A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Full Book Narrated by Morgan Keller

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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
STAVE ONE. 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 grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching,
grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which
no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as
an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled
his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly
in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry
chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the
dog-days; and didn t thaw it one degree at Christmas.
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry
weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon
its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn t know where to
have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage
over him in only one respect. They often came down handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, My dear Scrooge, how
are you? When will you come to see me? No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no
children asked him what it was o clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired
the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men s dogs appeared to know
him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts;
and then would wag their tails as though they said, No eye at all is better than an evil
eye, dark master!
But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the
crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing
ones call nuts to Scrooge.
Once upon a time of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve old Scrooge sat busy
in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could
hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their
breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks
had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already it had not been light all day
and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears
upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and
was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite
were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything,
one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.
The door of Scrooge s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk,
who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had
a very small fire, but the clerk s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one
coal. But he couldn t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so
surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary
for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm
himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.
A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you! cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge
s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his
approach.
Bah! said Scrooge, Humbug!
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge
s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and
his breath smoked again.
Christmas a humbug, uncle! said Scrooge s nephew. You don t mean that, I am sure?
I do, said Scrooge. Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have
you to be merry? You re poor enough.
Come, then, returned the nephew gaily. What right have you to be dismal? What reason have
you to be morose? You re rich enough.
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, Bah! again; and
followed it up with Humbug.
Don t be cross, uncle! said the nephew.
What else can I be, returned the uncle, when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry
Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What s Christmas time to you but a time for paying
bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time
for balancing your books and having every item in em through a round dozen of months
presented dead against you? If I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly, every idiot
who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding,
and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!
Uncle! pleaded the nephew.
Nephew! returned the uncle sternly, keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.
Keep it! repeated Scrooge s nephew. But you don t keep it.
Let me leave it alone, then, said Scrooge. Much good may it do you! Much good it has
ever done you!
There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited,
I dare say, returned the nephew. Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always
thought of Christmas time, when it has come round apart from the veneration due to its
sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that as a good time;
a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar
of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely,
and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave,
and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though
it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!
The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,
he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.
Let me hear another sound from you, said Scrooge, and you ll keep your Christmas by losing your
situation! You re quite a powerful speaker, sir, he added, turning to his nephew. I wonder
you don t go into Parliament.
Don t be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.
Scrooge said that he would see him yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression,
and said that he would see him in that extremity first.
But why? cried Scrooge s nephew. Why?
Why did you get married? said Scrooge.
Because I fell in love.
Because you fell in love! growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the
world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. Good afternoon!
Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for
not coming now?
Good afternoon, said Scrooge.
I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?
Good afternoon, said Scrooge.
I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel,
to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I ll
keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!
Good afternoon! said Scrooge.
And A Happy New Year!
Good afternoon! said Scrooge.
His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer
door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer
than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.
There s another fellow, muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: my clerk, with fifteen
shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I ll retire to Bedlam.
This lunatic, in letting Scrooge s nephew out, had let two other people in. They were
portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge
s office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.
Scrooge and Marley s, I believe, said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. Have
I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?
Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years, Scrooge replied. He died seven years ago,
this very night.
We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner, said the gentleman,
presenting his credentials.
It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word liberality, Scrooge
frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.
At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge, said the gentleman, taking up a pen, it is
more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and
destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common
necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.
Are there no prisons? asked Scrooge.
Plenty of prisons, said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
And the Union workhouses? demanded Scrooge. Are they still in operation?
They are. Still, returned the gentleman, I wish I could say they were not.
The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then? said Scrooge.
Both very busy, sir.
Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in
their useful course, said Scrooge. I m very glad to hear it.
Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,
returned the gentleman, a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat
and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others,
when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?
Nothing! Scrooge replied.
You wish to be anonymous?
I wish to be left alone, said Scrooge. Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is
my answer. I don t make merry myself at Christmas and I can t afford to make idle people merry.
I help to support the establishments I have mentioned they cost enough; and those who
are badly off must go there.
Many can t go there; and many would rather die.
If they would rather die, said Scrooge, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus
population. Besides excuse me I don t know that.
But you might know it, observed the gentleman.
It s not my business, Scrooge returned. It s enough for a man to understand his own business,
and not to interfere with other people s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon,
gentlemen!
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew.
Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious
temper than was usual with him.
Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links,
proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way.
The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at
Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and
quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering
in its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the main street, at the corner
of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire
in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their
hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left in solitude,
its overflowings sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the
shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale
faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers and grocers trades became a splendid joke: a glorious
pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain
and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House,
gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor s household
should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday
for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow s pudding in his garret,
while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.
Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had
but nipped the Evil Spirit s nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using
his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of
one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,
stooped down at Scrooge s keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first
sound of God bless you, merry gentleman!
May nothing you dismay!
Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror,
leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.
At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted
from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly
snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.
You ll want all day to-morrow, I suppose? said Scrooge.
If quite convenient, sir.
It s not convenient, said Scrooge, and it s not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown
for it, you d think yourself ill-used, I ll be bound?
The clerk smiled faintly.
And yet, said Scrooge, you don t think me ill-used, when I pay a day s wages for no
work.
The clerk observed that it was only once a year.
A poor excuse for picking a man s pocket every twenty-fifth of December! said Scrooge, buttoning
his great-coat to the chin. But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the
earlier next morning.
The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The office was closed
in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below
his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end
of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home
to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman s-buff.
Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all
the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker s-book, went home
to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were
a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little
business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was
a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again.
It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other
rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its
every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black
old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful
meditation on the threshold.
Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the
door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, night
and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little
of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London, even including which
is a bold word the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that
Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven years
dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened
that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its
undergoing any intermediate process of change not a knocker, but Marley s face.
Marley s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were,
but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry
or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned
up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and,
though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid
colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its
control, rather than a part of its own expression.
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation
to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon
the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.
He did pause, with a moment s irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did look cautiously
behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley s pigtail
sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the
screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said Pooh, pooh! and closed it with
a bang.
The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, and every cask
in the wine-merchant s cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own.
Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across
the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.
You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs, or through
a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that
staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door
towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room
to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse
going on before him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn t have
lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge s dip.
Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But
before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had
just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.
Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody
under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan
of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody
in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude
against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand
on three legs, and a poker.
Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which
was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown
and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.
It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit
close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth
from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant
long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures.
There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh s daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending
through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off
to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face
of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet s rod, and swallowed up the
whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture
on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy
of old Marley s head on every one.
Humbug! said Scrooge; and walked across the room.
After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance
happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for
some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was
with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he
saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made
a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased
as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if
some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant s cellar. Scrooge
then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging
chains.
The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on
the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.
It s humbug still! said Scrooge. I won t believe it.
His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door,
and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped
up, as though it cried, I know him; Marley s Ghost! and fell again.
The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots;
the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the
hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and
wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes,
keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent;
so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons
on his coat behind.
Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it
until now.
No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through,
and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold
eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which
wrapper he had not observed before; he was still incredulous, and fought against his
senses.
How now! said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. What do you want with me?
Much! Marley s voice, no doubt about it.
Who are you?
Ask me who I was.
Who were you then? said Scrooge, raising his voice. You re particular, for a shade. He
was going to say to a shade, but substituted this, as more appropriate.
In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.
Can you can you sit down? asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.
I can.
Do it, then.
Scrooge asked the question, because he didn t know whether a ghost so transparent might
find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible,
it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down on the
opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.
You don t believe in me, observed the Ghost.
I don t, said Scrooge.
What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?
I don t know, said Scrooge.
Why do you doubt your senses?
Because, said Scrooge, a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes
them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese,
a fragment of an underdone potato. There s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever
you are!
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any
means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting
his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre s voice disturbed the very
marrow in his bones.
To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge
felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre s being provided
with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly
the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels,
were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.
You see this toothpick? said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just
assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision s stony
gaze from himself.
I do, replied the Ghost.
You are not looking at it, said Scrooge.
But I see it, said the Ghost, notwithstanding.
Well! returned Scrooge, I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted
by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you! humbug!
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and
appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling
in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round
its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!
Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.
Mercy! he said. Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?
Man of the worldly mind! replied the Ghost, do you believe in me or not?
I do, said Scrooge. I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?
It is required of every man, the Ghost returned, that the spirit within him should walk abroad
among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life,
it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world oh, woe
is me! and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to
happiness!
Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.
You are fettered, said Scrooge, trembling. Tell me why?
I wear the chain I forged in life, replied the Ghost. I made it link by link, and yard
by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its
pattern strange to you?
Scrooge trembled more and more.
Or would you know, pursued the Ghost, the weight and length of the strong coil you bear
yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have
laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!
Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded
by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.
Jacob, he said, imploringly. Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!
I have none to give, the Ghost replied. It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge,
and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would.
A very little more is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger
anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house mark me! in life my spirit
never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie
before me!
It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches
pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his
eyes, or getting off his knees.
You must have been very slow about it, Jacob, Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner,
though with humility and deference.
Slow! the Ghost repeated.
Seven years dead, mused Scrooge. And travelling all the time!
The whole time, said the Ghost. No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse.
You travel fast? said Scrooge.
On the wings of the wind, replied the Ghost.
You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years, said Scrooge.
The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in
the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it
for a nuisance.
Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed, cried the phantom, not to know, that ages of incessant
labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of
which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working
kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for
its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for
one life s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!
But you were always a good man of business, Jacob, faltered Scrooge, who now began to
apply this to himself.
Business! cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. Mankind was my business. The common
welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The
dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!
It held up its chain at arm s length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing
grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
At this time of the rolling year, the spectre said, I suffer most. Why did I walk through
crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed
Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light
would have conducted me!
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to
quake exceedingly.
Hear me! cried the Ghost. My time is nearly gone.
I will, said Scrooge. But don t be hard upon me! Don t be flowery, Jacob! Pray!
How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat
invisible beside you many and many a day.
It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.
That is no light part of my penance, pursued the Ghost. I am here to-night to warn you,
that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring,
Ebenezer.
You were always a good friend to me, said Scrooge. Thank ee!
You will be haunted, resumed the Ghost, by Three Spirits.
Scrooge s countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost s had done.
Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob? he demanded, in a faltering voice.
It is.
I I think I d rather not, said Scrooge.
Without their visits, said the Ghost, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect
the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls One.
Couldn t I take em all at once, and have it over, Jacob? hinted Scrooge.
Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when
the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for
your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!
When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound
it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when
the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found
his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over
and about its arm.
The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself
a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.
It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each
other, Marley s Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.
Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the hand, he became
sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings
inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment,
joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.
Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and
moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley s Ghost; some few (they
might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known
to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat,
with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable
to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery
with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters,
and had lost the power for ever. Whether these creatures faded into mist, or
mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together;
and the night became as it had been when he walked home.
Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was
double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed.
He tried to say Humbug! but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion
he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or
the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose;
went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
STAVE TWO. THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS.
When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish
the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce
the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the
four quarters. So he listened for the hour.
To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight,
and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed.
The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!
He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its
rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.
Why, it isn t possible, said Scrooge, that I can have slept through a whole day and far
into another night. It isn t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this
is twelve at noon!
The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window.
He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could
see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still
very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro,
and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright
day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because three days after
sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order, and so forth,
would have become a mere United States security if there were no days to count by.
Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and
over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and
the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.
Marley s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature
inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released,
to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, Was it a
dream or not?
Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more, when he remembered,
on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one.
He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no
more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.
The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into
a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.
Ding, dong!
A quarter past, said Scrooge, counting.
Ding, dong!
Half-past! said Scrooge.
Ding, dong!
A quarter to it, said Scrooge.
Ding, dong!
The hour itself, said Scrooge, triumphantly, and nothing else!
He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy
One. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were
drawn.
The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at
his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The
curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent
attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close
to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.
It was a strange figure like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed
through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from
the view, and being diminished to a child s proportions. Its hair, which hung about
its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle
in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular;
the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most
delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest
white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It
held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that
wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about
it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which
all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments,
a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.
Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its
strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another,
and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated
in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty
legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving
parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And
in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.
Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me? asked Scrooge.
I am!
The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside
him, it were at a distance.
Who, and what are you? Scrooge demanded.
I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Long Past? inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.
No. Your past.
Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but
he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.
What! exclaimed the Ghost, would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give?
Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me
through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!
Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully
bonneted the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business
brought him there.
Your welfare! said the Ghost.
Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken
rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking,
for it said immediately:
Your reclamation, then. Take heed!
It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.
Rise! and walk with me!
It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not
adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below
freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap;
and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman s hand,
was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped
his robe in supplication.
I am a mortal, Scrooge remonstrated, and liable to fall.
Bear but a touch of my hand there, said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, and you
shall be upheld in more than this!
As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road,
with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen.
The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day,
with snow upon the ground.
Good Heaven! said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. I was bred
in this place. I was a boy here!
The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous,
appeared still present to the old man s sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand
odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys,
and cares long, long, forgotten!
Your lip is trembling, said the Ghost. And what is that upon your cheek?
Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged
the Ghost to lead him where he would.
You recollect the way? inquired the Spirit.
Remember it! cried Scrooge with fervour; I could walk it blindfold.
Strange to have forgotten it for so many years! observed the Ghost. Let us go on.
They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree; until a little
market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river.
Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who
called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in
great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry
music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it!
These are but shadows of the things that have been, said the Ghost. They have no consciousness
of us.
The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one.
Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and his
heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give
each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for their several
homes! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it
ever done to him?
The school is not quite deserted, said the Ghost. A solitary child, neglected by his
friends, is left there still.
Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.
They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull
red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in
it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little
used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls
clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with
grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary hall,
and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold,
and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which
associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.
They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house.
It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by
lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble
fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he
used to be.
Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling,
not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among
the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house
door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening
influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.
The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading.
Suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside
the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with
wood.
Why, it s Ali Baba! Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. It s dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I
know! One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come,
for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine, said Scrooge, and his wild
brother, Orson; there they go! And what s his name, who was put down in his drawers,
asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don t you see him! And the Sultan s Groom turned upside
down by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I m glad of it. What business
had he to be married to the Princess!
To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most
extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face;
would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.
There s the Parrot! cried Scrooge. Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce
growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when
he came home again after sailing round the island. Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you
been, Robin Crusoe? The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn t. It was the Parrot,
you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!
Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for
his former self, Poor boy! and cried again.
I wish, Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after
drying his eyes with his cuff: but it s too late now.
What is the matter? asked the Spirit.
Nothing, said Scrooge. Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door
last night. I should like to have given him something: that s all.
The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, Let us see another
Christmas!
Scrooge s former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more
dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling,
and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew
no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had happened
so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly
holidays.
He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost,
and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.
It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting
her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her Dear, dear brother.
I have come to bring you home, dear brother! said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and
bending down to laugh. To bring you home, home, home!
Home, little Fan? returned the boy.
Yes! said the child, brimful of glee. Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever.
Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home s like Heaven! He spoke so gently
to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more
if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you.
And you re to be a man! said the child, opening her eyes, and are never to come back here;
but first, we re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the
world.
You are quite a woman, little Fan! exclaimed the boy.
She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but being too little, laughed
again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish
eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.
A terrible voice in the hall cried, Bring down Master Scrooge s box, there! and in the
hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious
condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He
then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour
that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes
in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light
wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties
to the young people: at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of something
to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap
as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge s trunk being by this time
tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly;
and getting into it, drove gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the
hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.
Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered, said the Ghost. But she
had a large heart!
So she had, cried Scrooge. You re right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!
She died a woman, said the Ghost, and had, as I think, children.
One child, Scrooge returned.
True, said the Ghost. Your nephew!
Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, Yes.
Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy
thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and
coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made
plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas time again;
but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.
The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.
Know it! said Scrooge. Was I apprenticed here!
They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high
desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the
ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:
Why, it s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it s Fezziwig alive again!
Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour
of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself,
from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich,
fat, jovial voice:
Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!
Scrooge s former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-
prentice.
Dick Wilkins, to be sure! said Scrooge to the Ghost. Bless me, yes. There he is. He
was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!
Yo ho, my boys! said Fezziwig. No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas,
Ebenezer! Let s have the shutters up, cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands,
before a man can say Jack Robinson!
You wouldn t believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into the street with
the shutters one, two, three had em up in their places four, five, six barred em and
pinned em seven, eight, nine and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting
like race-horses.
Hilli-ho! cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility.
Clear away, my lads, and let s have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!
Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn t have cleared away, or couldn t have cleared
away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed
off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered,
the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and
warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter s night.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra
of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial
smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers
whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In
came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother s particular
friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having
board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but
one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after
another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling;
in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands
half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in
various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong
place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples
at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig,
clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, Well done! and the fiddler plunged his
hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest,
upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as
if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new
man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.
There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there
was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of
Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the
evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort
of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up Sir
Roger de Coverley. Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple,
too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of
partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion
of walking. But if they had been twice as many ah, four
times old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to
her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that s not high praise,
tell me higher, and I ll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig s calves.
They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn t have predicted, at any
given time, what would have become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig
had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and
curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig cut cut
so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without
a stagger.
When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took
their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person
individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody
had retired but the two prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices
died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop.
During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart
and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered
everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until
now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered
the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon
its head burnt very clear.
A small matter, said the Ghost, to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.
Small! echoed Scrooge.
The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their
hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,
Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps.
Is that so much that he deserves this praise?
It isn t that, said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his
former, not his latter, self. It isn t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy
or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies
in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add
and count em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost
a fortune.
He felt the Spirit s glance, and stopped.
What is the matter? asked the Ghost.
Nothing particular, said Scrooge.
Something, I think? the Ghost insisted.
No, said Scrooge, No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just
now. That s all.
His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and
the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.
My time grows short, observed the Spirit. Quick!
This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an
immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life.
His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the
signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which
showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would
fall.
He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning-dress: in whose
eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas
Past.
It matters little, she said, softly. To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me;
and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have
no just cause to grieve.
What Idol has displaced you? he rejoined.
A golden one.
This is the even-handed dealing of the world! he said. There is nothing on which it is so
hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit
of wealth!
You fear the world too much, she answered, gently. All your other hopes have merged into
the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations
fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?
What then? he retorted. Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed
towards you.
She shook her head.
Am I?
Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until,
in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed.
When it was made, you were another man.
I was a boy, he said impatiently.
Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are, she returned. I am. That which
promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two.
How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I
have thought of it, and can release you.
Have I ever sought release?
In words. No. Never.
In what, then?
In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope
as its great end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight.
If this had never been between us, said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness,
upon him; tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!
He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said
with a struggle, You think not.
I would gladly think otherwise if I could, she answered, Heaven knows! When I have learned
a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow,
yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl you who, in your very
confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were
false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance
and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the
love of him you once were.
He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.
You may the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will have pain in this. A very,
very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable
dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have
chosen!
She left him, and they parted.
Spirit! said Scrooge, show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?
One shadow more! exclaimed the Ghost.
No more! cried Scrooge. No more. I don t wish to see it. Show me no more!
But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened
next.
They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort.
Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed
it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The
noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge
in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem,
they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself
like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care;
on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the
latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly.
What would I not have given to be one of them! Though I never could have been so rude, no,
no! I wouldn t for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it
down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn t have plucked it off, God bless my
soul! to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood,
I couldn t have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment,
and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched
her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon
the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of
hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked,
I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough
to know its value.
But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she
with laughing face and plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and
boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden
with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught
that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive
into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug
him round his neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts
of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received! The terrible
announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll s frying-pan
into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued
on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and gratitude,
and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees the children
and their emotions got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the top
of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.
And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having
his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside;
and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise,
might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight
grew very dim indeed.
Belle, said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, I saw an old friend of yours
this afternoon.
Who was it?
Guess!
How can I? Tut, don t I know? she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. Mr.
Scrooge.
Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle
inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death,
I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe.
Spirit! said Scrooge in a broken voice, remove me from this place.
I told you these were shadows of the things that have been, said the Ghost. That they
are what they are, do not blame me!
Remove me! Scrooge exclaimed, I cannot bear it!
He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in
some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with
it.
Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!
In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance
on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its
light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him,
he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head.
The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though
Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light: which streamed
from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.
He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further,
of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed;
and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.
STAVE THREE. THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS.
Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts
together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of
One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial
purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob
Marley s intervention. But finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to
wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside
with his own hands; and lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the
bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not
wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous.
Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move
or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for
adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter;
between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive
range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don t mind calling
on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and
that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.
Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing;
and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a
violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet
nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of
ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being
only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what
it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very
moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation
of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think as you or I would have thought at
first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have
been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too at last, I say, he began
to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room,
from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession
of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door.
The moment Scrooge s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and
bade him enter. He obeyed.
It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation.
The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from
every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe,
and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there;
and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth
had never known in Scrooge s time, or Marley s, or for many and many a winter season gone.
Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry,
brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings,
barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense
twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious
steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore
a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its
light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.
Come in! exclaimed the Ghost. Come in! and know me better, man!
Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged
Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit s eyes were clear and kind, he did not like
to meet them.
I am the Ghost of Christmas Present, said the Spirit. Look upon me!
Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered
with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was
bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath
the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering
than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were
long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice,
its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique
scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.
You have never seen the like of me before! exclaimed the Spirit.
Never, Scrooge made answer to it.
Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young)
my elder brothers born in these later years? pursued the Phantom.
I don t think I have, said Scrooge. I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?
More than eighteen hundred, said the Ghost.
A tremendous family to provide for! muttered Scrooge.
The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.
Spirit, said Scrooge submissively, conduct me where you will. I went forth last night
on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught
to teach me, let me profit by it.
Touch my robe!
Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.
Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages,
oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the
fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas
morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not
unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings,
and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come
plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms.
The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the
smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground;
which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts
and waggons; furrows that crossed and re-crossed each other hundreds of times where the great
streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and
icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,
half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if
all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing
away to their dear hearts content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the
town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest
summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.
For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee;
calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball
better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest laughing heartily if it went right and
not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers shops were still half open, and the fruiterers
were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped
like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into
the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish
Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their
shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the
hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there
were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks,
that people s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts,
mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant
shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthy,
setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their
juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten
after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl,
though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something
going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless
excitement.
The Grocers ! oh, the Grocers ! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but
through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter
made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that
the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended
scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were
so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and
straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten
sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it
that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness
from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas
dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the
day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets
wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them,
and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer
and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened
their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection,
and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.
But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came,
flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And
at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings,
innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers shops. The sight of these poor
revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside
him in a baker s doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled
incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for
once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled
each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored
directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was!
God love it, so it was!
In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing
forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of
wet above each baker s oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.
Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch? asked Scrooge.
There is. My own.
Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day? asked Scrooge.
To any kindly given. To a poor one most.
Why to a poor one most? asked Scrooge.
Because it needs it most.
Spirit, said Scrooge, after a moment s thought, I wonder you, of all the beings in the many
worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people s opportunities of innocent enjoyment.
I! cried the Spirit.
You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which
they can be said to dine at all, said Scrooge. Wouldn t you?
I! cried the Spirit.
You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day? said Scrooge. And it comes to the same
thing.
I seek! exclaimed the Spirit.
Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your
family, said Scrooge.
There are some upon this earth of yours, returned the Spirit, who lay claim to know us, and
who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in
our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived.
Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.
Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into
the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed
at the baker s), that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself
to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and
like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.
And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else
it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led
him straight to Scrooge s clerk s; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding
to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob
Cratchit s dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen
Bob a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name;
and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!
Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit s wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown,
but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid
the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while
Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the
corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob s private property, conferred upon his son
and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired,
and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy
and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker s they had smelt the goose,
and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these
young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies,
while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the
slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.
What has ever got your precious father then? said Mrs. Cratchit. And your brother, Tiny
Tim! And Martha warn t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?
Here s Martha, mother! said a girl, appearing as she spoke.
Here s Martha, mother! cried the two young Cratchits. Hurrah! There s such a goose, Martha!
Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are! said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing
her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.
We d a deal of work to finish up last night, replied the girl, and had to clear away this
morning, mother!
Well! Never mind so long as you are come, said Mrs. Cratchit. Sit ye down before the
fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!
No, no! There s father coming, cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once.
Hide, Martha, hide!
So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet
of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes
darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny
Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!
Why, where s our Martha? cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.
Not coming, said Mrs. Cratchit.
Not coming! said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim s
blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. Not coming upon Christmas
Day!
Martha didn t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely
from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled
Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in
the copper.
And how did little Tim behave? asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his
credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart s content.
As good as gold, said Bob, and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so
much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that
he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be
pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind
men see.
Bob s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that
Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.
His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another
word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while
Bob, turning up his cuffs as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby
compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round
and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went
to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered
phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course and in truth it was something very
like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan)
hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened
up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a
tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves,
and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should
shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on,
and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking
slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did,
and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose
all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table
with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!
There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn t believe there ever was such a goose
cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration.
Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family;
indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the
dish), they hadn t ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest
Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates
being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone too nervous to bear witnesses
to take the pudding up and bring it in.
Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody
should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with
the goose a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors
were supposed.
Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day!
That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook s next door to each other,
with a laundress s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit
entered flushed, but smiling proudly with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball,
so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas
holly stuck into the top.
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the
greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that
now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity
of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all
a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit
would have blushed to hint at such a thing.
At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire
made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges
were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit
family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one;
and at Bob Cratchit s elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup
without a handle.
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done;
and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered
and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:
A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!
Which all the family re-echoed.
God bless us every one! said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
He sat very close to his father s side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little
hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded
that he might be taken from him.
Spirit, said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, tell me if Tiny Tim
will live.
I see a vacant seat, replied the Ghost, in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without
an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child
will die.
No, no, said Scrooge. Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.
If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race, returned the Ghost,
will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease
the surplus population.
Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with
penitence and grief.
Man, said the Ghost, if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until
you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall
live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless
and less fit to live than millions like this poor man s child. Oh God! to hear the Insect
on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!
Scrooge bent before the Ghost s rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground. But
he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name.
Mr. Scrooge! said Bob; I ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!
The Founder of the Feast indeed! cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. I wish I had him here.
I d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he d have a good appetite for it.
My dear, said Bob, the children! Christmas Day.
It should be Christmas Day, I am sure, said she, on which one drinks the health of such
an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody
knows it better than you do, poor fellow!
My dear, was Bob s mild answer, Christmas Day.
I ll drink his health for your sake and the Day s, said Mrs. Cratchit, not for his. Long
life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He ll be very merry and very happy,
I have no doubt!
The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had
no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn t care twopence for it. Scrooge
was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party,
which was not dispelled for full five minutes.
After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief
of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation
in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly.
The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter s being a man of business;
and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were
deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt
of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner s, then told
them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and
how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday
she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and
how the lord was much about as tall as Peter; at which Peter pulled up his collars so high
that you couldn t have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts
and the jug went round and round; and by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling
in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.
There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were not
well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and
Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker s. But, they were
happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they
faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit s torch at parting,
Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.
By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit
went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and
all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations
for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep
red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There all the children
of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins,
uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blind
of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted,
and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour s house; where,
woe upon the single man who saw them enter artful witches, well they knew it in a glow!
But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings,
you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there,
instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high.
Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened
its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless
mirth on everything within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting
the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere,
laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had
any company but Christmas!
And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert
moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place
of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for
the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass.
Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the
desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was
lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.
What place is this? asked Scrooge.
A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth, returned the Spirit.
But they know me. See!
A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing
through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing
fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children s children, and
another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old
man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste,
was singing them a Christmas song it had been a very old song when he was a boy and from
time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the
old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.
The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor,
sped whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge s horror, looking back, he saw the last of
the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering
of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and
fiercely tried to undermine the earth.
Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the
waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps
of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed
of the water rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.
But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole
in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their
horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas
in their can of grog; and one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and
scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy
song that was like a Gale in itself.
Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea on, on until, being far away,
as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman
at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly
figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or
had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas
Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping,
good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and
had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a
distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.
It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and
thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown
abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge,
while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge
to recognise it as his own nephew s and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room,
with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving
affability!
Ha, ha! laughed Scrooge s nephew. Ha, ha, ha!
If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge
s nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and
I ll cultivate his acquaintance.
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in
disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter
and good-humour. When Scrooge s nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his
head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge s niece,
by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand,
roared out lustily.
Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!
He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live! cried Scrooge s nephew. He believed
it too!
More shame for him, Fred! said Scrooge s niece, indignantly. Bless those women; they never
do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.
She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face;
a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed as no doubt it was; all kinds of good
little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest
pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature s head. Altogether she was what you would
have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory.
He s a comical old fellow, said Scrooge s nephew, that s the truth: and not so pleasant
as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to
say against him.
I m sure he is very rich, Fred, hinted Scrooge s niece. At least you always tell me so.
What of that, my dear! said Scrooge s nephew. His wealth is of no use to him. He don t do
any good with it. He don t make himself comfortable with it. He hasn t the satisfaction of thinking
ha, ha, ha! that he is ever going to benefit US with it.
I have no patience with him, observed Scrooge s niece. Scrooge s niece s sisters, and all
the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.
Oh, I have! said Scrooge s nephew. I am sorry for him; I couldn t be angry with him if I
tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he takes it into his head to
dislike us, and he won t come and dine with us. What s the consequence? He don t lose
much of a dinner.
Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner, interrupted Scrooge s niece. Everybody else
said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had
just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire,
by lamplight.
Well! I m very glad to hear it, said Scrooge s nephew, because I haven t great faith in
these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?
Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge s niece s sisters, for he answered
that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the
subject. Whereat Scrooge s niece s sister the plump one with the lace tucker: not the
one with the roses blushed.
Do go on, Fred, said Scrooge s niece, clapping her hands. He never finishes what he begins
to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!
Scrooge s nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection
off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was
unanimously followed.
I was only going to say, said Scrooge s nephew, that the consequence of his taking a dislike
to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments,
which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in
his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give
him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail
at Christmas till he dies, but he can t help thinking better of it I defy him if he finds
me going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you?
If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that s something;
and I think I shook him yesterday.
It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly
good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate,
he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle joyously.
After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were
about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl
away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or
get red in the face over it. Scrooge s niece played well upon the harp; and played among
other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes),
which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had
been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the
things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought
that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses
of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton s spade
that buried Jacob Marley.
But they didn t devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits;
for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty
Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at blind-man s buff. Of course
there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in
his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge s nephew; and
that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in
the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons,
tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains,
wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn
t catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did), on purpose,
he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront
to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump
sister. She often cried out that it wasn t fair; and it really was not. But when at last,
he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past
him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct was the most
execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary
to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain
ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt
she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office, they were so very
confidential together, behind the curtains.
Scrooge s niece was not one of the blind-man s buff party, but was made comfortable with
a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind
her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters
of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and to
the secret joy of Scrooge s nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls
too, as Topper could have told you. There might have been twenty people there, young
and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for wholly forgetting in the interest he had
in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came
out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest
needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge;
blunt as he took it in his head to be.
The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such
favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this
the Spirit said could not be done.
Here is a new game, said Scrooge. One half hour, Spirit, only one!
It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge s nephew had to think of something, and the
rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case
was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he
was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal,
an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London,
and walked about the streets, and wasn t made a show of, and wasn t led by anybody, and
didn t live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or
an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every
fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was
so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last
the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:
I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!
What is it? cried Fred.
It s your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!
Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected
that the reply to Is it a bear? ought to have been Yes; inasmuch as an answer in the negative
was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever
had any tendency that way.
He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure, said Fred, and it would be ungrateful
not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment;
and I say, Uncle Scrooge!
Well! Uncle Scrooge! they cried.
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is! said Scrooge
s nephew. He wouldn t take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!
Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have
pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if
the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last
word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.
Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy
end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and
they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope;
by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery s every refuge,
where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the
Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.
It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because
the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together.
It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew
older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until
they left a children s Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood
together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey.
Are spirits lives so short? asked Scrooge.
My life upon this globe, is very brief, replied the Ghost. It ends to-night.
To-night! cried Scrooge.
To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.
The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.
Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask, said Scrooge, looking intently at the
Spirit s robe, but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?
It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it, was the Spirit s sorrowful reply.
Look here.
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful,
hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here! exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate,
too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and
touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had
pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned,
devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity,
in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible
and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say
they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie
of such enormous magnitude.
Spirit! are they yours? Scrooge could say no more.
They are Man s, said the Spirit, looking down upon them. And they cling to me, appealing
from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all
of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which
is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it! cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand
towards the city. Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and
make it worse. And bide the end!
Have they no refuge or resource? cried Scrooge.
Are there no prisons? said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words.
Are there no workhouses?
The bell struck twelve.
Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate,
he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a
solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.
STAVE FOUR. THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS.
The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon
his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom
and mystery.
It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and
left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult
to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.
He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious
presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke
nor moved.
I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come? said Scrooge.
The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.
You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in
the time before us, Scrooge pursued. Is that so, Spirit?
The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit
had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.
Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much
that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared
to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him
time to recover.
But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror,
to know that behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him,
while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand
and one great heap of black.
Ghost of the Future! he exclaimed, I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But
as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what
I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you
not speak to me?
It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.
Lead on! said Scrooge. Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to
me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!
The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its
dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along.
They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about
them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on Change,
amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets,
and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their
great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often.
The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was
pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk.
No, said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, I don t know much about it, either way.
I only know he s dead.
When did he die? inquired another.
Last night, I believe.
Why, what was the matter with him? asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out
of a very large snuff-box. I thought he d never die.
God knows, said the first, with a yawn.
What has he done with his money? asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on
the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.
I haven t heard, said the man with the large chin, yawning again. Left it to his company,
perhaps. He hasn t left it to me. That s all I know.
This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.
It s likely to be a very cheap funeral, said the same speaker; for upon my life I don t
know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?
I don t mind going if a lunch is provided, observed the gentleman with the excrescence
on his nose. But I must be fed, if I make one.
Another laugh.
Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all, said the first speaker, for I never
wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I ll offer to go, if anybody else will.
When I come to think of it, I m not at all sure that I wasn t his most particular friend;
for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!
Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. Scrooge knew the
men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation.
The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened
again, thinking that the explanation might lie here.
He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business: very wealthy, and of great
importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business
point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.
How are you? said one.
How are you? returned the other.
Well! said the first. Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?
So I am told, returned the second. Cold, isn t it?
Seasonable for Christmas time. You re not a skater, I suppose?
No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!
Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting.
Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to
conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose,
he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to
have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost
s province was the Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself,
to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some
latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything
he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an
expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and
would render the solution of these riddles easy.
He looked about in that very place for his own image; but another man stood in his accustomed
corner, and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw
no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave
him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and
thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this.
Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched hand. When he roused
himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and its situation
in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder,
and feel very cold.
They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had
never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The ways
were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken,
slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences
of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with
crime, with filth, and misery.
Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house
roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor
within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights,
and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and
hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones.
Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was
a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the
cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and
smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.
Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy
bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden,
came in too; and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled
by the sight of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each other. After a short
period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they
all three burst into a laugh.
Let the charwoman alone to be the first! cried she who had entered first. Let the laundress
alone to be the second; and let the undertaker s man alone to be the third. Look here, old
Joe, here s a chance! If we haven t all three met here without meaning it!
You couldn t have met in a better place, said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth.
Come into the parlour. You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other two
an t strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks! There an
t such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I m sure there
s no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We re all suitable to our calling, we re well
matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour.
The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked the fire together
with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the
stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.
While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor, and
sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking
with a bold defiance at the other two.
What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber? said the woman. Every person has a right to take
care of themselves. He always did.
That s true, indeed! said the laundress. No man more so.
Why then, don t stand staring as if you was afraid, woman; who s the wiser? We re not
going to pick holes in each other s coats, I suppose?
No, indeed! said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. We should hope not.
Very well, then! cried the woman. That s enough. Who s the worse for the loss of a few things
like these? Not a dead man, I suppose.
No, indeed, said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.
If he wanted to keep em after he was dead, a wicked old screw, pursued the woman, why
wasn t he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he d have had somebody to look after
him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone
by himself.
It s the truest word that ever was spoke, said Mrs. Dilber. It s a judgment on him.
I wish it was a little heavier judgment, replied the woman; and it should have been, you may
depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe,
and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I m not afraid to be the first, nor
afraid for them to see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before
we met here, I believe. It s no sin. Open the bundle, Joe.
But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in faded black,
mounting the breach first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case,
a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally
examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each,
upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found there was nothing more to come.
That s your account, said Joe, and I wouldn t give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled
for not doing it. Who s next?
Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned
silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the
wall in the same manner.
I always give too much to ladies. It s a weakness of mine, and that s the way I ruin myself,
said old Joe. That s your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an
open question, I d repent of being so liberal and knock off half-a-crown.
And now undo my bundle, Joe, said the first woman.
Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and having unfastened
a great many knots, dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.
What do you call this? said Joe. Bed-curtains!
Ah! returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. Bed-curtains!
You don t mean to say you took em down, rings and all, with him lying there? said Joe.
Yes I do, replied the woman. Why not?
You were born to make your fortune, said Joe, and you ll certainly do it.
I certainly shan t hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for
the sake of such a man as He was, I promise you, Joe, returned the woman coolly. Don t
drop that oil upon the blankets, now.
His blankets? asked Joe.
Whose else s do you think? replied the woman. He isn t likely to take cold without em, I
dare say.
I hope he didn t die of anything catching? Eh? said old Joe, stopping in his work, and
looking up.
Don t you be afraid of that, returned the woman. I an t so fond of his company that
I d loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that shirt till
your eyes ache; but you won t find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It s the best
he had, and a fine one too. They d have wasted it, if it hadn t been for me.
What do you call wasting of it? asked old Joe.
Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure, replied the woman with a laugh. Somebody was
fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an t good enough for such a purpose,
it isn t good enough for anything. It s quite as becoming to the body. He can t look uglier
than he did in that one.
Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in
the scanty light afforded by the old man s lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and
disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing
the corpse itself.
Ha, ha! laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it,
told out their several gains upon the ground. This is the end of it, you see! He frightened
every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!
Spirit! said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. I see, I see. The case of this unhappy
man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is this!
He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained
bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though
it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.
The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced
round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was.
A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered
and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.
Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was
so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon
Scrooge s part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be
to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss
the spectre at his side.
Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such
terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered,
and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature
odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that
the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, generous, and true; the heart
brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man s. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good
deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal!
No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge s ears, and yet he heard them when he looked
upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost
thoughts? Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly!
He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he
was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to
him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone.
What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge
did not dare to think.
Spirit! he said, this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson,
trust me. Let us go!
Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head.
I understand you, Scrooge returned, and I would do it, if I could. But I have not the
power, Spirit. I have not the power.
Again it seemed to look upon him.
If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this man s death, said Scrooge
quite agonised, show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!
The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing
it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were.
She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the
room; started at every sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; tried, but
in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices of the children in
their play.
At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, and met her husband;
a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable
expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled
to repress.
He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire; and when she asked him
faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how
to answer.
Is it good? she said, or bad? to help him.
Bad, he answered.
We are quite ruined?
No. There is hope yet, Caroline.
If he relents, she said, amazed, there is! Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has
happened.
He is past relenting, said her husband. He is dead.
She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in
her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the
next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart.
What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried to
see him and obtain a week s delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns
out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then.
To whom will our debt be transferred?
I don t know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money; and even though we
were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor.
We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!
Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children s faces, hushed
and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier
house for this man s death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the
event, was one of pleasure.
Let me see some tenderness connected with a death, said Scrooge; or that dark chamber,
Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever present to me.
The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and as they went along,
Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered
poor Bob Cratchit s house; the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and
the children seated round the fire.
Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in one corner, and
sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters were engaged
in sewing. But surely they were very quiet!
And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them.
Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them
out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on?
The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face.
The colour hurts my eyes, she said.
The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!
They re better now again, said Cratchit s wife. It makes them weak by candle-light;
and I wouldn t show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It must
be near his time.
Past it rather, Peter answered, shutting up his book. But I think he has walked a little
slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother.
They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only
faltered once:
I have known him walk with I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very
fast indeed.
And so have I, cried Peter. Often.
And so have I, exclaimed another. So had all.
But he was very light to carry, she resumed, intent upon her work, and his father loved
him so, that it was no trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door!
She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter he had need of it, poor fellow
came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him
to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each child a little
cheek, against his face, as if they said, Don t mind it, father. Don t be grieved!
Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at
the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls.
They would be done long before Sunday, he said.
Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert? said his wife.
Yes, my dear, returned Bob. I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to
see how green a place it is. But you ll see it often. I promised him that I would walk
there on a Sunday. My little, little child! cried Bob. My little child!
He broke down all at once. He couldn t help it. If he could have helped it, he and his
child would have been farther apart perhaps than they were.
He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully,
and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were
signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought
a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had
happened, and went down again quite happy.
They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working still. Bob told them
of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge s nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once,
and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little just a
little down you know, said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. On which, said
Bob, for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. I am heartily
sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit, he said, and heartily sorry for your good wife. By the bye, how
he ever knew that, I don t know.
Knew what, my dear?
Why, that you were a good wife, replied Bob.
Everybody knows that! said Peter.
Very well observed, my boy! cried Bob. I hope they do. Heartily sorry, he said, for your
good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way, he said, giving me his card, that
s where I live. Pray come to me. Now, it wasn t, cried Bob, for the sake of anything he
might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful.
It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us.
I m sure he s a good soul! said Mrs. Cratchit.
You would be surer of it, my dear, returned Bob, if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn
t be at all surprised mark what I say! if he got Peter a better situation.
Only hear that, Peter, said Mrs. Cratchit.
And then, cried one of the girls, Peter will be keeping company with some one, and setting
up for himself.
Get along with you! retorted Peter, grinning.
It s just as likely as not, said Bob, one of these days; though there s plenty of time
for that, my dear. But however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall
none of us forget poor Tiny Tim shall we or this first parting that there was among us?
Never, father! cried they all.
And I know, said Bob, I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild
he was; although he was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves,
and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.
No, never, father! they all cried again.
I am very happy, said little Bob, I am very happy!
Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young Cratchits kissed him, and
Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God!
Spectre, said Scrooge, something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know
it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before though at a different time,
he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were
in the Future into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the
Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired,
until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.
This court, said Scrooge, through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation
is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be,
in days to come!
The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.
The house is yonder, Scrooge exclaimed. Why do you point away?
The inexorable finger underwent no change.
Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but
not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The
Phantom pointed as before.
He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until
they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering.
A churchyard. Here, then; the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath
the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds,
the growth of vegetation s death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with
repleted appetite. A worthy place!
The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling.
The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its
solemn shape.
Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point, said Scrooge, answer me one question.
Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May
be, only?
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.
Men s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,
said Scrooge. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus
with what you show me!
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon
the stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.
Am I that man who lay upon the bed? he cried, upon his knees.
The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.
No, Spirit! Oh no, no!
The finger still was there.
Spirit! he cried, tight clutching at its robe, hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not
be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!
For the first time the hand appeared to shake.
Good Spirit, he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: Your nature intercedes
for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me,
by an altered life!
The kind hand trembled.
I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the
Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will
not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing
on this stone!
In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong
in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.
Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in
the Phantom s hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.
STAVE FIVE. 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 Laoco n of himself with his stockings. I am as light as a feather, I am as happy
as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas
to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!
He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there: perfectly winded.
There s the saucepan that the gruel was in! cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going
round the fireplace. There s the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There
s the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present, sat! There s the window where I saw
the wandering Spirits! It s all right, it s all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!
Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh,
a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!
I don t know what day of the month it is! said Scrooge. I don t know how long I ve been
among the Spirits. I don t know anything. I m quite a baby. Never mind. I don t care.
I d rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!
He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever
heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh,
glorious, glorious!
Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright,
jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly
sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!
What s to-day! cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had
loitered in to look about him.
Eh? returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.
What s to-day, my fine fellow? said Scrooge.
To-day! replied the boy. Why, Christmas Day.
It s Christmas Day! said Scrooge to himself. I haven t missed it. The Spirits have done
it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they
can. Hallo, my fine fellow!
Hallo! returned the boy.
Do you know the Poulterer s, in the next street but one, at the corner? Scrooge inquired.
I should hope I did, replied the lad.
An intelligent boy! said Scrooge. A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they ve sold the
prize Turkey that was hanging up there? Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?
What, the one as big as me? returned the boy.
What a delightful boy! said Scrooge. It s a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!
It s hanging there now, replied the boy.
Is it? said Scrooge. Go and buy it.
Walk-er! exclaimed the boy.
No, no, said Scrooge, I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell em to bring it here,
that I may give them the direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and I ll
give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes and I ll give you half-a-crown!
The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have
got a shot off half so fast.
I ll send it to Bob Cratchit s! whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting
with a laugh. He sha n t know who sends it. It s twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller
never made such a joke as sending it to Bob s will be!
The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one, but write it he did, somehow,
and went down-stairs to open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer s man.
As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.
I shall love it, as long as I live! cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. I scarcely
ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It s a wonderful knocker!
Here s the Turkey! Hallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!
It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped
em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.
Why, it s impossible to carry that to Camden Town, said Scrooge. You must have a cab.
The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey,
and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed
the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair
again, and chuckled till he cried.
Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving
requires attention, even when you don t dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the
end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaister over it, and been quite
satisfied.
He dressed himself all in his best, and at last got out into the streets. The people
were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present;
and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile.
He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said,
Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you! And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of
all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.
He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he beheld the portly gentleman, who had
walked into his counting-house the day before, and said, Scrooge and Marley s, I believe?
It sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when
they met; but he knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.
My dear sir, said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and taking the old gentleman by both
his hands. How do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry
Christmas to you, sir!
Mr. Scrooge?
Yes, said Scrooge. That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow
me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness here Scrooge whispered in his ear.
Lord bless me! cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken away. My dear Mr. Scrooge,
are you serious?
If you please, said Scrooge. Not a farthing less. A great many back-payments are included
in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favour?
My dear sir, said the other, shaking hands with him. I don t know what to say to such
munifi
Don t say anything, please, retorted Scrooge. Come and see me. Will you come and see me?
I will! cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it.
Thank ee, said Scrooge. I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!
He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro,
and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens
of houses, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure.
He had never dreamed that any walk that anything could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon
he turned his steps towards his nephew s house.
He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he
made a dash, and did it:
Is your master at home, my dear? said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl! Very.
Yes, sir.
Where is he, my love? said Scrooge.
He s in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I ll show you up-stairs, if you please.
Thank ee. He knows me, said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room lock.
I ll go in here, my dear.
He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. They were looking at the table
(which was spread out in great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous
on such points, and like to see that everything is right.
Fred! said Scrooge.
Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment,
about her sitting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn t have done it, on any account.
Why bless my soul! cried Fred, who s that?
It s I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?
Let him in! It is a mercy he didn t shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes.
Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came.
So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party,
wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!
But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there. If he could only be
there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart
upon.
And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was
full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open,
that he might see him come into the Tank.
His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in
a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o clock.
Hallo! growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. What
do you mean by coming here at this time of day?
I am very sorry, sir, said Bob. I am behind my time.
You are? repeated Scrooge. Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please.
It s only once a year, sir, pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank. It shall not be repeated. I
was making rather merry yesterday, sir.
Now, I ll tell you what, my friend, said Scrooge, I am not going to stand this sort of thing
any longer. And therefore, he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig
in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again; and therefore I am about to
raise your salary!
Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking
Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a
strait-waistcoat.
A merry Christmas, Bob! said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken,
as he clapped him on the back. A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you,
for many a year! I ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family,
and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking
bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob
Cratchit! Scrooge was better than his word. He did it
all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He
became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew,
or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed
to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was
wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people
did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would
be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in
grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was
quite enough for him.
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle,
ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well,
if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!
And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!