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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 than before,
from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with.

Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye
for Master Peter,
which would bring in,
if obtained,
full five-and-sixpence weekly.

The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business;
and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars,
as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income.

Martha,
who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's,
then told them what kind of work she had
to do,
and how many hours she worked at a stretch,
and how she meant
to lie abed to-morrow morning
for a good long rest;
to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home.

Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before,
and how the lord was much about as tall as Peter;'
at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there.

All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round;
and by-and-bye they had a song,
about a lost child travelling in the snow,
from Tiny Tim,
who had a plaintive little voice,
and sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this.

They were not a handsome family;
they were not well dressed;
their shoes were far from being water-proof;
their clothes were scanty;
and Peter might have known,
and very likely did,
the inside of a pawnbroker's.

But,
they were happy,
grateful,
pleased
with one another,
and contented
with the time;
and when they faded,
and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting,
Scrooge had his eye upon them,
and especially on Tiny Tim,
until the last.

By this time it was getting dark,
and snowing pretty heavily;
and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets,
the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens,
parlours,
and all sorts of rooms,
was wonderful.

Here,
the flickering of the blaze showed preparations
for a cosy dinner,
with hot plates baking through and through before the fire,
and deep red curtains,
ready
to be drawn
to shut out cold and darkness.

There all the children of the house were running out into the snow
to meet their married sisters,
brothers,
cousins,
uncles,
aunts,
and be the first
to greet them.

Here,
again,
were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling;
and there a group of handsome girls,
all hooded and fur-booted,
and all chattering at once,
tripped lightly off
to some near neighbour's house;
where,
woe upon the single man who saw them enter --
artful witches,
well they knew it --
in a glow.

But,
if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way
to friendly gatherings,
you might have thought that no one was at home
to give them welcome when they got there,
instead of every house expecting company,
and piling up its fires half-chimney high.

Blessings on it,
how the Ghost exulted.

How it bared its breadth of breast,
and opened its capacious palm,
and floated on,
outpouring,
with a generous hand,
its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach.

The very lamplighter,
who ran on before,
dotting the dusky street
with specks of light,
and who was dressed
to spend the evening somewhere,
laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed,
though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas.

And now,
without a word of warning from the Ghost,
they stood upon a bleak and desert moor,
where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about,
as though it were the burial-place of giants;
and water spread itself wheresoever it listed,
or would have done so,
but
for the frost that held it prisoner;
and nothing grew but moss and furze,
and coarse rank grass.

Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red,
which glared upon the desolation
for an instant,
like a sullen eye,
and frowning lower,
lower,
lower yet,
was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

`What place is this.'

asked Scrooge.

`A place where Miners live,
who labour in the bowels of the earth,'
returned the Spirit.

`But they know me.

See.'

Alight shone from the window of a hut,
and swiftly they advanced towards it.

Passing through the wall of mud and stone,
they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire.

An old,
old man and woman,
with their children and their children's children,
and another generation beyond that,
all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.

The old man,
in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste,
was singing them a Christmas song --
it had been a very old song when he was a boy --
and from time
to time they all joined in the chorus.

So surely as they raised their voices,
the old man got quite blithe and loud;
and so surely as they stopped,
his vigour sank again.

The Spirit did not tarry here,
but bade Scrooge hold his robe,
and passing on above the moor,
sped --
whither.

Not
to sea.

To sea.

To Scrooge's horror,
looking back,
he saw the last of the land,
a frightful range of rocks,
behind them;
and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water,
as it rolled and roared,
and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn,
and fiercely tried
to undermine the earth.

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks,
some league or so from shore,
on which the waters chafed and dashed,
the wild year through,
there stood a solitary lighthouse.

Great heaps of sea-weed clung
to its base,
and storm-birds --
born of the wind one might suppose,
as sea-weed of the water --
rose and fell about it,
like the waves they skimmed.

But even here,
two men who watched the light had made a fire,
that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea.

Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat,
they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog;
and one of them:

the elder,
too,
with his face all damaged and scarred
with hard weather,
as the figure-head of an old ship might be:

struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.

Again the Ghost sped on,
above the black and heaving sea --
on,
on --
until,
being far away,
as he told Scrooge,
from any shore,
they lighted on a ship.

They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel,
the look-out in the bow,
the officers who had the watch;
dark,
ghostly figures in their several stations;
but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune,
or had a Christmas thought,
or spoke below his breath
to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day,
with homeward hopes belonging
to it.

And every man on board,
waking or sleeping,
good or bad,
had had a kinder word
for another on that day than on any day in the year;
and had shared
to some extent in its festivities;
and had remembered those he cared
for at a distance,
and had known that they delighted
to remember him.

It was a great surprise
to Scrooge,
while listening
to the moaning of the wind,
and thinking what a solemn thing it was
to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss,
whose depths were secrets as profound as Death:

it was a great surprise
to Scrooge,
while thus engaged,
to hear a hearty laugh.

It was a much greater surprise
to Scrooge
to recognise it as his own nephew's and
to find himself in a bright,
dry,
gleaming room,
with the Spirit standing smiling by his side,
and looking at that same nephew
with approving affability.

`Ha,
ha.'

laughed Scrooge's nephew.

`Ha,
ha,
ha.'

If you should happen,
by any unlikely chance,
to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew,
all I can say is,
I should like
to know him too.

Introduce him
to me,
and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.

It is a fair,
even-handed,
noble adjustment of things,
that while there is infection in disease and sorrow,
there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.

When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way:

holding his sides,
rolling his head,
and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions:

Scrooge's niece,
by marriage,
laughed as heartily as he.

And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand,
roared out lustily.

`Ha,
ha.

Ha,
ha,
ha,
ha.'

`He said that Christmas was a humbug,
as I live.'

cried Scrooge's nephew.

`He believed it too.'

`More shame
for him,
Fred.'

said Scrooge's niece,
indignantly.

Bless those women;
they never do anything by halves.

They are always in earnest.

She was very pretty:

exceedingly pretty.

With a dimpled,
surprised-looking,
capital face;
a ripe little mouth,
that seemed made
to be kissed --
as no doubt it was;
all kinds of good little dots about her chin,
that melted into one another when she laughed;
and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head.

Altogether she was what you would have called provoking,
you know;
but satisfactory,
`He's a comical old fellow,'
said Scrooge's nephew,'
that's the truth:

and not so pleasant as he might be.

However,
his offences carry their own punishment,
and I have nothing
to say against him.'

`I'm sure he is very rich,
Fred,'
hinted Scrooge's niece.

`At least you always tell me so.'

`What of that,
my dear.'

said Scrooge's nephew.

`His wealth is of no use
to him.

He don't do any good
with it.

He don't make himself comfortable
with it.

He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking --
ha,
ha,
ha.

-- that he is ever going
to benefit us
with it.'

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

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

`Oh,
I have.'

said Scrooge's nephew.

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

Who suffers by his ill whiMs. Himself,
always.

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

What's the consequence.

He don't lose much of a dinner.'

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

Everybody else said the same,
and they must be allowed
to have been competent judges,
because they had just had dinner;
and,
with the dessert upon the table,
were clustered round the fire,
by lamplight.

`Well.

I'm very glad
to hear it,'
said Scrooge's nephew,
`because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers.

What do you say,
Topper.'

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters,
for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast,
who had no right
to express an opinion on the subject.

Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister --
the plump one
with the lace tucker:

not the one
with the roses --
blushed.

`Do go on,
Fred,'
said Scrooge's niece,
clapping her hands.

`He never finishes what he begins
to say.

He is such a ridiculous fellow.'

Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh,
and as it was impossible
to keep the infection off;
though the plump sister tried hard
to do it
with aromatic vinegar;
his example was unanimously followed.

`I was only going
to say,'
said Scrooge's nephew,'
that the consequence of his taking a dislike
to us,
and not making merry
with us,
is,
as I think,
that he loses some pleasant moments,
which could do him no harm.

I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts,
either in his mouldy old office,
or his dusty chambers.

I mean
to give him the same chance every year,
whether he likes it or not,
for I pity him.

He may rail at Christmas till he dies,
but he can't help thinking better of it --
I defy him --
if he finds me going there,
in good temper,
year after year,
and saying Uncle Scrooge,
how are you.

If it only puts him in the vein
to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds,
that's something;
and I think I shook him yesterday.'

It was their turn
to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge.

But being thoroughly good-natured,
and not much caring what they laughed at,
so that they laughed at any rate,
he encouraged them in their merriment,
and passed the bottle joyously.

After tea.

they had some music.

For they were a musical family,
and knew what they were about,
when they sung a Glee or Catch,
I can assure you:

especially Topper,
who could growl away in the bass like a good one,
and never swell the large veins in his forehead,
or get red in the face over it.

Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp;
and played among other tunes a simple little air
(a mere nothing:

you might learn
to whistle it in two minutes),
which had been familiar
to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school,
as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past.

When this strain of music sounded,
all the things that Ghost had shown him,
came upon his mind;
he softened more and more;
and thought that if he could have listened
to it often,
years ago,
he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life
for his own happiness
with his own hands,
without resorting
to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.

But they didn't devote the whole evening
to music.

After a while they played at forfeits;
for it is good
to be children sometimes,
and never better than at Christmas,
when its mighty Founder was a child himself.

Stop.

There was first a game at blind-man's buff.

Of course there was.

And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots.

My opinion is,
that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew;
and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it.

The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker,
was an outrage on the credulity of human nature.

Knocking down the fire-irons,
tumbling over the chairs,
bumping against the piano,
smothering himself among the curtains,
wherever she went,
there went he.

He always knew where the plump sister was.

He wouldn't catch anybody else.

If you had fallen up against him
(as some of them did),
on purpose,
he would have made a feint of endeavouring
to seize you,
which would have been an affront
to your understanding,
and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.

She often cried out that it wasn't fair;
and it really was not.

But when at last,
he caught her;
when,
in spite of all her silken rustlings,
and her rapid flutterings past him,
he got her into a corner whence there was no escape;
then his conduct was the most execrable.

For his pretending not
to know her;
his pretending that it was necessary
to touch her head-dress,
and further
to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger,
and a certain chain about her neck;
was vile,
monstrous.

No doubt she told him her opinion of it,
when,
another blind-man being in office,
they were so very confidential together,
behind the curtains.

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party,
but was made comfortable
with a large chair and a footstool,
in a snug corner,
where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her.

But she joined in the forfeits,
and loved her love
to admiration
with all the letters of the alphabet.

Likewise at the game of How,
When,
and Where,
she was very great,
and
to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew,
beat her sisters hollow:

though they were sharp girls too,
as could have told you.

There might have been twenty people there,
young and old,
but they all played,
and so did Scrooge,
for,
wholly forgetting the interest he had in what was going on,
that his voice made no sound in their ears,
he sometimes came out
with his guess quite loud,
and very often guessed quite right,
too;
for the sharpest needle,
best Whitechapel,
warranted not
to cut in the eye,
was not sharper than Scrooge;
blunt as he took it in his head
to be.

The Ghost was greatly pleased
to find him in this mood,
and looked upon him
with such favour,
that he begged like a boy
to be allowed
to stay until the guests departed.

But this the Spirit said could not be done.

`Here is a new game,'
said Scrooge.

`One half hour,
Spirit,
only one.'

It was a Game called Yes and No,
where Scrooge's nephew had
to think of something,
and the rest must find out what;
he only answering
to their questions yes or no,
as the case was.

The brisk fire of questioning
to which he was exposed,
elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal,
a live animal,
rather a disagreeable animal,
a savage animal,
an animal that growled and grunted sometimes,
and talked sometimes,
and lived in London,
and walked about the streets,
and wasn't made a show of,
and wasn't led by anybody,
and didn't live in a menagerie,
and was never killed in a market,
and was not a horse,
or an ass,
or a cow,
or a bull,
or a tiger,
or a dog,
or a pig,
or a cat,
or a bear.

At every fresh question that was put
to him,
this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter;
and was so inexpressibly tickled,
that he was obliged
to get up off the sofa and stamp.

At last the plump sister,
falling into a similar state,
cried out:

`I have found it out.

I know what it is,
Fred.

I know what it is.'

`What is it.'

cried Fred.

`It's your Uncle Scrooge.'

Which it certainly was.

Admiration was the universal sentiment,
though some objected that the reply
to `Is it a bear.'

ought
to have been `Yes;'
inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient
to have diverted their thoughts from Mr Scrooge,
supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.

`He has given us plenty of merriment,
I am sure,'
said Fred,'
and it would be ungrateful not
to drink his health.

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

'
`Well.

Uncle Scrooge.'

they cried.

`A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
to the old man,
whatever he is.'

said Scrooge's nephew.

`He wouldn't take it from me,
but may he have it,
nevertheless.

Uncle Scrooge.'

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart,
that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return,
and thanked them in an inaudible speech,
if the Ghost had given him time.

But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew;
and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

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

The Spirit stood beside sick beds,
and they were cheerful;
on foreign lands,
and they were close at home;
by struggling men,
and they were patient in their greater hope;
by poverty,
and it was rich.

In almshouse,
hospital,
and jail,
in misery's every refuge,
where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door and barred the Spirit out,
he left his blessing,
and taught Scrooge his precepts.

It was a long night,
if it were only a night;
but Scrooge had his doubts of this,
because the Christmas Holidays appeared
to be condensed into the space of time they passed together.

It was strange,
too,
that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form,
the Ghost grew older,
clearly older.

Scrooge had observed this change,
but never spoke of it,
until they left a children's Twelfth Night party,
when,
looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place,
he noticed that its hair was grey.

`Are spirits'
lives so short.'

asked Scrooge.

`My life upon this globe,
is very brief,'
replied the Ghost.

`It ends to-night.'

`To-night.'

cried Scrooge.

`To-night at midnight.

Hark.

The time is drawing near.'

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

`Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,'
said Scrooge,
looking intently at the Spirit's robe,'
but I see something strange,
and not belonging
to yourself,
protruding from your skirts.

Is it a foot or a claw.'

`It might be a claw,
for the flesh there is upon it,'
was the Spirit's sorrowful reply.

`Look here.'

From the foldings of its robe,
it brought two children;
wretched,
abject,
frightful,
hideous,
miserable.

They knelt down at its feet,
and clung upon the outside of its garment.

`Oh,
Man.

look here.

Look,
look,
down here.'

exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and a girl.

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

Where graceful youth should have filled their features out,
and touched them
with its freshest tints,
a stale and shrivelled hand,
like that of age,
had pinched,
and twisted them,
and pulled them into shreds.

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

No change,
no degradation,
no perversion of humanity,
in any grade,
through all the mysteries of wonderful creation,
has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back,
appalled.

Having them shown
to him in this way,
he tried
to say they were fine children,
but the words choked themselves,
rather than be parties
to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

`Spirit.

are they yours.'

Scrooge could say no more.

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

`And they cling
to me,
appealing from their fathers.

This boy is Ignorance.

This girl is Want.

Beware them both,
and all of their degree,
but most of all beware this boy,
for on his brow I see that written which is Doom,
unless the writing be erased.

Deny it.'

cried the Spirit,
stretching out its hand towards the city.

`Slander those who tell it ye.

Admit it
for your factious purposes,
and make it worse.

And abide the end.'

`Have they no refuge or resource.'

cried Scrooge.

`Are there no prisons.'

said the Spirit,
turning on him
for the last time
with his own words.

`Are there no workhouses.'

The bell struck twelve.

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

As the last stroke ceased
to vibrate,
he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley,
and lifting up his eyes,
beheld a solemn Phantom,
draped and hooded,
coming,
like a mist along the ground,
towards him.

Stave 4:

The Last of the Spirits The Phantom slowly,
gravely,
silently approached.

When it came,
Scrooge bent down upon his knee;
for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed
to scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deep black garment,
which concealed its head,
its face,
its form,
and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand.

But
for this it would have been difficult
to detach its figure from the night,
and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him,
and that its mysterious presence filled him
with a solemn dread.

He knew no more,
for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

`I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet
to Come.'

said Scrooge.

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

`You are about
to show me shadows of the things that have not happened,
but will happen in the time before us,'
Scrooge pursued.

`Is that so,
Spirit.'

The upper portion of the garment was contracted
for an instant in its folds,
as if the Spirit had inclined its head.

That was the only answer he received.

Although well used
to ghostly company by this time,
Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him,
and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared
to follow it.

The Spirit pauses a moment,
as observing his condition,
and giving him time
to recover.

But Scrooge was all the worse
for this.

It thrilled him
with a vague uncertain horror,
to know that behind the dusky shroud,
there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him,
while he,
though he stretched his own
to the utmost,
could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black.

`Ghost of the Future.'

he exclaimed,'
I fear you more than any spectre I have seen.

But as I know your purpose is
to do me good,
and as I hope
to live
to be another man from what I was,
I am prepared
to bear you company,
and do it
with a thankful heart.

Will you not speak
to me.'

It gave him no reply.

The hand was pointed straight before them.

`Lead on.'

said Scrooge.

`Lead on.

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

Lead on,
Spirit.'

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him.

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

They scarcely seemed
to enter the city;
for the city rather seemed
to spring up about them,
and encompass them of its own act.

But there they were,
in the heart of it;
on Change,
amongst the merchants;
who hurried up and down,
and chinked the money in their pockets,
and conversed in groups,
and looked at their watches,
and trifled thoughtfully
with their great gold seals;
and so forth,
as Scrooge had seen them often.

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men.

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

`No,'
said a great fat man
with a monstrous chin,'
I don't know much about it,
either way.

I only know he's dead.'

`When did he die.'

inquired another.

`Last night,
I believe.'

`Why,
what was the matter
with him.'

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

`I thought he'd never die.'

`God knows,'
said the first,
with a yawn.

`What has he done
with his money.'

asked a red-faced gentleman
with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose,
that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

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

`Left it
to his company,
perhaps.

He hasn't left it
to me.

That's all I know.'

This pleasantry was received
with a general laugh.

`It's likely
to be a very cheap funeral,'
said the same speaker;'
for upon my life I don't know of anybody
to go
to it.

Suppose we make up a party and volunteer.'

`I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,'
observed the gentleman
with the excrescence on his nose.

`But I must be fed,
if I make one.'

Another laugh.

`Well,
I am the most disinterested among you,
after all,'
said the first speaker,'
for I never wear black gloves,
and I never eat lunch.

But I'll offer
to go,
if anybody else will.

When I come
to think of it,
I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend;
for we used
to stop and speak whenever we met.

Bye,
bye.'

Speakers and listeners strolled away,
and mixed
with other groups.

Scrooge knew the men,
and looked towards the Spirit
for an explanation.

The Phantom glided on into a street.

Its finger pointed
to two persons meeting.

Scrooge listened again,
thinking that the explanation might lie here.

He knew these men,
also,
perfectly.

They were men of aye business:

very wealthy,
and of great importance.

He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem:

in a business point of view,
that is;
strictly in a business point of view.

`How are you.'

said one.

`How are you.'

returned the other.

`Well.'

said the first.

`Old Scratch has got his own at last,
hey.'

`So I am told,'
returned the second.

`Cold,
isn't it.'

`Seasonable
for Christmas time.

You're not a skater,
I suppose.'

`No.

No.

Something else
to think of.

Good morning.'

Not another word.

That was their meeting,
their conversation,
and their parting.

Scrooge was at first inclined
to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance
to conversations apparently so trivial;
but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose,
he set himself
to consider what it was likely
to be.

They could scarcely be supposed
to have any bearing on the death of Jacob,
his old partner,
for that was Past,
and this Ghost's province was the Future.

Nor could he think of any one immediately connected
with himself,
to whom he could apply them.

But nothing doubting that
to whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral
for his own improvement,
he resolved
to treasure up every word he heard,
and everything he saw;
and especially
to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared.

For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed,
and would render the solution of these riddles easy.

He looked about in that very place
for his own image;
but another man stood in his accustomed corner,
and though the clock pointed
to his usual time of day
for being there,
he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch.

It gave him little surprise,
however;
for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life,
and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this.

Quiet and dark,
beside him stood the Phantom,
with its outstretched hand.

When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest,
he fancied from the turn of the hand,
and its situation in reference
to himself,
that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly.

It made him shudder,
and feel very cold.

They left the busy scene,
and went into an obscure part of the town,
where Scrooge had never penetrated before,
although he recognised its situation,
and its bad repute.

The ways were foul and narrow;
the shops and houses wretched;
the people half-naked,
drunken,
slipshod,
ugly.

Alleys and archways,
like so many cesspools,
disgorged their offences of smell,
and dirt,
and life,
upon the straggling streets;
and the whole quarter reeked
with crime,
with filth,
and misery.

Far in this den of infamous resort,
there was a low-browed,
beetling shop,
below a pent-house roof,
where iron,
old rags,
bottles,
bones,
and greasy offal,
were bought.

Upon the floor within,
were piled up heaps of rusty keys,
nails,
chains,
hinges,
files,
scales,
weights,
and refuse iron of all kinds.

Secrets that few would like
to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags,
masses of corrupted fat,
and sepulchres of bones.

Sitting in among the wares he dealt in,
by a charcoal stove,
made of old bricks,
was a grey-haired rascal,
nearly seventy years of age;
who had screened himself from the cold air without,
by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters,
hung upon a line;
and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.

Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man,
just as a woman
with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop.

But she had scarcely entered,
when another woman,
similarly laden,
came in too;
and she was closely followed by a man in faded black,
who was no less startled by the sight of them,
than they had been upon the recognition of each other.

After a short period of blank astonishment,
in which the old man
with the pipe had joined them,
they all three burst into a laugh.

`Let the charwoman alone
to be the first.'

cried she who had entered first.

`Let the laundress alone
to be the second;
and let the undertaker's man alone
to be the third.

Look here,
old Joe,
here's a chance.

If we haven't all three met here without meaning it.'

`You couldn't have met in a better place,'
said old Joe,
removing his pipe from his mouth.

`Come into the parlour.

You were made free of it long ago,
you know;
and the other two an't strangers.

Stop till I shut the door of the shop.

Ah.

How it skreeks.

There an't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges,
I believe;
and I'm sure there's no such old bones here,
as mine.

Ha,
ha.

We're all suitable
to our calling,
we're well matched.

Come into the parlour.

Come into the parlour.'

The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags.

The old man raked the fire together
with an old stair-rod,
and having trimmed his smoky lamp
(for it was night),
with the stem of his pipe,
put it in his mouth again.

While he did this,
the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor,
and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool;
crossing her elbows on her knees,
and looking
with a bold defiance at the other two.

`What odds then.

What odds,
Mrs Dilber.'

said the woman.

`Every person has a right
to take care of themselves.

He always did.'

`That's true,
indeed.'

said the laundress.

`No man more so.'

`Why then,
don't stand staring as if you was afraid,
woman;
who's the wiser.

We're not going
to pick holes in each other's coats,
I suppose.'

`No,
indeed.'

said Mrs Dilber and the man together.

`We should hope not.'

`Very well,
then.'

cried the woman.

`That's enough.

Who's the worse
for the loss of a few things like these.

Not a dead man,
I suppose.'

`No,
indeed,'
said Mrs Dilber,
laughing.

`If he wanted
to keep them after he was dead,
a wicked old screw,'
pursued the woman,'
why wasn't he natural in his lifetime.

If he had been,
he'd have had somebody
to look after him when he was struck
with Death,
instead of lying gasping out his last there,
alone by himself.'

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

`It's a judgment on him.'

`I wish it was a little heavier judgment,'
replied the woman;'
and it should have been,
you may depend upon it,
if I could have laid my hands on anything else.

Open that bundle,
old Joe,
and let me know the value of it.

Speak out plain.

I'm not afraid
to be the first,
nor afraid
for them
to see it.

We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves,
before we met here,
I believe.

It's no sin.

Open the bundle,
Joe.'

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this;
and the man in faded black,
mounting the breach first,
produced his plunder.

It was not extensive.

A seal or two,
a pencil-case,
a pair of sleeve-buttons,
and a brooch of no great value,
were all.

They were severally examined and appraised by old Joe,
who chalked the sums he was disposed
to give
for each,
upon the wall,
and added them up into a total when he found there was nothing more
to come.

`That's your account,'
said Joe,'
and I wouldn't give another sixpence,
if I was
to be boiled
for not doing it.

Who's next.'

Mrs Dilber was next.

Sheets and towels,
a little wearing apparel,
two old-fashioned silver teaspoons,
a pair of sugar-tongs,
and a few boots.

Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.

`I always give too much
to ladies.

It's a weakness of mine,
and that's the way I ruin myself,'
said old Joe.

`That's your account.

If you asked me
for another penny,
and made it an open question,
I'd repent of being so liberal and knock off half-a-crown.'

`And now undo my bundle,
Joe,'
said the first woman.

Joe went down on his knees
for the greater convenience of opening it,
and having unfastened a great many knots,
dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.

`What do you call this.'

said Joe.

`Bed-curtains.'

`Ah.'

returned the woman,
laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arMs. `Bed-curtains.'

`You don't mean
to say you took them down,
rings and all,
with him lying there.'

said Joe.

`Yes I do,'
replied the woman.

`Why not.'

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

`I certainly shan't hold my hand,
when I can get anything in it by reaching it out,
for the sake of such a man as he was,
I promise you,
Joe,'
returned the woman coolly.

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

`His blankets.'

asked Joe.

`Whose else's do you think.'

replied the woman.

`He isn't likely
to take cold without them,
I dare say.'

`I hope he didn't die of any thing catching.

Eh.'

said old Joe,
stopping in his work,
and looking up.

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

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

Ah.

you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache;
but you won't find a hole in it,
nor a threadbare place.

It's the best he had,
and a fine one too.

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

`What do you call wasting of it.'

asked old Joe.

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

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

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

It's quite as becoming
to the body.

He can't look uglier than he did in that one.'

Scrooge listened
to this dialogue in horror.

As they sat grouped about their spoil,
in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp,
he viewed them
with a detestation and disgust,
which could hardly have been greater,
though they demons,
marketing the corpse itself.

`Ha,
ha.'

laughed the same woman,
when old Joe,
producing a flannel bag
with money in it,
told out their several gains upon the ground.

`This is the end of it,
you see.

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

Ha,
ha,
ha.'

`Spirit.'

said Scrooge,
shuddering from head
to foot.

`I see,
I see.

The case of this unhappy man might be my own.

My life tends that way,
now.

Merciful Heaven,
what is this.'

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

a bare,
uncurtained bed:

on which,
beneath a ragged sheet,
there lay a something covered up,
which,
though it was dumb,
announced itself in awful language.

The room was very dark,
too dark
to be observed
with any accuracy,
though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience
to a secret impulse,
anxious
to know what kind of room it was.

A pale light,
rising in the outer air,
fell straight upon the bed;
and on it,
plundered and bereft,
unwatched,
unwept,
uncared for,
was the body of this man.

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom.

Its steady hand was pointed
to the head.

The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it,
the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part,
would have disclosed the face.

He thought of it,
felt how easy it would be
to do,
and longed
to do it;
but had no more power
to withdraw the veil than
to dismiss the spectre at his side.

Oh cold,
cold,
rigid,
dreadful Death,
set up thine altar here,
and dress it
with such terrors as thou hast at thy command:

for this is thy dominion.

But of the loved,
revered,
and honoured head,
thou canst not turn one hair
to thy dread purposes,
or make one feature odious.

It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released;
it is not that the heart and pulse are still;
but that the hand was open,
generous,
and true;
the heart brave,
warm,
and tender;
and the pulse a man's.

Strike,
Shadow,
strike.

And see his good deeds springing from the wound,
to sow the world
with life immortal.

No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears,
and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed.

He thought,
if this man could be raised up now,
what would be his foremost thoughts.

Avarice,
hard-dealing,
griping cares.

They have brought him
to a rich end,
truly.

He lay,
in the dark empty house,
with not a man,
a woman,
or a child,
to say that he was kind
to me in this or that,
and
for the memory of one kind word I will be kind
to him.

A cat was tearing at the door,
and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone.

What they wanted in the room of death,
and why they were so restless and disturbed,
Scrooge did not dare
to think.

`Spirit.'

he said,'
this is a fearful place.

In leaving it,
I shall not leave its lesson,
trust me.

Let us go.'

Still the Ghost pointed
with an unmoved finger
to the head.

`I understand you,'
Scrooge returned,'
and I would do it,
if I could.

But I have not the power,
Spirit.

I have not the power.'

Again it seemed
to look upon him.

`If there is any person in the town,
who feels emotion caused by this man's death,'
said Scrooge quite agonised,
`show that person
to me,
Spirit,
I beseech you.'

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him
for a moment,
like a wing;
and withdrawing it,
revealed a room by daylight,
where a mother and her children were.

She was expecting some one,
and
with anxious eagerness;
for she walked up and down the room;
started at every sound;
looked out from the window;
glanced at the clock;
tried,
but in vain,
to work
with her needle;
and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their play.

At length the long-expected knock was heard.

She hurried
to the door,
and met her husband;
a man whose face was careworn and depressed,
though he was young.

There was a remarkable expression in it now;
a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed,
and which he struggled
to repress.

He sat down
to the dinner that had been boarding
for him by the fire;
and when she asked him faintly what news
(which was not until after a long silence),
he appeared embarrassed how
to answer.

`Is it good.'

she said,
`or bad?'
--
to help him.

`Bad,'
he answered.

`We are quite ruined.'

`No.

There is hope yet,
Caroline.'

`If he relents,'
she said,
amazed,
`there is.

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

`He is past relenting,'
said her husband.

`He is dead.'

She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth;
but she was thankful in her soul
to hear it,
and she said so,
with clasped hands.

She prayed forgiveness the next moment,
and was sorry;
but the first was the emotion of her heart.

`What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night,
said
to me,
when I tried
to see him and obtain a week's delay;
and what I thought was a mere excuse
to avoid me;
turns out
to have been quite true.

He was not only very ill,
but dying,
then.'

`To whom will our debt be transferred.'

`I don't know.

But before that time we shall be ready
with the money;
and even though we were not,
it would be a bad fortune indeed
to find so merciless a creditor in his successor.

We may sleep to-night
with light hearts,
Caroline.'

Yes.

Soften it as they would,
their hearts were lighter.

The children's faces,
hushed and clustered round
to hear what they so little understood,
were brighter;
and it was a happier house
for this man's death.

The only emotion that the Ghost could show him,
caused by the event,
was one of pleasure.

`Let me see some tenderness connected
with a death,'
said Scrooge;'
or that dark chamber,
Spirit,
which we left just now,
will be
for ever present
to me.'

The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar
to his feet;
and as they went along,
Scrooge looked here and there
to find himself,
but nowhere was he
to be seen.

They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house;
the dwelling he had visited before;
and found the mother and the children seated round the fire.

Quiet.

Very quiet.

The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in one corner,
and sat looking up at Peter,
who had a book before him.

The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing.

But surely they were very quiet.

`And he took a child,
and set him in the midst of them.'

Where had Scrooge heard those words.

He had not dreamed them.

The boy must have read them out,
as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold.

Why did he not go on.

The mother laid her work upon the table,
and put her hand up
to her face.

`The colour hurts my eyes,'
she said.

The colour.

Ah,
poor Tiny Tim.

`They're better now again,'
said Cratchit's wife.

`It makes them weak by candle-light;
and I wouldn't show weak eyes
to your father when he comes home,
for the world.

It must be near his time.'

`Past it rather,'
Peter answered,
shutting up his book.

`But I think he has walked a little slower than he used,
these few last evenings,
mother.'

They were very quiet again.

At last she said,
and in a steady,
cheerful voice,
that only faltered once:

`I have known him walk
with --
I have known him walk
with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder,
very fast indeed.'

`And so have I,'
cried Peter.

`Often.'

`And so have I,'
exclaimed another.

So had all.

`But he was very light
to carry,'
she resumed,
intent upon her work,'
and his father loved him so,
that it was no trouble:

no trouble.

And there is your father at the door.'

She hurried out
to meet him;
and little Bob in his comforter --
he had need of it,
poor fellow --
came in.

His tea was ready
for him on the hob,
and they all tried who should help him
to it most.

Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid,
each child a little cheek,
against his face,
as if they said,'
Don't mind it,
father.

Don't be grieved.'

Bob was very cheerful
with them,
and spoke pleasantly
to all the family.

He looked at the work upon the table,
and praised the industry and speed of Mrs Cratchit and the girls.

They would be done long before Sunday,
he said.

`Sunday.

You went to-day,
then,
Robert.'

said his wife.

`Yes,
my dear,'
returned Bob.

`I wish you could have gone.

It would have done you good
to see how green a place it is.

But you'll see it often.

I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday.

My little,
little child.'

cried Bob.

`My little child.'

He broke down all at once.

He couldn't help it.

If he could have helped it,
he and his child would have been farther apart perhaps than they were.

He left the room,
and went up-stairs into the room above,
which was lighted cheerfully,
and hung
with Christmas.

There was a chair set close beside the child,
and there were signs of some one having been there,
lately.

Poor Bob sat down in it,
and when he had thought a little and composed himself,
he kissed the little face.

He was reconciled
to what had happened,
and went down again quite happy.

They drew about the fire,
and talked;
the girls and mother working still.

Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr Scrooge's nephew,
whom he had scarcely seen but once,
and who,
meeting him in the street that day,
and seeing that he looked a little -'
just a little down you know,'
said Bob,
inquired what had happened
to distress him.

`On which,'
said Bob,'
for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard,
I told him.

`I am heartily sorry
for it,
Mr Cratchit,'
he said,'
and heartily sorry
for your good wife.'

By the bye,
how he ever knew that,
I don't know.'

`Knew what,
my dear.'

`Why,
that you were a good wife,'
replied Bob.

`Everybody knows that.'

said Peter.

`Very well observed,
my boy.'

cried Bob.

`I hope they do.

`Heartily sorry,'
he said,'
for your good wife.

If I can be of service
to you in any way,'
he said,
giving me his card,'
that's where I live.

Pray come
to me.'

Now,
it wasn't,'
cried Bob,'
for the sake of anything he might be able
to do
for us,
so much as
for his kind way,
that this was quite delightful.

It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim,
and felt
with us.'

`I'm sure he's a good soul.'

said Mrs Cratchit.

`You would be surer of it,
my dear,'
returned Bob,'
if you saw and spoke
to him.

I shouldn't be at all surprised - mark what I say.

-- if he got Peter a better situation.'

`Only hear that,
Peter,'
said Mrs Cratchit.

`And then,'
cried one of the girls,'
Peter will be keeping company
with some one,
and setting up
for himself.'

`Get along
with you.'

retorted Peter,
grinning.

`It's just as likely as not,'
said Bob,'
one of these days;
though there's plenty of time
for that,
my dear.

But however and when ever we part from one another,
I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim --
shall we --
or this first parting that there was among us.'

`Never,
father.'

cried they all.

`And I know,'
said Bob,'
I know,
my dears,
that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was;
although he was a little,
little child;
we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves,
and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.'

`No,
never,
father.'

they all cried again.

`I am very happy,'
said little Bob,'
I am very happy.'

Mrs Cratchit kissed him,
his daughters kissed him,
the two young Cratchits kissed him,
and Peter and himself shook hands.

Spirit of Tiny Tim,
thy childish essence was from God.

`Spectre,'
said Scrooge,'
something informs me that our parting moment is at hand.

I know it,
but I know not how.

Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead.'

The Ghost of Christmas Yet
to Come conveyed him,
as before --
though at a different time,
he thought:

indeed,
there seemed no order in these latter visions,
save that they were in the Future --
into the resorts of business men,
but showed him not himself.

Indeed,
the Spirit did not stay
for anything,
but went straight on,
as
to the end just now desired,
until besought by Scrooge
to tarry
for a moment.

`This courts,'
said Scrooge,'
through which we hurry now,
is where my place of occupation is,
and has been
for a length of time.

I see the house.

Let me behold what I shall be,
in days
to come.'

The Spirit stopped;
the hand was pointed elsewhere.

`The house is yonder,'
Scrooge exclaimed.

`Why do you point away.'

The inexorable finger underwent no change.

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

It was an office still,
but not his.

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

The Phantom pointed as before.

He joined it once again,
and wondering why and whither he had gone,
accompanied it until they reached an iron gate.

He paused
to look round before entering.

A churchyard.

Here,
then,
the wretched man whose name he had now
to learn,
lay underneath the ground.

It was a worthy place.

Walled in by houses;
overrun by grass and weeds,
the growth of vegetation's death,
not life;
choked up
with too much burying;
fat
with repleted appetite.

A worthy place.

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

He advanced towards it trembling.

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

`Before I draw nearer
to that stone
to which you point,'
said Scrooge,
`answer me one question.

Are these the shadows of the things that Will be,
or are they shadows of things that May be,
only.'

Still the Ghost pointed downward
to the grave by which it stood.

`Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends,
to which,
if persevered in,
they must lead,'
said Scrooge.

`But if the courses be departed from,
the ends will change.

Say it is thus
with what you show me.'

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Scrooge crept towards it,
trembling as he went;
and following the finger,
read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name,
Ebenezer Scrooge.

`Am I that man who lay upon the bed.'

he cried,
upon his knees.

The finger pointed from the grave
to him,
and back again.

`No,
Spirit.

Oh no,
no.'

The finger still was there.

`Spirit.'

he cried,
tight clutching at its robe,'
hear me.

I am not the man I was.

I will not be the man I must have been but
for this intercourse.

Why show me this,
if I am past all hope.'

For the first time the hand appeared
to shake.

`Good Spirit,'
he pursued,
as down upon the ground he fell before it:'
Your nature intercedes
for me,
and pities me.

Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me,
by an altered life.'

The kind hand trembled.

`I will honour Christmas in my heart,
and try
to keep it all the year.

I will live in the Past,
the Present,
and the Future.

The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.

I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.

Oh,
tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone.'

In his agony,
he caught the spectral hand.

It sought
to free itself,
but he was strong in his entreaty,
and detained it.

The Spirit,
stronger yet,
repulsed him.

Holding up his hands in a last prayer
to have his fate aye reversed,
he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress.

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

Stave 5:

The End of It Yes!
and the bedpost was his own.

The bed was his own,
the room was his own.

Best and happiest of all,
the Time before him was his own,
to make amends in!
`I will live in the Past,
the Present,
and the Future.'

Scrooge repeated,
as he scrambled out of bed.

`The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.

Oh Jacob Marley.

Heaven,
and the Christmas Time be praised
for this.

I say it on my knees,
old Jacob,
on my knees.'

He was so fluttered and so glowing
with his good intentions,
that his broken voice would scarcely answer
to his call.

He had been sobbing violently in his conflict
with the Spirit,
and his face was wet
with tears.

`They are not torn down.'

cried Scrooge,
folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms,'
they are not torn down,
rings and all.

They are here --
I am here --
the shadows of the things that would have been,
may be dispelled.

They will be.

I know they will.'

His hands were busy
with his garments all this time;
turning them inside out,
putting them on upside down,
tearing them,
mislaying them,
making them parties
to every kind of extravagance.

`I don't know what
to do.'

cried Scrooge,
laughing and crying in the same breath;
and making a perfect Laocoon of himself
with his stockings.

`I am as light as a feather,
I am as happy as an angel,
I am as merry as a schoolboy.

I am as giddy as a drunken man.

A merry Christmas
to everybody.

A happy New Year
to all the world.

Hallo here.

Whoop.

Hallo.'

He had frisked into the sitting-room,
and was now standing there:

perfectly winded.

`There's the saucepan that the gruel was in.'

cried Scrooge,
starting off again,
and going round the fireplace.

`There's the door,
by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered.

There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present,
sat.

There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits.

It's all right,
it's all true,
it all happened.

Ha ha ha.'

Really,
for a man who had been out of practice
for so many years,
it was a splendid laugh,
a most illustrious laugh.

The father of a long,
long line of brilliant laughs.

`I don't know what day of the month it is.'

said Scrooge.

`I don't know how long I've been among the Spirits.

I don't know anything.

I'm quite a baby.

Never mind.

I don't care.

I'd rather be a baby.

Hallo.

Whoop.

Hallo here.'

He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard.

Clash,
clang,
hammer;
ding,
dong,
bell.

Bell,
dong,
ding;
hammer,
clang,
clash.

Oh,
glorious,
glorious.

Running
to the window,
he opened it,
and put out his head.

No fog,
no mist;
clear,
bright,
jovial,
stirring,
cold;
cold,
piping
for the blood
to dance to;
Golden sunlight;
Heavenly sky;
sweet fresh air;
merry bells.

Oh,
glorious.

Glorious.

`What's to-day.'

cried Scrooge,
calling downward
to a boy in Sunday clothes,
who perhaps had loitered in
to look about him.

`Eh.'

returned the boy,
with all his might of wonder.

`What's to-day,
my fine fellow.'

said Scrooge.

`To-day.'

replied the boy.

`Why,
Christmas Day.'

`It's Christmas Day.'

said Scrooge
to himself.

`I haven't missed it.

The Spirits have done it all in one night.

They can do anything they like.

Of course they can.

Of course they can.

Hallo,
my fine fellow.'

`Hallo.'

returned the boy.

`Do you know the Poulterer's,
in the next street but one,
at the corner.'

Scrooge inquired.

`I should hope I did,'
replied the lad.

`An intelligent boy.'

said Scrooge.

`A remarkable boy.

Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there --
Not the little prize Turkey:

the big one.'

`What,
the one as big as me.'

returned the boy.

`What a delightful boy.'

said Scrooge.

`It's a pleasure
to talk
to him.

Yes,
my buck.'

`It's hanging there now,'
replied the boy.

`Is it.'

said Scrooge.

`Go and buy it.'

`Walk-er.'

exclaimed the boy.

`No,
no,'
said Scrooge,
`I am in earnest.

Go and buy it,
and tell them
to bring it here,
that I may give them the direction where
to take it.

Come back
with the man,
and I'll give you a shilling.

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

The boy was off like a shot.

He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.

`I'll send it
to Bon Cratchit's.'

whispered Scrooge,
rubbing his hands,
and splitting
with a laugh.

`He shan't know who sends it.

It's twice the size of Tiny Tim.

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

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one,
but write it he did,
somehow,
and went down-stairs
to open the street door,
ready
for the coming of the poulterer's man.

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

`I shall love it,
as long as I live.'

cried Scrooge,
patting it
with his hand.

`I scarcely ever looked at it before.

What an honest expression it has in its face.

It's a wonderful knocker.

-- Here's the Turkey.

Hallo.

Whoop.

How are you.

Merry Christmas.'

It was a Turkey.

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

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

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

`You must have a cab.'

The chuckle
with which he said this,
and the chuckle
with which he paid
for the Turkey,
and the chuckle
with which he paid
for the cab,
and the chuckle
with which he recompensed the boy,
were only
to be exceeded by the chuckle
with which he sat down breathless in his chair again,
and chuckled till he cried.

Shaving was not an easy task,
for his hand continued
to shake very much;
and shaving requires attention,
even when you don't dance while you are at it.

But if he had cut the end of his nose off,
he would have put a piece of sticking-plaister over it,
and been quite satisfied.

He dressed himself all in his best,
and at last got out into the streets.

The people were by this time pouring forth,
as he had seen them
with the Ghost of Christmas Present;
and walking
with his hands behind him,
Scrooge regarded every one
with a delighted smile.

He looked so irresistibly pleasant,
in a word,
that three or four good-humoured fellows said,'
Good morning,
sir.

A merry Christmas
to you.'

And Scrooge said often afterwards,
that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard,
those were the blithest in his ears.

He had not gone far,
when coming on towards him he beheld the portly gentleman,
who had walked into his counting-house the day before,
and said,'
Scrooge and Marley's,
I believe.'

It sent a pang across his heart
to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met;
but he knew what path lay straight before him,
and he took it.

`My dear sir,'
said Scrooge,
quickening his pace,
and taking the old gentleman by both his hands.

`How do you do.

I hope you succeeded yesterday.

It was very kind of you.

A merry Christmas
to you,
sir.'

`Mr Scrooge.'

`Yes,'
said Scrooge.

`That is my name,
and I fear it may not be pleasant
to you.

Allow me
to ask your pardon.

And will you have the goodness'
-- here Scrooge whispered in his ear.

`Lord bless me.'

cried the gentleman,
as if his breath were taken away.

`My dear Mr Scrooge,
are you serious.'

`If you please,'
said Scrooge.

`Not a farthing less.

A great many back-payments are included in it,
I assure you.

Will you do me that favour.'

`My dear sir,'
said the other,
shaking hands
with him.

`I don't know what
to say
to such munificence.'

`Don't say anything please,'
retorted Scrooge.

`Come and see me.

Will you come and see me.'

`I will.'

cried the old gentleman.

And it was clear he meant
to do it.

`Thank you,'
said Scrooge.

`I am much obliged
to you.

I thank you fifty times.

Bless you.'

He went
to church,
and walked about the streets,
and watched the people hurrying
to and fro,
and patted children on the head,
and questioned beggars,
and looked down into the kitchens of houses,
and up
to the windows,
and found that everything could yield him pleasure.

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

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

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

But he made a dash,
and did it:

`Is your master at home,
my dear.'

said Scrooge
to the girl.

Nice girl.

Very.

`Yes,
sir.'

`Where is he,
my love.'

said Scrooge.

`He's in the dining-room,
sir,
along
with mistress.

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

`Thank you.

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

`I'll go in here,
my dear.'

He turned it gently,
and sidled his face in,
round the door.

They were looking at the table
(which was spread out in great array);
for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points,
and like
to see that everything is right.

`Fred.'

said Scrooge.

Dear heart alive,
how his niece by marriage started.

Scrooge had forgotten,
for the moment,
about her sitting in the corner
with the footstool,
or he wouldn't have done it,
on any account.

`Why bless my soul.'

cried Fred,'
who's that.'

`It's I.

Your uncle Scrooge.

I have come
to dinner.

Will you let me in,
Fred.'

Let him in.

It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off.

He was at home in five minutes.

Nothing could be heartier.

His niece looked just the same.

So did Topper when he came.

So did the plump sister when she came.

So did every one when they came.

Wonderful party,
wonderful games,
wonderful unanimity,
wonderful happiness.

But he was early at the office next morning.

Oh,
he was early there.

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

That was the thing he had set his heart upon.

And he did it;
yes,
he did.

The clock struck nine.

No Bob.

A quarter past.

No Bob.

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

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

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

He was on his stool in a jiffy;
driving away
with his pen,
as if he were trying
to overtake nine o'clock.

`Hallo.'

growled Scrooge,
in his accustomed voice,
as near as he could feign it.

`What do you mean by coming here at this time of day.'

`I am very sorry,
sir,'
said Bob.

`I am behind my time.'

`You are.'

repeated Scrooge.

`Yes.

I think you are.

Step this way,
sir,
if you please.'

`It's only once a year,
sir,'
pleaded Bob,
appearing from the Tank.

`It shall not be repeated.

I was making rather merry yesterday,
sir.'

`Now,
I'll tell you what,
my friend,'
said Scrooge,'
I am not going
to stand this sort of thing any longer.

And therefore,'
he continued,
leaping from his stool,
and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again;'
and therefore I am about
to raise your salary.'

Bob trembled,
and got a little nearer
to the ruler.

He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down
with it,
holding him,
and calling
to the people in the court
for help and a strait-waistcoat.

`A merry Christmas,
Bob,'
said Scrooge,
with an earnestness that could not be mistaken,
as he clapped him on the back.

`A merrier Christmas,
Bob,
my good fellow,
than I have given you
for many a year.

I'll raise your salary,
and endeavour
to assist your struggling family,
and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon,
over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop,
Bob.

Make up the fires,
and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i,
Bob Cratchit.'

Scrooge was better than his word.

He did it all,
and infinitely more;
and
to Tiny Tim,
who did not die,
he was a second father.

He became as good a friend,
as good a master,
and as good a man,
as the good old city knew,
or any other good old city,
town,
or borough,
in the good old world.

Some people laughed
to see the alteration in him,
but he let them laugh,
and little heeded them;
for he was wise enough
to know that nothing ever happened on this globe,
for good,
at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset;
and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway,
he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins,
as have the malady in less attractive forMs. His own heart laughed:

and that was quite enough
for him.

He had no further intercourse
with Spirits,
but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle,
ever afterwards;
and it was always said of him,
that he knew how
to keep Christmas well,
if any man alive possessed the knowledge.

May that be truly said of us,
and all of us!
And so,
as Tiny Tim observed,
God bless Us,
Every One!