with
"Merry Christmas"
on his lips,
should be boiled
with his own pudding,
and buried
with a stake of holly through his heart.

He should!'
`Uncle!'
pleaded the nephew.

`Nephew!'
returned the uncle sternly,
`keep Christmas in your own way,
and let me keep it in mine.'

`Keep it!'
repeated Scrooge's nephew.

`But you don't keep it.'

`Let me leave it alone,
then,'
said Scrooge.

`Much good may it do you!
Much good it has ever done you!'
`There are many things from which I might have derived good,
by which I have not profited,
I dare say,'
returned the nephew.

`Christmas among the rest.

But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time,
when it has come round --
apart from the veneration due
to its sacred name and origin,
if anything belonging
to it can be apart from that --
as a good time;
a kind,
forgiving,
charitable,
pleasant time:

the only time I know of,
in the long calendar of the year,
when men and women seem by one consent
to open their shut-up hearts freely,
and
to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers
to the grave,
and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

And therefore,
uncle,
though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket,
I believe that it has done me good,
and will do me good;
and I say,
God bless it!'
The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.

Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,
he poked the fire,
and extinguished the last frail spark
for ever.

`Let me hear another sound from you,'
said Scrooge,
`and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation!
You're quite a powerful speaker,
sir,'
he added,
turning
to his nephew.

`I wonder you don't go into Parliament.'

`Don't be angry,
uncle.

Come!
Dine
with us tomorrow.'

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

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

`But why?'
cried Scrooge's nephew.

`Why?'
`Why did you get married?'
said Scrooge.

`Because I fell in love.'

`Because you fell in love!'
growled Scrooge,
as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas.

`Good afternoon!'
`Nay,
uncle,
but you never came
to see me before that happened.

Why give it as a reason
for not coming now?'
`Good afternoon,'
said Scrooge.

`I want nothing from you;
I ask nothing of you;
why cannot we be friends?'
`Good afternoon,'
said Scrooge.

`I am sorry,
with all my heart,
to find you so resolute.

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

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

So A Merry Christmas,
uncle!'
`Good afternoon,'
said Scrooge.

`And A Happy New Year!'
`Good afternoon,'
said Scrooge.

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

He stopped at the outer door
to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk,
who cold as he was,
was warmer than Scrooge;
for he returned them cordially.

`There's another fellow,'
muttered Scrooge;
who overheard him:

`my clerk,
with fifteen shillings a week,
and a wife and family,
talking about a merry Christmas.

I'll retire
to Bedlam.'

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

They were portly gentlemen,
pleasant
to behold,
and now stood,
with their hats off,
in Scrooge's office.

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

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

`Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge,
or Mr. Marley?'
`Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,'
Scrooge replied.

`He died seven years ago,
this very night.'

`We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,'
said the gentleman,
presenting his credentials.

It certainly was;
for they had been two kindred spirits.

At the ominous word `liberality,'
Scrooge frowned,
and shook his head,
and handed the credentials back.

`At this festive season of the year,
Mr. Scrooge,'
said the gentleman,
taking up a pen,
`it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision
for the Poor and Destitute,
who suffer greatly at the present time.

Many thousands are in want of common necessaries;
hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts,
sir.'

`Are there no prisons?'
asked Scrooge.

`Plenty of prisons,'
said the gentleman,
laying down the pen again.

`And the Union workhouses?'
demanded Scrooge.

`Are they still in operation?'
`They are.

Still,'
returned the gentleman,
`I wish I could say they were not.'

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

`Both very busy,
sir.'

`Oh!
I was afraid,
from what you said at first,
that something had occurred
to stop them in their useful course,'
said Scrooge.

`I'm very glad
to hear it.'

`Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body
to the multitude,'
returned the gentleman,
`a few of us are endeavouring
to raise a fund
to buy the Poor some meat and drink.

and means of warmth.

We choose this time,
because it is a time,
of all others,
when Want is keenly felt,
and Abundance rejoices.

What shall I put you down for?'
`Nothing!'
Scrooge replied.

`You wish
to be anonymous?'
`I wish
to be left alone,'
said Scrooge.

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

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

I help
to support the establishments I have mentioned --
they cost enough;
and those who are badly off must go there.'

`Many can't go there;
and many would rather die.'

`If they would rather die,'
said Scrooge,
`they had better do it,
and decrease the surplus population.

Besides --
excuse me --
I don't know that.'

`But you might know it,'
observed the gentleman.

`It's not my business,'
Scrooge returned.

`It's enough
for a man
to understand his own business,
and not
to interfere
with other people's.

Mine occupies me constantly.

Good afternoon,
gentlemen!'
Seeing clearly that it would be useless
to pursue their point,
the gentlemen withdrew.

Scrooge returned his labours
with an improved opinion of himself,
and in a more facetious temper than was usual
with him.

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so,
that people ran about
with flaring links,
proffering their services
to go before horses in carriages,
and conduct them on their way.

The ancient tower of a church,
whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall,
became invisible,
and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds,
with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.

The cold became intense.

In the main street at the corner of the court,
some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes,
and had lighted a great fire in a brazier,
round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered:

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

The water-plug being left in solitude,
its overflowing sullenly congealed,
and turned
to misanthropic ice.

The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows,
made pale faces ruddy as they passed.

Poulterers'
and grocers'
trades became a splendid joke;
a glorious pageant,
with which it was next
to impossible
to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything
to do.

The Lord Mayor,
in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House,
gave orders
to his fifty cooks and butlers
to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should;
and even the little tailor,
whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday
for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets,
stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his garret,
while his lean wife and the baby sallied out
to buy the beef.

Foggier yet,
and colder!
Piercing,
searching,
biting cold.

If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose
with a touch of such weather as that,
instead of using his familiar weapons,
then indeed he would have roared
to lusty purpose.

The owner of one scant young nose,
gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,
stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole
to regale him
with a Christmas carol:

but at the first sound of `God bless you,
merry gentleman!
May nothing you dismay!'
Scrooge seized the ruler
with such energy of action,
that the singer fled in terror,
leaving the keyhole
to the fog and even more congenial frost.

At length the hour of shutting up the counting- house arrived.

With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool,
and tacitly admitted the fact
to the expectant clerk in the Tank,
who instantly snuffed his candle out,
and put on his hat.

`You'll want all day to-morrow,
I suppose?'
said Scrooge.

`If quite convenient,
sir.'

`It's not convenient,'
said Scrooge,
`and it's not fair.

If I was
to stop half-a-crown
for it,
you'd think yourself ill-used,
I'll be bound?'
The clerk smiled faintly.

`And yet,'
said Scrooge,
`you don't think me ill-used,
when I pay a day's wages
for no work.'

The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

`A poor excuse
for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!'
said Scrooge,
buttoning his great-coat
to the chin.

`But I suppose you must have the whole day.

Be here all the earlier next morning.'

The clerk promised that he would;
and Scrooge walked out
with a growl.

The office was closed in a twinkling,
and the clerk,
with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist
(for he boasted no great-coat),
went down a slide on Cornhill,
at the end of a lane of boys,
twenty times,
in honour of its being Christmas Eve,
and then ran home
to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt,
to play at blindman's-buff.

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern;
and having read all the newspapers,
and beguiled the rest of the evening
with his banker's-book,
went home
to bed.

He lived in chambers which had once belonged
to his deceased partner.

They were a gloomy suite of rooms,
in a lowering pile of building up a yard,
where it had so little business
to be,
that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house,
playing at hide-and-seek
with other houses,
and forgotten the way out again.

It was old enough now,
and dreary enough,
for nobody lived in it but Scrooge,
the other rooms being all let out as offices.

The yard was so dark that even Scrooge,
who knew its every stone,
was fain
to grope
with his hands.

The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house,
that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.

Now,
it is a fact,
that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door,
except that it was very large.

It is also a fact,
that Scrooge had seen it,
night and morning,
during his whole residence in that place;
also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London,
even including --
which is a bold word --
the corporation,
aldermen,
and livery.

Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley,
since his last mention of his seven years'
dead partner that afternoon.

And then let any man explain
to me,
if he can,
how it happened that Scrooge,
having his key in the lock of the door,
saw in the knocker,
without its undergoing any intermediate process of change --
not a knocker,
but Marley's face.

Marley's face.

It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were,
but had a dismal light about it,
like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.

It was not angry or ferocious,
but looked at Scrooge as Marley used
to look:

with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead.

The hair was curiously stirred,
as if by breath or hot air;
and,
though the eyes were wide open,
they were perfectly motionless.

That,
and its livid colour,
made it horrible;
but its horror seemed
to be in spite of the face and beyond its control,
rather than a part or its own expression.

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

To say that he was not startled,
or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation
to which it had been a stranger from infancy,
would be untrue.

But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished,
turned it sturdily,
walked in,
and lighted his candle.

He did pause,
with a moment's irresolution,
before he shut the door;
and he did look cautiously behind it first,
as if he half-expected
to be terrified
with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall.

But there was nothing on the back of the door,
except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on,
so he said `Pooh,
pooh!'
and closed it
with a bang.

The sound resounded through the house like thunder.

Every room above,
and every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below,
appeared
to have a separate peal of echoes of its own.

Scrooge was not a man
to be frightened by echoes.

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

trimming his candle as he went.

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs,
or through a bad young Act of Parliament;
but I mean
to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase,
and taken it broadwise,
with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades:

and done it easy.

There was plenty of width
for that,
and room
to spare;
which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom.

Half a dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well,
so you may suppose that it was pretty dark
with Scrooge's dip.

Up Scrooge went,
not caring a button
for that.

Darkness is cheap,
and Scrooge liked it.

But before he shut his heavy door,
he walked through his rooms
to see that all was right.

He had just enough recollection of the face
to desire
to do that.

Sitting-room,
bedroom,
lumber-room.

All as they should be.

Nobody under the table,
nobody under the sofa;
a small fire in the grate;
spoon and basin ready;
and the little saucepan of gruel
(Scrooge had a cold in his head)
upon the hob.

Nobody under the bed;
nobody in the closet;
nobody in his dressing-gown,
which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.

Lumber-room as usual.

Old fire-guards,
old shoes,
two fish-baskets,
washing-stand on three legs,
and a poker.

Quite satisfied,
he closed his door,
and locked himself in;
double-locked himself in,
which was not his custom.

Thus secured against surprise,
he took off his cravat;
put on his dressing-gown and slippers,
and his nightcap;
and sat down before the fire
to take his gruel.

It was a very low fire indeed;
nothing on such a bitter night.

He was obliged
to sit close
to it,
and brood over it,
before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel.

The fireplace was an old one,
built by some Dutch merchant long ago,
and paved all round
with quaint Dutch tiles,
designed
to illustrate the Scriptures.

There were Cains and Abels,
Pharaohs'
daughters;
Queens of Sheba,
Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds,
Abrahams,
Belshazzars,
Apostles putting off
to sea in butter-boats,
hundreds of figures
to attract his thoughts --
and yet that face of Marley,
seven years dead,
came like the ancient Prophet's rod,
and swallowed up the whole.

If each smooth tile had been a blank at first,
with power
to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts,
there would have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one.

`Humbug!'
said Scrooge;
and walked across the room.

After several turns,
he sat down again.

As he threw his head back in the chair,
his glance happened
to rest upon a bell,
a disused bell,
that hung in the room,
and communicated
for some purpose now forgotten
with a chamber in the highest story of the building.

It was
with great astonishment,
and
with a strange,
inexplicable dread,
that as he looked,
he saw this bell begin
to swing.

It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound;
but soon it rang out loudly,
and so did every bell in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute,
or a minute,
but it seemed an hour.

The bells ceased as they had begun,
together.

They were succeeded by a clanking noise,
deep down below;
as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's cellar.

Scrooge then remembered
to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.

The cellar-door flew open
with a booming sound,
and then he heard the noise much louder,
on the floors below;
then coming up the stairs;
then coming straight towards his door.

`It's humbug still!'
said Scrooge.

`I won't believe it.'

His colour changed though,
when,
without a pause,
it came on through the heavy door,
and passed into the room before his eyes.

Upon its coming in,
the dying flame leaped up,
as though it cried `I know him;
Marley's Ghost!'
and fell again.

The same face:

the very same.

Marley in his pigtail,
usual waistcoat,
tights and boots;
the tassels on the latter bristling,
like his pigtail,
and his coat-skirts,
and the hair upon his head.

The chain he drew was clasped about his middle.

It was long,
and wound about him like a tail;
and it was made
(for Scrooge observed it closely)
of cash-boxes,
keys,
padlocks,
ledgers,
deeds,
and heavy purses wrought in steel.

His body was transparent;
so that Scrooge,
observing him,
and looking through his waistcoat,
could see the two buttons on his coat behind.

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels,
but he had never believed it until now.

No,
nor did he believe it even now.

Though he looked the phantom through and through,
and saw it standing before him;
though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes;
and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin,
which wrapper he had not observed before;
he was still incredulous,
and fought against his senses.

`How now!'
said Scrooge,
caustic and cold as ever.

`What do you want
with me?'
`Much!'
-- Marley's voice,
no doubt about it.

`Who are you?'
`Ask me who I was.'

`Who were you then?'
said Scrooge,
raising his voice.

`You're particular,
for a shade.'

He was going
to say `to a shade,'
but substituted this,
as more appropriate.

`In life I was your partner,
Jacob Marley.'

`Can you --
can you sit down?'
asked Scrooge,
looking doubtfully at him.

`I can.'

`Do it,
then.'

Scrooge asked the question,
because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition
to take a chair;
and felt that in the event of its being impossible,
it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation.

But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace,
as if he were quite used
to it.

`You don't believe in me,'
observed the Ghost.

`I don't.'

said Scrooge.

`What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?'
`I don't know,'
said Scrooge.

`Why do you doubt your senses?'
`Because,'
said Scrooge,
`a little thing affects them.

A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats.

You may be an undigested bit of beef,
a blot of mustard,
a crumb of cheese,
a fragment of an underdone potato.

There's more of gravy than of grave about you,
whatever you are!'
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes,
nor did he feel,
in his heart,
by any means waggish then.

The truth is,
that he tried
to be smart,
as a means of distracting his own attention,
and keeping down his terror;
for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

To sit,
staring at those fixed glazed eyes,
in silence
for a moment,
would play,
Scrooge felt,
the very deuce
with him.

There was something very awful,
too,
in the spectre's being provided
with an infernal atmosphere of its own.

Scrooge could not feel it himself,
but this was clearly the case;
for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless,
its hair,
and skirts,
and tassels,
were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.

`You see this toothpick?'
said Scrooge,
returning quickly
to the charge,
for the reason just assigned;
and wishing,
though it were only
for a second,
to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.

`I do,'
replied the Ghost.

`You are not looking at it,'
said Scrooge.

`But I see it,'
said the Ghost,
`notwithstanding.'

`Well!'
returned Scrooge,
`I have but
to swallow this,
and be
for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins,
all of my own creation.

Humbug,
I tell you!
humbug!'
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry,
and shook its chain
with such a dismal and appalling noise,
that Scrooge held on tight
to his chair,
to save himself from falling in a swoon.

But how much greater was his horror,
when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head,
as if it were too warm
to wear indoors,
its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!
Scrooge fell upon his knees,
and clasped his hands before his face.

`Mercy!'
he said.

`Dreadful apparition,
why do you trouble me?'
`Man of the worldly mind!'
replied the Ghost,
`do you believe in me or not?'
`I do,'
said Scrooge.

`I must.

But why do spirits walk the earth,
and why do they come
to me?'
`It is required of every man,'
the Ghost returned,
`that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen,
and travel far and wide;
and if that spirit goes not forth in life,
it is condemned
to do so after death.

It is doomed
to wander through the world --
oh,
woe is me!
-- and witness what it cannot share,
but might have shared on earth,
and turned
to happiness!'
Again the spectre raised a cry,
and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

`You are fettered,'
said Scrooge,
trembling.

`Tell me why?'
`I wear the chain I forged in life,'
replied the Ghost.

`I made it link by link,
and yard by yard;
I girded it on of my own free will,
and of my own free will I wore it.

Is its pattern strange
to you?'
Scrooge trembled more and more.

`Or would you know,'
pursued the Ghost,
`the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?

It was full as heavy and as long as this,
seven Christmas Eves ago.

You have laboured on it,
since.

It is a ponderous chain!'
Scrooge glanced about him on the floor,
in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable:

but he could see nothing.

`Jacob,'
he said,
imploringly.

`Old Jacob Marley,
tell me more.

Speak comfort
to me,
Jacob!'
`I have none
to give,'
the Ghost replied.

`It comes from other regions,
Ebenezer Scrooge,
and is conveyed by other ministers,
to other kinds of men.

Nor can I tell you what I would.

A very little more,
is all permitted
to me.

I cannot rest,
I cannot stay,
I cannot linger anywhere.

My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house --
mark me!
-- in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole;
and weary journeys lie before me!'
It was a habit
with Scrooge,
whenever he became thoughtful,
to put his hands in his breeches pockets.

Pondering on what the Ghost had said,
he did so now,
but without lifting up his eyes,
or getting off his knees.

`You must have been very slow about it,
Jacob,'
Scrooge observed,
in a business-like manner,
though
with humility and deference.

`Slow!'
the Ghost repeated.

`Seven years dead,'
mused Scrooge.

`And travelling all the time!'
`The whole time,'
said the Ghost.

`No rest,
no peace.

Incessant torture of remorse.'

`You travel fast?'
said Scrooge.

`On the wings of the wind,'
replied the Ghost.

`You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,'
said Scrooge.

The Ghost,
on hearing this,
set up another cry,
and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night,
that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it
for a nuisance.

`Oh!
captive,
bound,
and double-ironed,'
cried the phantom,
`not
to know,
that ages of incessant labour,
by immortal creatures,
for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed.

Not
to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere,
whatever it may be,
will find its mortal life too short
for its vast means of usefulness.

Not
to know that no space of regret can make amends
for one life's opportunity misused!
Yet such was I!
Oh!
such was I!'
`But you were always a good man of business,
Jacob,'
faltered Scrooge,
who now began
to apply this
to himself.

`Business!'
cried the Ghost,
wringing its hands again.

`Mankind was my business.

The common welfare was my business;
charity,
mercy,
forbearance,
and benevolence,
were,
all,
my business.

The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'
It held up its chain at arm's length,
as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief,
and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

`At this time of the rolling year,'
the spectre said `I suffer most.

Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings
with my eyes turned down,
and never raise them
to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men
to a poor abode!
Were there no poor homes
to which its light would have conducted me!'
Scrooge was very much dismayed
to hear the spectre going on at this rate,
and began
to quake exceedingly.

`Hear me!'
cried the Ghost.

`My time is nearly gone.'

`I will,'
said Scrooge.

`But don't be hard upon me!
Don't be flowery,
Jacob!
Pray!'
`How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see,
I may not tell.

I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.'

It was not an agreeable idea.

Scrooge shivered,
and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

`That is no light part of my penance,'
pursued the Ghost.

`I am here to-night
to warn you,
that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.

A chance and hope of my procuring,
Ebenezer.'

`You were always a good friend
to me,'
said Scrooge.

`Thank `ee!'
`You will be haunted,'
resumed the Ghost,
`by Three Spirits.'

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.

`Is that the chance and hope you mentioned,
Jacob?'
he demanded,
in a faltering voice.

`It is.'

`I --
I think I'd rather not,'
said Scrooge.

`Without their visits,'
said the Ghost,
`you cannot hope
to shun the path I tread.

Expect the first tomorrow,
when the bell tolls One.'

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

`Expect the second on the next night at the same hour.

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

Look
to see me no more;
and look that,
for your own sake,
you remember what has passed between us!'
When it had said these words,
the spectre took its wrapper from the table,
and bound it round its head,
as before.

Scrooge knew this,
by the smart sound its teeth made,
when the jaws were brought together by the bandage.

He ventured
to raise his eyes again,
and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude,
with its chain wound over and about its arm.

The apparition walked backward from him;
and at every step it took,
the window raised itself a little,
so that when the spectre reached it,
it was wide open.

It beckoned Scrooge
to approach,
which he did.

When they were within two paces of each other,
Marley's Ghost held up its hand,
warning him
to come no nearer.

Scrooge stopped.

Not so much in obedience,
as in surprise and fear:

for on the raising of the hand,
he became sensible of confused noises in the air;
incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret;
wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory.

The spectre,
after listening
for a moment,
joined in the mournful dirge;
and floated out upon the bleak,
dark night.

Scrooge followed
to the window:

desperate in his curiosity.

He looked out.

The air was filled
with phantoms,
wandering hither and thither in restless haste,
and moaning as they went.

Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost;
some few
(they might be guilty governments)
were linked together;
none were free.

Many had been personally known
to Scrooge in their lives.

He had been quite familiar
with one old ghost,
in a white waistcoat,
with a monstrous iron safe attached
to its ankle,
who cried piteously at being unable
to assist a wretched woman
with an infant,
whom it saw below,
upon a door-step.

The misery
with them all was,
clearly,
that they sought
to interfere,
for good,
in human matters,
and had lost the power
for ever.

Whether these creatures faded into mist,
or mist enshrouded them,
he could not tell.

But they and their spirit voices faded together;
and the night became as it had been when he walked home.

Scrooge closed the window,
and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered.

It was double-locked,
as he had locked it
with his own hands,
and the bolts were undisturbed.

He tried
to say `Humbug!'
but stopped at the first syllable.

And being,
from the emotion he had undergone,
or the fatigues of the day,
or his glimpse of the Invisible World,
or the dull conversation of the Ghost,
or the lateness of the hour,
much in need of repose;
went straight
to bed,
without undressing,
and fell asleep upon the instant.

Stave 2:

The First of the Three Spirits When Scrooge awoke,
it was so dark,
that looking out of bed,
he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber.

He was endeavouring
to pierce the darkness
with his ferret eyes,
when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters.

So he listened
for the hour.

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six
to seven,
and from seven
to eight,
and regularly up
to twelve;
then stopped.

Twelve.

It was past two when he went
to bed.

The clock was wrong.

An icicle must have got into the works.

Twelve.

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

Its rapid little pulse beat twelve:

and stopped.

`Why,
it isn't possible,'
said Scrooge,
`that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night.

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

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

He was obliged
to rub the frost off
with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything;
and could see very little then.

All he could make out was,
that it was still very foggy and extremely cold,
and that there was no noise of people running
to and
with a deep,
dull,
hollow,
melancholy one.

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

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside,
I tell you,
by a hand.

Not the curtains at his feet,
nor the curtains at his back,
but those
to which his face was addressed.

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside;
and Scrooge,
starting up into a half-recumbent attitude,
found himself face
to face
with the unearthly visitor who drew them:

as close
to it as I am now
to you,
and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

It was a strange figure --
like a child:

yet not so like a child as like an old man,
viewed through some supernatural medium,
which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view,
and being diminished
to a child's proportions.

Its hair,
which hung about its neck and down its back,
was white as if
with age;
and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it,
and the tenderest bloom was on the skin.

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

Its legs and feet,
most delicately formed,
were,
like those upper members,
bare.

It wore a tunic of the purest white,
and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt,
the sheen of which was beautiful.

It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand;
and,
in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem,
had its dress trimmed
with summer flowers.

But the strangest thing about it was,
that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light,
by which all this was visible;
and which was doubtless the occasion of its using,
in its duller moments,
a great extinguisher
for a cap,
which it now held under its arm.

Even this,
though,
when Scrooge looked at it
with increasing steadiness,
was not its strangest quality.

For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another,
and what was light one instant,
at another time was dark,
so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness:

being now a thing
with one arm,
now
with one leg,
now
with twenty legs,
now a pair of legs without a head,
now a head without a body:

of which dissolving parts,
no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away.

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

`Are you the Spirit,
sir,
whose coming was foretold
to me.'

asked Scrooge.

`I am.'

The voice was soft and gentle.

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

`Who,
and what are you.'

Scrooge demanded.

`I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.'

`Long Past.'

inquired Scrooge:

observant of its dwarfish stature.

`No.

Your past.'

Perhaps,
Scrooge could not have told anybody why,
if anybody could have asked him;
but he had a special desire
to see the Spirit in his cap;
and begged him
to be covered.

`What.'

exclaimed the Ghost,'
would you so soon put out,
with worldly hands,
the light I give.

Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap,
and force me through whole trains of years
to wear it low upon my brow.'

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention
to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully bonneted the Spirit at any period of his life.

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

`Your welfare.'

said the Ghost.

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged,
but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive
to that end.

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

`Your reclamation,
then.

Take heed.'

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

`Rise.

and walk
with me.'

It would have been in vain
for Scrooge
to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted
to pedestrian purposes;
that bed was warm,
and the thermometer a long way below freezing;
that he was clad but lightly in his slippers,
dressing-gown,
and nightcap;
and that he had a cold upon him at that time.

The grasp,
though gentle as a woman's hand,
was not
to be resisted.

He rose:

but finding that the Spirit made towards the window,
clasped his robe in supplication.

`I am mortal,'
Scrooge remonstrated,
`and liable
to fall.'

`Bear but a touch of my hand there,'
said the Spirit,
laying it upon his heart,'
and you shall be upheld in more than this.'

As the words were spoken,
they passed through the wall,
and stood upon an open country road,
with fields on either hand.

The city had entirely vanished.

Not a vestige of it was
to be seen.

The darkness and the mist had vanished
with it,
for it was a clear,
cold,
winter day,
with snow upon the ground.

`Good Heaven!'
said Scrooge,
clasping his hands together,
as he looked about him.

`I was bred in this place.

I was a boy here.'

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly.

Its gentle touch,
though it had been light and instantaneous,
appeared still present
to the old man's sense of feeling.

He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air,
each one connected
with a thousand thoughts,
and hopes,
and joys,
and cares long,
long,
forgotten.

`Your lip is trembling,'
said the Ghost.

`And what is that upon your cheek.'

Scrooge muttered,
with an unusual catching in his voice,
that it was a pimple;
and begged the Ghost
to lead him where he would.

`You recollect the way.'

inquired the Spirit.

`Remember it.'

cried Scrooge
with fervour;
`I could walk it blindfold.'

`Strange
to have forgotten it
for so many years.'

observed the Ghost.

`Let us go on.'

They walked along the road,
Scrooge recognising every gate,
and post,
and tree;
until a little market-town appeared in the distance,
with its bridge,
its church,
and winding river.

Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them
with boys upon their backs,
who called
to other boys in country gigs and carts,
driven by farmers.

All these boys were in great spirits,
and shouted
to each other,
until the broad fields were so full of merry music,
that the crisp air laughed
to hear it.

`These are but shadows of the things that have been,'
said the Ghost.

`They have no consciousness of us.'

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

Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds
to see them.

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

Why was he filled
with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas,
as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways,
for their several homes.

What was merry Christmas
to Scrooge.

Out upon merry Christmas.

What good had it ever done
to him.

`The school is not quite deserted,'
said the Ghost.

`A solitary child,
neglected by his friends,
is left there still.'

Scrooge said he knew it.

And he sobbed.

They left the high-road,
by a well-remembered lane,
and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick,
with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola,
on the roof,
and a bell hanging in it.

It was a large house,
but one of broken fortunes;
for the spacious offices were little used,
their walls were damp and mossy,
their windows broken,
and their gates decayed.

Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables;
and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run
with grass.

Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state,
within;
for entering the dreary hall,
and glancing through the open doors of many rooms,
they found them poorly furnished,
cold,
and vast.

There was an earthy savour in the air,
a chilly bareness in the place,
which associated itself somehow
with too much getting up by candle-light,
and not too much
to eat.

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

It opened before them,
and disclosed a long,
bare,
melancholy room,
made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks.

At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire;
and Scrooge sat down upon a form,
and wept
to see his poor forgotten self as he used
to be.

Not a latent echo in the house,
not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling,
not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind,
not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar,
not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door,
no,
not a clicking in the fire,
but fell upon the heart of Scrooge
with a softening influence,
and gave a freer passage
to his tears.

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

Suddenly a man,
in foreign garments:

wonderfully real and distinct
to look at:

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

`Why,
it's Ali Baba.'

Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy.

`It's dear old honest Ali Baba.

Yes,
yes,
I know.

One Christmas time,
when yonder solitary child was left here all alone,
he did come,
for the first time,
just like that.

Poor boy.

And Valentine,'
said Scrooge,'
and his wild brother,
Orson;
there they go.

And what's his name,
who was put down in his drawers,
asleep,
at the Gate of Damascus;
don't you see him.

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

Serve him right.

I'm glad of it.

What business had he
to be married
to the Princess.'

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects,
in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying;
and
to see his heightened and excited face;
would have been a surprise
to his business friends in the city,
indeed.

`There's the Parrot.'

cried Scrooge.

`Green body and yellow tail,
with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head;
there he is.

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

`Poor Robin Crusoe,
where have you been,
Robin Crusoe.'

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

It was the Parrot,
you know.

There goes Friday,
running
for his life
to the little creek.

Halloa.

Hoop.

Hallo.'

Then,
with a rapidity of transition very foreign
to his usual character,
he said,
in pity
for his former self,
`Poor boy.'

and cried again.

`I wish,'
Scrooge muttered,
putting his hand in his pocket,
and looking about him,
after drying his eyes
with his cuff:

`but it's too late now.'

`What is the matter.'

asked the Spirit.

`Nothing,'
said Scrooge.

`Nothing.

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

I should like
to have given him something:

that's all.'

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully,
and waved its hand:

saying as it did so,
`Let us see another Christmas.'

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

The panels shrunk,
the windows cracked;
fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling,
and the naked laths were shown instead;
but how all this was brought about,
Scrooge knew no more than you do.

He only knew that it was quite correct;
that everything had happened so;
that there he was,
alone again,
when all the other boys had gone home
for the jolly holidays.

He was not reading now,
but walking up and down despairingly.

Scrooge looked at the Ghost,
and
with a mournful shaking of his head,
glanced anxiously towards the door.

It opened;
and a little girl,
much younger than the boy,
came darting in,
and putting her arms about his neck,
and often kissing him,
addressed him as her `Dear,
dear brother.'

`I have come
to bring you home,
dear brother.'

said the child,
clapping her tiny hands,
and bending down
to laugh.

`To bring you home,
home,
home.'

`Home,
little Fan.'

returned the boy.

`Yes.'

said the child,
brimful of glee.

`Home,
for good and all.

Home,
for ever and ever.

Father is so much kinder than he used
to be,
that home's like Heaven.

He spoke so gently
to me one dear night when I was going
to bed,
that I was not afraid
to ask him once more if you might come home;
and he said Yes,
you should;
and sent me in a coach
to bring you.

And you're
to be a man.'

said the child,
opening her eyes,'
and are never
to come back here;
but first,
we're
to be together all the Christmas long,
and have the merriest time in all the world.'

`You are quite a woman,
little Fan.'

exclaimed the boy.

She clapped her hands and laughed,
and tried
to touch his head;
but being too little,
laughed again,
and stood on tiptoe
to embrace him.

Then she began
to drag him,
in her childish eagerness,
towards the door;
and he,
nothing loth
to go,
accompanied her.

A terrible voice in the hall cried.'

Bring down Master Scrooge's box,
there.'

and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself,
who glared on Master Scrooge
with a ferocious condescension,
and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands
with him.

He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen,
where the maps upon the wall,
and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows,
were waxy
with cold.

Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine,
and a block of curiously heavy cake,
and administered instalments of those dainties
to the young people:

at the same time,
sending out a meagre servant
to offer a glass of something
to the postboy,
who answered that he thanked the gentleman,
but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before,
he had rather not.

Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on
to the top of the chaise,
the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly;
and getting into it,
drove gaily down the garden-sweep:

the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.

`Always a delicate creature,
whom a breath might have withered,'
said the Ghost.

`But she had a large heart.'

`So she had,'
cried Scrooge.

`You're right.

I will not gainsay it,
Spirit.

God forbid.'

`She died a woman,'
said the Ghost,'
and had,
as I think,
children.'

`One child,'
Scrooge returned.

`True,'
said the Ghost.

`Your nephew.'

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind;
and answered briefly,
`Yes.'

Although they had but that moment left the school behind them,
they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city,
where shadowy passengers passed and repassed;
where shadowy carts and coaches battle
for the way,
and all the strife and tumult of a real city were.

It was made plain enough,
by the dressing of the shops,
that here too it was Christmas time again;
but it was evening,
and the streets were lighted up.

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

`Know it.'

said Scrooge.

`Was I apprenticed here.'

They went in.

At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig,
sitting behind such a high desk,
that if he had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling,
Scrooge cried in great excitement:

`Why,
it's old Fezziwig.

Bless his heart;
it's Fezziwig alive again.'

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

He rubbed his hands;
adjusted his capacious waistcoat;
laughed all over himself,
from his shows
to his organ of benevolence;
and called out in a comfortable,
oily,
rich,
fat,
jovial voice:

`Yo ho,
there.

Ebenezer.

Dick.'

Scrooge's former self,
now grown a young man,
came briskly in,
accompanied by his fellow-prentice.

`Dick Wilkins,
to be sure.'

said Scrooge
to the Ghost.

`Bless me,
yes.

There he is.

He was very much attached
to me,
was Dick.

Poor Dick.

Dear,
dear.'

`Yo ho,
my boys.'

said Fezziwig.

`No more work to-night.

Christmas Eve,
Dick.

Christmas,
Ebenezer.

Let's have the shutters up,'
cried old Fezziwig,
with a sharp clap of his hands,'
before a man can say Jack Robinson.'

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it.

They charged into the street
with the shutters --
one,
two,
three --
had them up in their places --
four,
five,
six --
barred them and pinned then --
seven,
eight,
nine --
and came back before you could have got
to twelve,
panting like race-horses.

`Hilli-ho!'
cried old Fezziwig,
skipping down from the high desk,
with wonderful agility.

`Clear away,
my lads,
and let's have lots of room here.

Hilli-ho,
Dick.

Chirrup,
Ebenezer.'

Clear away.

There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away,
or couldn't have cleared away,
with old Fezziwig looking on.

It was done in a minute.

Every movable was packed off,
as if it were dismissed from public life
for evermore;
the floor was swept and watered,
the lamps were trimmed,
fuel was heaped upon the fire;
and the warehouse was as snug,
and warm,
and dry,
and bright a ball-room,
as you would desire
to see upon a winter's night.

In came a fiddler
with a music-book,
and went up
to the lofty desk,
and made an orchestra of it,
and tuned like fifty stomach-aches.

In came Mrs Fezziwig,
one vast substantial smile.

In came the three Miss Fezziwigs,
beaming and lovable.

In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke.

In came all the young men and women employed in the business.

In came the housemaid,
with her cousin,
the baker.

In came the cook,
with her brother's particular friend,
the milkman.

In came the boy from over the way,
who was suspected of not having board enough from his master;
trying
to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one,
who was proved
to have had her ears pulled by her mistress.

In they all came,
one after another;
some shyly,
some boldly,
some gracefully,
some awkwardly,
some pushing,
some pulling;
in they all came,
anyhow and everyhow.

Away they all went,
twenty couple at once;
hands half round and back again the other way;
down the middle and up again;
round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping;
old top couple always turning up in the wrong place;
new top couple starting off again,
as soon as they got there;
all top couples at last,
and not a bottom one
to help them.

When this result was brought about,
old Fezziwig,
clapping his hands
to stop the dance,
cried out,'
Well done.'

and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter,
especially provided
for that purpose.

But scorning rest,
upon his reappearance,
he instantly began again,
though there were no dancers yet,
as if the other fiddler had been carried home,
exhausted,
on a shutter,
and he were a bran-new man resolved
to beat him out of sight,
or perish.

There were more dances,
and there were forfeits,
and more dances,
and there was cake,
and there was negus,
and there was a great piece of Cold Roast,
and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled,
and there were mince-pies,
and plenty of beer.

But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled,
when the fiddler
(an artful dog,
mind.

The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him.)
struck up Sir Roger de Coverley.'

Then old Fezziwig stood out
to dance
with Mrs Fezziwig.

Top couple,
too;
with a good stiff piece of work cut out
for them;
three or four and twenty pair of partners;
people who were not
to be trifled with;
people who would dance,
and had no notion of walking.

But if they had been twice as many --
ah,
four times --
old Fezziwig would have been a match
for them,
and so would Mrs Fezziwig.

As
to her,
she was worthy
to be his partner in every sense of the term.

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

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

They shone in every part of the dance like moons.

You couldn't have predicted,
at any given time,
what would have become of them next.

And when old Fezziwig and Mrs Fezziwig had gone all through the dance;
advance and retire,
both hands
to your partner,
bow and curtsey,
corkscrew,
thread-the-needle,
and back again
to your place;
Fezziwig cut --
cut so deftly,
that he appeared
to wink
with his legs,
and came upon his feet again without a stagger.

When the clock struck eleven,
this domestic ball broke up.

Mr and Mrs Fezziwig took their stations,
one on either side of the door,
and shaking hands
with every person individually as he or she went out,
wished him or her a Merry Christmas.

When everybody had retired but the two prentices,
they did the same
to them;
and thus the cheerful voices died away,
and the lads were left
to their beds;
which were under a counter in the back-shop.

During the whole of this time,
Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits.

His heart and soul were in the scene,
and
with his former self.

He corroborated everything,
remembered everything,
enjoyed everything,
and underwent the strangest agitation.

It was not until now,
when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them,
that he remembered the Ghost,
and became conscious that it was looking full upon him,
while the light upon its head burnt very clear.

`A small matter,'
said the Ghost,'
to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.'

`Small.'

echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed
to him
to listen
to the two apprentices,
who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig:

and when he had done so,
said,
`Why.

Is it not.

He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money:

three or four perhaps.

Is that so much that he deserves this praise.'

`It isn't that,'
said Scrooge,
heated by the remark,
and speaking unconsciously like his former,
not his latter,
self.

`It isn't that,
Spirit.

He has the power
to render us happy or unhappy;
to make our service light or burdensome;
a pleasure or a toil.

Say that his power lies in words and looks;
in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible
to add and count them up:

what then.

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

He felt the Spirit's glance,
and stopped.

`What is the matter.'

asked the Ghost.

`Nothing in particular,'
said Scrooge.

`Something,
I think.'

the Ghost insisted.

`No,'
said Scrooge,'
No.

I should like
to be able
to say a word or two
to my clerk just now.

That's all.'

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance
to the wish;
and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.

`My time grows short,'
observed the Spirit.

`Quick.'

This was not addressed
to Scrooge,
or
to any one whom he could see,
but it produced an immediate effect.

For again Scrooge saw himself.

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

His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years;
but it had begun
to wear the signs of care and avarice.

There was an eager,
greedy,
restless motion in the eye,
which showed the passion that had taken root,
and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.

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

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

`It matters little,'
she said,
softly.

`To you,
very little.

Another idol has displaced me;
and if it can cheer and comfort you in time
to come,
as I would have tried
to do,
I have no just cause
to grieve.'

`What Idol has displaced you.'

he rejoined.

`A golden one.'

`This is the even-handed dealing of the world.'

he said.

`There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty;
and there is nothing it professes
to condemn
with such severity as the pursuit of wealth.'

`You fear the world too much,'
she answered,
gently.

`All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach.

I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one,
until the master-passion,
Gain,
engrosses you.

Have I not.'

`What then.'

he retorted.

`Even if I have grown so much wiser,
what then.

I am not changed towards you.'

She shook her head.

`Am I.'

`Our contract is an old one.

It was made when we were both poor and content
to be so,
until,
in good season,
we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry.

You are changed.

When it was made,
you were another man.'

`I was a boy,'
he said impatiently.

`Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,'
she returned.

`I am.

That which promised happiness when we were one in heart,
is fraught
with misery now that we are two.

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

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

`Have I ever sought release.'

`In words.

No.

Never.'

`In what,
then.'

`In a changed nature;
in an altered spirit;
in another atmosphere of life;
another Hope as its great end.

In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight.

If this had never been between us,'
said the girl,
looking mildly,
but
with steadiness,
upon him;'
tell me,
would you seek me out and try
to win me now.

Ah,
no.'

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

But he said
with a struggle,'
You think not.'

`I would gladly think otherwise if I could,'
she answered,
`Heaven knows.

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

But if you were free to-day,
to-morrow,
yesterday,
can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl --
you who,
in your very confidence
with her,
weigh everything by Gain:

or,
choosing her,
if
for a moment you were false enough
to your one guiding principle
to do so,
do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow.

I do;
and I release you.

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

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

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

A very,
very brief time,
and you will dismiss the recollection of it,
gladly,
as an unprofitable dream,
from which it happened well that you awoke.

May you be happy in the life you have chosen.'

She left him,
and they parted.

`Spirit.'

said Scrooge,'
show me no more.

Conduct me home.

Why do you delight
to torture me.'

`One shadow more.'

exclaimed the Ghost.

`No more.'

cried Scrooge.

`No more,
I don't wish
to see it.

Show me no more.'

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms,
and forced him
to observe what happened next.

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

Near
to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl,
so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same,
until he saw her,
now a comely matron,
sitting opposite her daughter.

The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous,
for there were more children there,
than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count;
and,
unlike the celebrated herd in the poem,
they were not forty children conducting themselves like one,
but every child was conducting itself like forty.

The consequences were uproarious beyond belief;
but no one seemed
to care;
on the contrary,
the mother and daughter laughed heartily,
and enjoyed it very much;
and the latter,
soon beginning
to mingle in the sports,
got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly.

What would I not have given
to one of them.

Though I never could have been so rude,
no,
no.

I wouldn't
for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair,
and torn it down;
and
for the precious little shoe,
I wouldn't have plucked it off,
God bless my soul.

to save my life.

As
to measuring her waist in sport,
as they did,
bold young brood,
I couldn't have done it;
I should have expected my arm
to have grown round it
for a punishment,
and never come straight again.

And yet I should have dearly liked,
I own,
to have touched her lips;
to have questioned her,
that she might have opened them;
to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes,
and never raised a blush;
to have let loose waves of hair,
an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price:

in short,
I should have liked,
I do confess,
to have had the lightest licence of a child,
and yet
to have been man enough
to know its value.

But now a knocking at the door was heard,
and such a rush immediately ensued that she
with laughing face and plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group,
just in time
to greet the father,
who came home attended by a man laden
with Christmas toys and presents.

Then the shouting and the struggling,
and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter.

The scaling him
with chairs
for ladders
to dive into his pockets,
despoil him of brown-paper parcels,
hold on tight by his cravat,
hug him round his neck,
pommel his back,
and kick his legs in irrepressible affection.

The shouts of wonder and delight
with which the development of every package was received.

The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan into his mouth,
and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey,
glued on a wooden platter.

The immense relief of finding this a false alarm.

The joy,
and gratitude,
and ecstasy.

They are all indescribable alike.

It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlour,
and by one stair at a time,
up
to the top of the house;
where they went
to bed,
and so subsided.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever,
when the master of the house,
having his daughter leaning fondly on him,
sat down
with her and her mother at his own fireside;
and when he thought that such another creature,
quite as graceful and as full of promise,
might have called him father,
and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life,
his sight grew very dim indeed.

`Belle,'
said the husband,
turning
to his wife
with a smile,'
I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.'

`Who was it.'

`Guess.'

`How can I.

Tut,
don't I know.'

she added in the same breath,
laughing as he laughed.

`Mr Scrooge.'

`Mr Scrooge it was.

I passed his office window;
and as it was not shut up,
and he had a candle inside,
I could scarcely help seeing him.

His partner lies upon the point of death,
I hear;
and there he sat alone.

Quite alone in the world,
I do believe.'

`Spirit.'

said Scrooge in a broken voice,'
remove me from this place.'

`I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,'
said the Ghost.

`That they are what they are,
do not blame me.'

`Remove me.'

Scrooge exclaimed,'
I cannot bear it.'

He turned upon the Ghost,
and seeing that it looked upon him
with a face,
in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him,
wrestled
with it.

`Leave me.

Take me back.

Haunt me no longer.'

In the struggle,
if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost
with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary,
Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright;
and dimly connecting that
with its influence over him,
he seized the extinguisher-cap,
and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head.

The Spirit dropped beneath it,
so that the extinguisher covered its whole form;
but though Scrooge pressed it down
with all his force,
he could not hide the light,
which streamed from under it,
in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

He was conscious of being exhausted,
and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness;
and,
further,
of being in his own bedroom.

He gave the cap a parting squeeze,
in which his hand relaxed;
and had barely time
to reel
to bed,
before he sank into a heavy sleep.

Stave 3:

The Second of the Three Spirits Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore,
and sitting up in bed
to get his thoughts together,
Scrooge had no occasion
to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One.

He felt that he was restored
to consciousness in the right nick of time,
for the especial purpose of holding a conference
with the second messenger despatched
to him through Jacob Marley's intervention.

But,
finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began
to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back,
he put them every one aside
with his own hands,
and lying down again,
established a sharp look-out all round the bed.

For,
he wished
to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance,
and did not wish
to be taken by surprise,
and made nervous.

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort,
who plume themselves on being acquainted
with a move or two,
and being usually equal
to the time-of-day,
express the wide range of their capacity
for adventure by observing that they are good
for anything from pitch-and-toss
to manslaughter;
between which opposite extremes,
no doubt,
there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects.

Without venturing
for Scrooge quite as hardily as this,
I don't mind calling on you
to believe that he was ready
for a good broad field of strange appearances,
and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

Now,
being prepared
for almost anything,
he was not by any means prepared
for nothing;
and,
consequently,
when the Bell struck One,
and no shape appeared,
he was taken
with a violent fit of trembling.

Five minutes,
ten minutes,
a quarter of an hour went by,
yet nothing came.

All this time,
he lay upon his bed,
the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light,
which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour;
and which,
being only light,
was more alarming than a dozen ghosts,
as he was powerless
to make out what it meant,
or would be at;
and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion,
without having the consolation of knowing it.

At last,
however,
he began
to think --
as you or I would have thought at first;
for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought
to have been done in it,
and would unquestionably have done it too --
at last,
I say,
he began
to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room,
from whence,
on further tracing it,
it seemed
to shine.

This idea taking full possession of his mind,
he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers
to the door.

The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock,
a strange voice called him by his name,
and bade him enter.

He obeyed.

It was his own room.

There was no doubt about that.

But it had undergone a surprising transformation.

The walls and ceiling were so hung
with living green,
that it looked a perfect grove;
from every part of which,
bright gleaming berries glistened.

The crisp leaves of holly,
mistletoe,
and ivy reflected back the light,
as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there;
and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney,
as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time,
or Marley's,
or
for many and many a winter season gone.

Heaped up on the floor,
to form a kind of throne,
were turkeys,
geese,
game,
poultry,
brawn,
great joints of meat,
sucking-pigs,
long wreaths of sausages,
mince-pies,
plum-puddings,
barrels of oysters,
red-hot chestnuts,
cherry-cheeked apples,
juicy oranges,
luscious pears,
immense twelfth-cakes,
and seething bowls of punch,
that made the chamber dim
with their delicious steam.

In easy state upon this couch,
there sat a jolly Giant,
glorious
to see:,
who bore a glowing torch,
in shape not unlike Plenty's horn,
and held it up,
high up,
to shed its light on Scrooge,
as he came peeping round the door.

`Come in.'

exclaimed the Ghost.

`Come in.

and know me better,
man.'

Scrooge entered timidly,
and hung his head before this Spirit.

He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been;
and though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind,
he did not like
to meet them.

`I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,'
said the Spirit.

`Look upon me.'

Scrooge reverently did so.

It was clothed in one simple green robe,
or mantle,
bordered
with white fur.

This garment hung so loosely on the figure,
that its capacious breast was bare,
as if disdaining
to be warded or concealed by any artifice.

Its feet,
observable beneath the ample folds of the garment,
were also bare;
and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath,
set here and there
with shining icicles.

Its dark brown curls were long and free;
free as its genial face,
its sparkling eye,
its open hand,
its cheery voice,
its unconstrained demeanour,
and its joyful air.

Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard;
but no sword was in it,
and the ancient sheath was eaten up
with rust.

`You have never seen the like of me before.'

exclaimed the Spirit.

`Never,'
Scrooge made answer
to it.

`Have never walked forth
with the younger members of my family;
meaning
(for I am very young)
my elder brothers born in these later years.'

pursued the Phantom.

`I don't think I have,'
said Scrooge.

`I am afraid I have not.

Have you had many brothers,
Spirit.'

`More than eighteen hundred,'
said the Ghost.

`A tremendous family
to provide for.'

muttered Scrooge.

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

`Spirit,'
said Scrooge submissively,'
conduct me where you will.

I went forth last night on compulsion,
and I learnt a lesson which is working now.

To-night,
if you have aught
to teach me,
let me profit by it.'

`Touch my robe.'

Scrooge did as he was told,
and held it fast.

Holly,
mistletoe,
red berries,
ivy,
turkeys,
geese,
game,
poultry,
brawn,
meat,
pigs,
sausages,
oysters,
pies,
puddings,
fruit,
and punch,
all vanished instantly.

So did the room,
the fire,
the ruddy glow,
the hour of night,
and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning,
where
(for the weather was severe)
the people made a rough,
but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music,
in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings,
and from the tops of their houses,
whence it was mad delight
to the boys
to see it come plumping down into the road below,
and splitting into artificial little snow-storMs. The house fronts looked black enough,
and the windows blacker,
contrasting
with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs,
and
with the dirtier snow upon the ground;
which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons;
furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off;
and made intricate channels,
hard
to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water.

The sky was gloomy,
and the shortest streets were choked up
with a dingy mist,
half thawed,
half frozen,
whose heavier particles descended in shower of sooty atoms,
as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had,
by one consent,
caught fire,
and were blazing away
to their dear hearts'
content.

There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town,
and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured
to diffuse in vain.

For,
the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee;
calling out
to one another from the parapets,
and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball --
better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest --
laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went wrong.

The poulterers'
shops were still half open,
and the fruiterers'
were radiant in their glory.

There were great,
round,
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 Friars,
and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by,
and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe.

There were pears and apples,
clustered high in blooming pyramids;
there were bunches of grapes,
made,
in the shopkeepers'
benevolence
to dangle from conspicuous hooks,
that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed;
there were piles of filberts,
mossy and brown,
recalling,
in their fragrance,
ancient walks among the woods,
and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves;
there were Norfolk Biffins,
squab and swarthy,
setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons,
and,
in the great compactness of their juicy persons,
urgently entreating and beseeching
to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner.

The very gold and silver fish,
set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl,
though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race,
appeared
to know that there was something going on;
and,
to a fish,
went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

The Grocers'.

oh the Grocers'.

nearly closed,
with perhaps two shutters down,
or one;
but through those gaps such glimpses.

It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound,
or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly,
or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks,
or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful
to the nose,
or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare,
the almonds so extremely white,
the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight,
the other spices so delicious,
the candied fruits so caked and spotted
with molten sugar as
to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious.

Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy,
or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes,
or that everything was good
to eat and in its Christmas dress;
but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day,
that they tumbled up against each other at the door,
crashing their wicker baskets wildly,
and left their purchases upon the counter,
and came running back
to fetch them,
and committed hundreds of the like mistakes,
in the best humour possible;
while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts
with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own,
worn outside
for general inspection,
and
for Christmas daws
to peck at if they chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all,
to church and chapel,
and away they came,
flocking through the streets in their best clothes,
and
with their gayest faces.

And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets,
lanes,
and nameless turnings,
innumerable people,
carrying their dinners
to the baker'
shops.

The sight of these poor revellers appeared
to interest the Spirit very much,
for he stood
with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway,
and taking off the covers as their bearers passed,
sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch.

And it was a very uncommon kind of torch,
for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other,
he shed a few drops of water on them from it,
and their good humour was restored directly.

For they said,
it was a shame
to quarrel upon Christmas Day.

And so it was.

God love it,
so it was.

In time the bells ceased,
and the bakers were shut up;
and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking,
in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven;
where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

`Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch.'

asked Scrooge.

`There is.

My own.'

`Would it apply
to any kind of dinner on this day.'

asked Scrooge.

`To any kindly given.

To a poor one most.'

`Why
to a poor one most.'

asked Scrooge.

`Because it needs it most.'

`Spirit,'
said Scrooge,
after a moment's thought,'
I wonder you,
of all the beings in the many worlds about us,
should desire
to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment.'

`I.'

cried the Spirit.

`You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day,
often the only day on which they can be said
to dine at all,'
said Scrooge.

`Wouldn't you.'

`I.'

cried the Spirit.

`You seek
to close these places on the Seventh Day.'

said Scrooge.

`And it comes
to the same thing.'

`I seek.'

exclaimed the Spirit.

`Forgive me if I am wrong.

It has been done in your name,
or at least in that of your family,'
said Scrooge.

`There are some upon this earth of yours,'
returned the Spirit,'
who lay claim
to know us,
and who do their deeds of passion,
pride,
ill-will,
hatred,
envy,
bigotry,
and selfishness in our name,
who are as strange
to us and all out kith and kin,
as if they had never lived.

Remember that,
and charge their doings on themselves,
not us.'

Scrooge promised that he would;
and they went on,
invisible,
as they had been before,
into the suburbs of the town.

It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost
(which Scrooge had observed at the baker's),
that notwithstanding his gigantic size,
he could accommodate himself
to any place
with ease;
and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature,
as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his,
or else it was his own kind,
generous,
hearty nature,
and his sympathy
with all poor men,
that led him straight
to Scrooge's clerk's;
for there he went,
and took Scrooge
with him,
holding
to his robe;
and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled,
and stopped
to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling
with the sprinkling of his torch.

Think of that.

Bob had but fifteen bob a-week himself;
he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name;
and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house.

Then up rose Mrs Cratchit,
Cratchit's wife,
dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown,
but brave in ribbons,
which are cheap and make a goodly show
for sixpence;
and she laid the cloth,
assisted by Belinda Cratchit,
second of her daughters,
also brave in ribbons;
while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes,
and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar
(Bob's private property,
conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day)
into his mouth,
rejoiced
to find himself so gallantly attired,
and yearned
to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.

And now two smaller Cratchits,
boy and girl,
came tearing in,
screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the e the baker's they had smelt the goose,
and known it
for their own;
and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion,
these young Cratchits danced about the table,
and exalted Master Peter Cratchit
to the skies,
while he
(not proud,
although his collars nearly choked him)
blew the fire,
until the slow potatoes bubbling up,
knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid
to be let out and peeled.

`What has ever got your precious father then.'

said Mrs Cratchit.

`And your brother,
Tiny Tim.

And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour.'

`Here's Martha,
mother.'

said a girl,
appearing as she spoke.

`Here's Martha,
mother.'

cried the two young Cratchits.

`Hurrah.

There's such a goose,
Martha.'

`Why,
bless your heart alive,
my dear,
how late you are.'

said Mrs Cratchit,
kissing her a dozen times,
and taking off her shawl and bonnet
for her
with officious zeal.

`We'd a deal of work
to finish up last night,'
replied the girl,'
and had
to clear away this morning,
mother.'

`Well.

Never mind so long as you are come,'
said Mrs Cratchit.

`Sit ye down before the fire,
my dear,
and have a warm,
Lord bless ye.'

`No,
no.

There's father coming,'
cried the two young Cratchits,
who were everywhere at once.

`Hide,
Martha,
hide.'

So Martha hid herself,
and in came little Bob,
the father,
with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe,
hanging down before him;
and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed,
to look seasonable;
and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder.

Alas
for Tiny Tim,
he bore a little crutch,
and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.

`Why,
where's our Martha.'

cried Bob Cratchit,
looking round.

`Not coming,'
said Mrs Cratchit.

`Not coming.'

said Bob,
with a sudden declension in his high spirits;
for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church,
and had come home rampant.

`Not coming upon Christmas Day.'

Martha didn't like
to see him disappointed,
if it were only in joke;
so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door,
and ran into his arms,
while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim,
and bore him off into the wash-house,
that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

`And how did little Tim behave.

asked Mrs Cratchit,
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity,
and Bob had hugged his daughter
to his heart's content.

`As good as gold,'
said Bob,'
and better.

Somehow he gets thoughtful,
sitting by himself so much,
and thinks the strangest things you ever heard.

He told me,
coming home,
that he hoped the people saw him in the church,
because he was a cripple,
and it might be pleasant
to them
to remember upon Christmas Day,
who made lame beggars walk,
and blind men see.'

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this,
and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor,
and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken,
escorted by his brother and sister
to his stool before the fire;
and while Bob,
turning up his cuffs --
as if,
poor fellow,
they were capable of being made more shabby --
compounded some hot mixture in a jug
with gin and lemons,
and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob
to simmer;
Master Peter,
and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went
to fetch the goose,
with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds;
a feathered phenomenon,
to which a black swan was a matter of course --
and in truth it was something very like it in that house.

Mrs Cratchit made the gravy
(ready beforehand in a little saucepan)
hissing hot;
Master Peter mashed the potatoes
with incredible vigour;
Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce;
Martha dusted the hot plates;
Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table;
the two young Cratchits set chairs
for everybody,
not forgetting themselves,
and mounting guard upon their posts,
crammed spoons into their mouths,
lest they should shriek
for goose before their turn came
to be helped.

At last the dishes were set on,
and grace was said.

It was succeeded by a breathless pause,
as Mrs Cratchit,
looking slowly all along the carving-knife,
prepared
to plunge it in the breast;
but when she did,
and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth,
one murmur of delight arose all round the board,
and even Tiny Tim,
excited by the two young Cratchits,
beat on the table
with the handle of his knife,
and feebly cried Hurrah.

There never was such a goose.

Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked.

Its tenderness and flavour,
size and cheapness,
were the themes of universal admiration.

Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes,
it was a sufficient dinner
for the whole family;
indeed,
as Mrs Cratchit said
with great delight
(surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish),
they hadn't ate it all at last.

Yet every one had had enough,
and the youngest Cratchits in particular,
were steeped in sage and onion
to the eyebrows.

But now,
the plates being changed by Miss Belinda,
Mrs Cratchit left the room alone --
too nervous
to bear witnesses --
to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough.

Suppose it should break in turning out.

Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard,
and stolen it,
while they were merry
with the goose --
a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid.

All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo.

A great deal of steam.

The pudding was out of the copper.

A smell like a washing-day.

That was the cloth.

A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door
to each other,
with a laundress's next door
to that.

That was the pudding.

In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered --
flushed,
but smiling proudly --
with the pudding,
like a speckled cannon-ball,
so hard and firm,
blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy,
and bedight
with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh,
a wonderful pudding.

Bob Cratchit said,
and calmly too,
that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage.

Mrs Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind,
she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour.

Everybody had something
to say about it,
but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding
for a large family.

It would have been flat heresy
to do so.

Any Cratchit would have blushed
to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done,
the cloth was cleared,
the hearth swept,
and the fire made up.

The compound in the jug being tasted,
and considered perfect,
apples and oranges were put upon the table,
and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire.

Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth,
in what Bob Cratchit called a circle,
meaning half a one;
and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass.

Two tumblers,
and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug,
however,
as well as golden goblets would have done;
and Bob served it out
with beaming looks,
while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily.

Then Bob proposed:

`A Merry Christmas
to us all,
my dears.

God bless us.'

Which all the family re-echoed.

`God bless us every one.'

said Tiny Tim,
the last of all.

He sat very close
to his father's side upon his little stool.

Bob held his withered little hand in his,
as if he loved the child,
and wished
to keep him by his side,
and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

`Spirit,'
said Scrooge,
with an interest he had never felt before,
`tell me if Tiny Tim will live.'

`I see a vacant seat,'
replied the Ghost,
`in the poor chimney-corner,
and a crutch without an owner,
carefully preserved.

If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,
the child will die.'

`No,
no,'
said Scrooge.

`Oh,
no,
kind Spirit.

say he will be spared.'

`If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,
none other of my race,'
returned the Ghost,
`will find him here.

What then.

If he be like
to die,
he had better do it,
and decrease the surplus population.'

Scrooge hung his head
to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit,
and was overcome
with penitence and grief.

`Man,'
said the Ghost,
`if man you be in heart,
not adamant,
forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is,
and Where it is.

Will you decide what men shall live,
what men shall die.

It may be,
that in the sight of Heaven,
you are more worthless and less fit
to live than millions like this poor man's child.

Oh God.

to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.'

Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke,
and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground.

But he raised them speedily,
on hearing his own name.

`Mr Scrooge.'

said Bob;
`I'll give you Mr Scrooge,
the Founder of the Feast.'

`The Founder of the Feast indeed.'

cried Mrs Cratchit,
reddening.

`I wish I had him here.

I'd give him a piece of my mind
to feast upon,
and I hope he'd have a good appetite
for it.'

`My dear,'
said Bob,
`the children.

Christmas Day.'

`It should be Christmas Day,
I am sure,'
said she,
`on which one drinks the health of such an odious,
stingy,
hard,
unfeeling man as Mr Scrooge.

You know he is,
Robert.

Nobody knows it better than you do,
poor fellow.'

`My dear,'
was Bob's mild answer,
`Christmas Day.'

`I'll drink his health
for your sake and the Day's,'
said Mrs Cratchit,
`not
for his.

Long life
to him.

A merry Christmas and a happy new year.

He'll be very merry and very happy,
I have no doubt.'

The children drank the toast after her.

It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness.

Tiny Tim drank it last of all,
but he didn't care twopence
for it.

Scrooge was the Ogre of the family.

The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party,
which was not dispelled
for full five minutes.

After it had passed away,
they were ten times merrier tha