the_secret_garden.pickle

S'The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens\r\n\r\nThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with\r\nalmost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or\r\nre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included\r\nwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net\r\n\r\n\r\nTitle: A Christmas Carol\r\n       A Ghost Story of Christmas\r\n\r\nAuthor: Charles Dickens\r\n\r\nRelease Date: August 11, 2004 [EBook #46]\r\n\r\nLanguage: English\r\n\r\nCharacter set encoding: ASCII\r\n\r\n*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CAROL ***\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nProduced by Jose Menendez\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nA CHRISTMAS CAROL\r\n\r\nIN PROSE\r\nBEING\r\nA Ghost Story of Christmas\r\n\r\nby Charles Dickens\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nPREFACE\r\n\r\nI HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book,\r\nto raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my\r\nreaders out of humour with themselves, with each other,\r\nwith the season, or with me.  May it haunt their houses\r\npleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.\r\n\r\nTheir faithful Friend and Servant,\r\n                                   C. D.\r\nDecember, 1843.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCONTENTS\r\n\r\nStave   I: Marley\'s Ghost\r\nStave  II: The First of the Three Spirits\r\nStave III: The Second of the Three Spirits\r\nStave  IV: The Last of the Spirits\r\nStave   V: The End of It\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSTAVE I:  MARLEY\'S GHOST\r\n\r\nMARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt\r\nwhatever about that. The register of his burial was\r\nsigned by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,\r\nand the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and\r\nScrooge\'s name was good upon \'Change, for anything he\r\nchose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a\r\ndoor-nail.\r\n\r\nMind! I don\'t mean to say that I know, of my\r\nown knowledge, what there is particularly dead about\r\na door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to\r\nregard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery\r\nin the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors\r\nis in the simile; and my unhallowed hands\r\nshall not disturb it, or the Country\'s done for. You\r\nwill therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that\r\nMarley was as dead as a door-nail.\r\n\r\nScrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.\r\nHow could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were\r\npartners for I don\'t know how many years. Scrooge\r\nwas his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole\r\nassign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and\r\nsole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully\r\ncut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent\r\nman of business on the very day of the funeral,\r\nand solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.\r\n\r\nThe mention of Marley\'s funeral brings me back to\r\nthe point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley\r\nwas dead. This must be distinctly understood, or\r\nnothing wonderful can come of the story I am going\r\nto relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that\r\nHamlet\'s Father died before the play began, there\r\nwould be nothing more remarkable in his taking a\r\nstroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,\r\nthan there would be in any other middle-aged\r\ngentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy\r\nspot--say Saint Paul\'s Churchyard for instance--\r\nliterally to astonish his son\'s weak mind.\r\n\r\nScrooge never painted out Old Marley\'s name.\r\nThere it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse\r\ndoor: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as\r\nScrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the\r\nbusiness called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley,\r\nbut he answered to both names. It was all the\r\nsame to him.\r\n\r\nOh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone,\r\nScrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping,\r\nclutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint,\r\nfrom which no steel had ever struck out generous fire;\r\nsecret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The\r\ncold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed\r\nnose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his\r\neyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his\r\ngrating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his\r\neyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low\r\ntemperature always about with him; he iced his office in\r\nthe dog-days; and didn\'t thaw it one degree at Christmas.\r\n\r\nExternal heat and cold had little influence on\r\nScrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather\r\nchill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he,\r\nno falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no\r\npelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn\'t\r\nknow where to have him. The heaviest rain, and\r\nsnow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage\r\nover him in only one respect. They often "came down"\r\nhandsomely, and Scrooge never did.\r\n\r\nNobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with\r\ngladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you?\r\nWhen will you come to see me?" No beggars implored\r\nhim to bestow a trifle, no children asked him\r\nwhat it was o\'clock, no man or woman ever once in all\r\nhis life inquired the way to such and such a place, of\r\nScrooge. Even the blind men\'s dogs appeared to\r\nknow him; and when they saw him coming on, would\r\ntug their owners into doorways and up courts; and\r\nthen would wag their tails as though they said, "No\r\neye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"\r\n\r\nBut what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing\r\nhe liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths\r\nof life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance,\r\nwas what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.\r\n\r\nOnce upon a time--of all the good days in the year,\r\non Christmas Eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his\r\ncounting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy\r\nwithal: and he could hear the people in the court outside,\r\ngo wheezing up and down, beating their hands\r\nupon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the\r\npavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had\r\nonly just gone three, but it was quite dark already--\r\nit had not been light all day--and candles were flaring\r\nin the windows of the neighbouring offices, like\r\nruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog\r\ncame pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was\r\nso dense without, that although the court was of the\r\nnarrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.\r\nTo see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring\r\neverything, one might have thought that Nature\r\nlived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.\r\n\r\nThe door of Scrooge\'s counting-house was open\r\nthat he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a\r\ndismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying\r\nletters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk\'s\r\nfire was so very much smaller that it looked like one\r\ncoal. But he couldn\'t replenish it, for Scrooge kept\r\nthe coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the\r\nclerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted\r\nthat it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore\r\nthe clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to\r\nwarm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being\r\na man of a strong imagination, he failed.\r\n\r\n"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried\r\na cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge\'s\r\nnephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was\r\nthe first intimation he had of his approach.\r\n\r\n"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"\r\n\r\nHe had so heated himself with rapid walking in the\r\nfog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge\'s, that he was\r\nall in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his\r\neyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.\r\n\r\n"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge\'s\r\nnephew. "You don\'t mean that, I am sure?"\r\n\r\n"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What\r\nright have you to be merry? What reason have you\r\nto be merry? You\'re poor enough."\r\n\r\n"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What\r\nright have you to be dismal? What reason have you\r\nto be morose? You\'re rich enough."\r\n\r\nScrooge having no better answer ready on the spur\r\nof the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up\r\nwith "Humbug."\r\n\r\n"Don\'t be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.\r\n\r\n"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I\r\nlive in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas!\r\nOut upon merry Christmas! What\'s Christmas\r\ntime to you but a time for paying bills without\r\nmoney; a time for finding yourself a year older, but\r\nnot an hour richer; a time for balancing your books\r\nand having every item in \'em through a round dozen\r\nof months presented dead against you? If I could\r\nwork my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot\r\nwho goes about with \'Merry Christmas\' on his lips,\r\nshould be boiled with his own pudding, and buried\r\nwith a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"\r\n\r\n"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.\r\n\r\n"Nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep Christmas\r\nin your own way, and let me keep it in mine."\r\n\r\n"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge\'s nephew. "But you\r\ndon\'t keep it."\r\n\r\n"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much\r\ngood may it do you! Much good it has ever done\r\nyou!"\r\n\r\n"There are many things from which I might have\r\nderived good, by which I have not profited, I dare\r\nsay," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the\r\nrest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas\r\ntime, when it has come round--apart from the\r\nveneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything\r\nbelonging to it can be apart from that--as a\r\ngood time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant\r\ntime; the only time I know of, in the long calendar\r\nof the year, when men and women seem by one consent\r\nto open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think\r\nof people below them as if they really were\r\nfellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race\r\nof creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,\r\nuncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or\r\nsilver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me\r\ngood, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"\r\n\r\nThe clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.\r\nBecoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,\r\nhe poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark\r\nfor ever.\r\n\r\n"Let me hear another sound from you," said\r\nScrooge, "and you\'ll keep your Christmas by losing\r\nyour situation! You\'re quite a powerful speaker,\r\nsir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you\r\ndon\'t go into Parliament."\r\n\r\n"Don\'t be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow."\r\n\r\nScrooge said that he would see him--yes, indeed he\r\ndid. He went the whole length of the expression,\r\nand said that he would see him in that extremity first.\r\n\r\n"But why?" cried Scrooge\'s nephew. "Why?"\r\n\r\n"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"Because I fell in love."\r\n\r\n"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if\r\nthat were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous\r\nthan a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"\r\n\r\n"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before\r\nthat happened. Why give it as a reason for not\r\ncoming now?"\r\n\r\n"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you;\r\nwhy cannot we be friends?"\r\n\r\n"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so\r\nresolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I\r\nhave been a party. But I have made the trial in\r\nhomage to Christmas, and I\'ll keep my Christmas\r\nhumour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"\r\n\r\n"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"And A Happy New Year!"\r\n\r\n"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.\r\n\r\nHis nephew left the room without an angry word,\r\nnotwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to\r\nbestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who,\r\ncold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned\r\nthem cordially.\r\n\r\n"There\'s another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who\r\noverheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a\r\nweek, and a wife and family, talking about a merry\r\nChristmas. I\'ll retire to Bedlam."\r\n\r\nThis lunatic, in letting Scrooge\'s nephew out, had\r\nlet two other people in. They were portly gentlemen,\r\npleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off,\r\nin Scrooge\'s office. They had books and papers in\r\ntheir hands, and bowed to him.\r\n\r\n"Scrooge and Marley\'s, I believe," said one of the\r\ngentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure\r\nof addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"\r\n\r\n"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,"\r\nScrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very\r\nnight."\r\n\r\n"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented\r\nby his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting\r\nhis credentials.\r\n\r\nIt certainly was; for they had been two kindred\r\nspirits. At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge\r\nfrowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials\r\nback.\r\n\r\n"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,"\r\nsaid the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than\r\nusually desirable that we should make some slight\r\nprovision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer\r\ngreatly at the present time. Many thousands are in\r\nwant of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands\r\nare in want of common comforts, sir."\r\n\r\n"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down\r\nthe pen again.\r\n\r\n"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge.\r\n"Are they still in operation?"\r\n\r\n"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish\r\nI could say they were not."\r\n\r\n"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour,\r\nthen?" said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"Both very busy, sir."\r\n\r\n"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first,\r\nthat something had occurred to stop them in their\r\nuseful course," said Scrooge. "I\'m very glad to\r\nhear it."\r\n\r\n"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish\r\nChristian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,"\r\nreturned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring\r\nto raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink,\r\nand means of warmth. We choose this time, because\r\nit is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt,\r\nand Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down\r\nfor?"\r\n\r\n"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.\r\n\r\n"You wish to be anonymous?"\r\n\r\n"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you\r\nask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.\r\nI don\'t make merry myself at Christmas and I can\'t\r\nafford to make idle people merry. I help to support\r\nthe establishments I have mentioned--they cost\r\nenough; and those who are badly off must go there."\r\n\r\n"Many can\'t go there; and many would rather die."\r\n\r\n"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had\r\nbetter do it, and decrease the surplus population.\r\nBesides--excuse me--I don\'t know that."\r\n\r\n"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.\r\n\r\n"It\'s not my business," Scrooge returned. "It\'s\r\nenough for a man to understand his own business, and\r\nnot to interfere with other people\'s. Mine occupies\r\nme constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"\r\n\r\nSeeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue\r\ntheir point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed\r\nhis labours with an improved opinion of himself,\r\nand in a more facetious temper than was usual\r\nwith him.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that\r\npeople ran about with flaring links, proffering their\r\nservices to go before horses in carriages, and conduct\r\nthem on their way. The ancient tower of a church,\r\nwhose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down\r\nat Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became\r\ninvisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the\r\nclouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if\r\nits teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.\r\nThe cold became intense. In the main street, at the\r\ncorner of the court, some labourers were repairing\r\nthe gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier,\r\nround which a party of ragged men and boys were\r\ngathered: warming their hands and winking their\r\neyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug\r\nbeing left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed,\r\nand turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness\r\nof the shops where holly sprigs and berries\r\ncrackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale\r\nfaces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers\' and grocers\'\r\ntrades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant,\r\nwith which it was next to impossible to believe that\r\nsuch dull principles as bargain and sale had anything\r\nto do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the\r\nmighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks\r\nand butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor\'s\r\nhousehold should; and even the little tailor, whom he\r\nhad fined five shillings on the previous Monday for\r\nbeing drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up\r\nto-morrow\'s pudding in his garret, while his lean\r\nwife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.\r\n\r\nFoggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting\r\ncold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped\r\nthe Evil Spirit\'s nose with a touch of such weather\r\nas that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then\r\nindeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The\r\nowner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled\r\nby the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,\r\nstooped down at Scrooge\'s keyhole to regale him with\r\na Christmas carol: but at the first sound of\r\n\r\n        "God bless you, merry gentleman!\r\n         May nothing you dismay!"\r\n\r\nScrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action,\r\nthat the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to\r\nthe fog and even more congenial frost.\r\n\r\nAt length the hour of shutting up the counting-house\r\narrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his\r\nstool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant\r\nclerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out,\r\nand put on his hat.\r\n\r\n"You\'ll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said\r\nScrooge.\r\n\r\n"If quite convenient, sir."\r\n\r\n"It\'s not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it\'s not\r\nfair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you\'d\r\nthink yourself ill-used, I\'ll be bound?"\r\n\r\nThe clerk smiled faintly.\r\n\r\n"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don\'t think me ill-used,\r\nwhen I pay a day\'s wages for no work."\r\n\r\nThe clerk observed that it was only once a year.\r\n\r\n"A poor excuse for picking a man\'s pocket every\r\ntwenty-fifth of December!" said Scrooge, buttoning\r\nhis great-coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must\r\nhave the whole day. Be here all the earlier next\r\nmorning."\r\n\r\nThe clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge\r\nwalked out with a growl. The office was closed in a\r\ntwinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his\r\nwhite comforter dangling below his waist (for he\r\nboasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill,\r\nat the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in\r\nhonour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home\r\nto Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play\r\nat blindman\'s-buff.\r\n\r\nScrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual\r\nmelancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and\r\nbeguiled the rest of the evening with his\r\nbanker\'s-book, went home to bed. He lived in\r\nchambers which had once belonged to his deceased\r\npartner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a\r\nlowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so\r\nlittle business to be, that one could scarcely help\r\nfancying it must have run there when it was a young\r\nhouse, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses,\r\nand forgotten the way out again. It was old enough\r\nnow, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but\r\nScrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices.\r\nThe yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew\r\nits every stone, was fain to grope with his hands.\r\nThe fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway\r\nof the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of\r\nthe Weather sat in mournful meditation on the\r\nthreshold.\r\n\r\nNow, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all\r\nparticular about the knocker on the door, except that it\r\nwas very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had\r\nseen it, night and morning, during his whole residence\r\nin that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what\r\nis called fancy about him as any man in the city of\r\nLondon, even including--which is a bold word--the\r\ncorporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be\r\nborne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one\r\nthought on Marley, since his last mention of his\r\nseven years\' dead partner that afternoon. And then\r\nlet any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened\r\nthat Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door,\r\nsaw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate\r\nprocess of change--not a knocker, but Marley\'s face.\r\n\r\nMarley\'s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow\r\nas the other objects in the yard were, but had a\r\ndismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark\r\ncellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked\r\nat Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly\r\nspectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The\r\nhair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air;\r\nand, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly\r\nmotionless. That, and its livid colour, made it\r\nhorrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the\r\nface and beyond its control, rather than a part of\r\nits own expression.\r\n\r\nAs Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it\r\nwas a knocker again.\r\n\r\nTo say that he was not startled, or that his blood\r\nwas not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it\r\nhad been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue.\r\nBut he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished,\r\nturned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.\r\n\r\nHe did pause, with a moment\'s irresolution, before\r\nhe shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind\r\nit first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the\r\nsight of Marley\'s pigtail sticking out into the hall.\r\nBut there was nothing on the back of the door, except\r\nthe screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he\r\nsaid "Pooh, pooh!" and closed it with a bang.\r\n\r\nThe sound resounded through the house like thunder.\r\nEvery room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant\'s\r\ncellars below, appeared to have a separate peal\r\nof echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to\r\nbe frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and\r\nwalked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too:\r\ntrimming his candle as he went.\r\n\r\nYou may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six\r\nup a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad\r\nyoung Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you\r\nmight have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken\r\nit broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall\r\nand the door towards the balustrades: and done it\r\neasy. There was plenty of width for that, and room\r\nto spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge\r\nthought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before\r\nhim in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of\r\nthe street wouldn\'t have lighted the entry too well,\r\nso you may suppose that it was pretty dark with\r\nScrooge\'s dip.\r\n\r\nUp Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.\r\nDarkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before\r\nhe shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms\r\nto see that all was right. He had just enough recollection\r\nof the face to desire to do that.\r\n\r\nSitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they\r\nshould be. Nobody under the table, nobody under\r\nthe sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin\r\nready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had\r\na cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the\r\nbed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown,\r\nwhich was hanging up in a suspicious attitude\r\nagainst the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard,\r\nold shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three\r\nlegs, and a poker.\r\n\r\nQuite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked\r\nhimself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his\r\ncustom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off\r\nhis cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and\r\nhis nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take\r\nhis gruel.\r\n\r\nIt was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a\r\nbitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and\r\nbrood over it, before he could extract the least\r\nsensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel.\r\nThe fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch\r\nmerchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint\r\nDutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures.\r\nThere were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh\'s daughters;\r\nQueens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending\r\nthrough the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams,\r\nBelshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats,\r\nhundreds of figures to attract his thoughts;\r\nand yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came\r\nlike the ancient Prophet\'s rod, and swallowed up the\r\nwhole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first,\r\nwith power to shape some picture on its surface from\r\nthe disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would\r\nhave been a copy of old Marley\'s head on every one.\r\n\r\n"Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the\r\nroom.\r\n\r\nAfter several turns, he sat down again. As he\r\nthrew his head back in the chair, his glance happened\r\nto rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the\r\nroom, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten\r\nwith a chamber in the highest story of the\r\nbuilding. It was with great astonishment, and with\r\na strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he\r\nsaw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in\r\nthe outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it\r\nrang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.\r\n\r\nThis might have lasted half a minute, or a minute,\r\nbut it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had\r\nbegun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking\r\nnoise, deep down below; as if some person were\r\ndragging a heavy chain over the casks in the\r\nwine-merchant\'s cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have\r\nheard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as\r\ndragging chains.\r\n\r\nThe cellar-door flew open with a booming sound,\r\nand then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors\r\nbelow; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight\r\ntowards his door.\r\n\r\n"It\'s humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won\'t believe it."\r\n\r\nHis colour changed though, when, without a pause,\r\nit came on through the heavy door, and passed into\r\nthe room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the\r\ndying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know\r\nhim; Marley\'s Ghost!" and fell again.\r\n\r\nThe same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail,\r\nusual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on\r\nthe latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts,\r\nand the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was\r\nclasped about his middle. It was long, and wound\r\nabout him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge\r\nobserved it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks,\r\nledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.\r\nHis body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him,\r\nand looking through his waistcoat, could see\r\nthe two buttons on his coat behind.\r\n\r\nScrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no\r\nbowels, but he had never believed it until now.\r\n\r\nNo, nor did he believe it even now. Though he\r\nlooked the phantom through and through, and saw\r\nit standing before him; though he felt the chilling\r\ninfluence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very\r\ntexture of the folded kerchief bound about its head\r\nand chin, which wrapper he had not observed before;\r\nhe was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.\r\n\r\n"How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.\r\n"What do you want with me?"\r\n\r\n"Much!"--Marley\'s voice, no doubt about it.\r\n\r\n"Who are you?"\r\n\r\n"Ask me who I was."\r\n\r\n"Who were you then?" said Scrooge, raising his\r\nvoice. "You\'re particular, for a shade." He was going\r\nto say "to a shade," but substituted this, as more\r\nappropriate.\r\n\r\n"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley."\r\n\r\n"Can you--can you sit down?" asked Scrooge, looking\r\ndoubtfully at him.\r\n\r\n"I can."\r\n\r\n"Do it, then."\r\n\r\nScrooge asked the question, because he didn\'t know\r\nwhether a ghost so transparent might find himself in\r\na condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event\r\nof its being impossible, it might involve the necessity\r\nof an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat\r\ndown on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he\r\nwere quite used to it.\r\n\r\n"You don\'t believe in me," observed the Ghost.\r\n\r\n"I don\'t," said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of\r\nyour senses?"\r\n\r\n"I don\'t know," said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"Why do you doubt your senses?"\r\n\r\n"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them.\r\nA slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may\r\nbe an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of\r\ncheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There\'s more of\r\ngravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"\r\n\r\nScrooge was not much in the habit of cracking\r\njokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means\r\nwaggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be\r\nsmart, as a means of distracting his own attention,\r\nand keeping down his terror; for the spectre\'s voice\r\ndisturbed the very marrow in his bones.\r\n\r\nTo sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence\r\nfor a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very\r\ndeuce with him. There was something very awful,\r\ntoo, in the spectre\'s being provided with an infernal\r\natmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it\r\nhimself, but this was clearly the case; for though the\r\nGhost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts,\r\nand tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour\r\nfrom an oven.\r\n\r\n"You see this toothpick?" said Scrooge, returning\r\nquickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned;\r\nand wishing, though it were only for a second, to\r\ndivert the vision\'s stony gaze from himself.\r\n\r\n"I do," replied the Ghost.\r\n\r\n"You are not looking at it," said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"But I see it," said the Ghost, "notwithstanding."\r\n\r\n"Well!" returned Scrooge, "I have but to swallow\r\nthis, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a\r\nlegion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug,\r\nI tell you! humbug!"\r\n\r\nAt this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook\r\nits chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that\r\nScrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself\r\nfrom falling in a swoon. But how much greater was\r\nhis horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage\r\nround its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors,\r\nits lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!\r\n\r\nScrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands\r\nbefore his face.\r\n\r\n"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do\r\nyou trouble me?"\r\n\r\n"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do\r\nyou believe in me or not?"\r\n\r\n"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits\r\nwalk the earth, and why do they come to me?"\r\n\r\n"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned,\r\n"that the spirit within him should walk abroad among\r\nhis fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that\r\nspirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so\r\nafter death. It is doomed to wander through the\r\nworld--oh, woe is me!--and witness what it cannot\r\nshare, but might have shared on earth, and turned to\r\nhappiness!"\r\n\r\nAgain the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain\r\nand wrung its shadowy hands.\r\n\r\n"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell\r\nme why?"\r\n\r\n"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost.\r\n"I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded\r\nit on of my own free will, and of my own free will I\r\nwore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"\r\n\r\nScrooge trembled more and more.\r\n\r\n"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the\r\nweight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?\r\nIt was full as heavy and as long as this, seven\r\nChristmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since.\r\nIt is a ponderous chain!"\r\n\r\nScrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the\r\nexpectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty\r\nor sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see\r\nnothing.\r\n\r\n"Jacob," he said, imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley,\r\ntell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!"\r\n\r\n"I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes\r\nfrom other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed\r\nby other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor\r\ncan I tell you what I would. A very little more is\r\nall permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I\r\ncannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked\r\nbeyond our counting-house--mark me!--in life my\r\nspirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our\r\nmoney-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before\r\nme!"\r\n\r\nIt was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became\r\nthoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets.\r\nPondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now,\r\nbut without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his\r\nknees.\r\n\r\n"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,"\r\nScrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though\r\nwith humility and deference.\r\n\r\n"Slow!" the Ghost repeated.\r\n\r\n"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And travelling\r\nall the time!"\r\n\r\n"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no\r\npeace. Incessant torture of remorse."\r\n\r\n"You travel fast?" said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.\r\n\r\n"You might have got over a great quantity of\r\nground in seven years," said Scrooge.\r\n\r\nThe Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and\r\nclanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of\r\nthe night, that the Ward would have been justified in\r\nindicting it for a nuisance.\r\n\r\n"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the\r\nphantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour\r\nby immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into\r\neternity before the good of which it is susceptible is\r\nall developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit\r\nworking kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may\r\nbe, will find its mortal life too short for its vast\r\nmeans of usefulness. Not to know that no space of\r\nregret can make amends for one life\'s opportunity\r\nmisused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"\r\n\r\n"But you were always a good man of business,\r\nJacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this\r\nto himself.\r\n\r\n"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands\r\nagain. "Mankind was my business. The common\r\nwelfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance,\r\nand benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings\r\nof my trade were but a drop of water in the\r\ncomprehensive ocean of my business!"\r\n\r\nIt held up its chain at arm\'s length, as if that were\r\nthe cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it\r\nheavily upon the ground again.\r\n\r\n"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said,\r\n"I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of\r\nfellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never\r\nraise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise\r\nMen to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to\r\nwhich its light would have conducted me!"\r\n\r\nScrooge was very much dismayed to hear the\r\nspectre going on at this rate, and began to quake\r\nexceedingly.\r\n\r\n"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly\r\ngone."\r\n\r\n"I will," said Scrooge. "But don\'t be hard upon\r\nme! Don\'t be flowery, Jacob! Pray!"\r\n\r\n"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that\r\nyou can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible\r\nbeside you many and many a day."\r\n\r\nIt was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered,\r\nand wiped the perspiration from his brow.\r\n\r\n"That is no light part of my penance," pursued\r\nthe Ghost. "I am here to-night to warn you, that you\r\nhave yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A\r\nchance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."\r\n\r\n"You were always a good friend to me," said\r\nScrooge. "Thank\'ee!"\r\n\r\n"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by\r\nThree Spirits."\r\n\r\nScrooge\'s countenance fell almost as low as the\r\nGhost\'s had done.\r\n\r\n"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned,\r\nJacob?" he demanded, in a faltering voice.\r\n\r\n"It is."\r\n\r\n"I--I think I\'d rather not," said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot\r\nhope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow,\r\nwhen the bell tolls One."\r\n\r\n"Couldn\'t I take \'em all at once, and have it over,\r\nJacob?" hinted Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"Expect the second on the next night at the same\r\nhour. The third upon the next night when the last\r\nstroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see\r\nme no more; and look that, for your own sake, you\r\nremember what has passed between us!"\r\n\r\nWhen it had said these words, the spectre took its\r\nwrapper from the table, and bound it round its head,\r\nas before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its\r\nteeth made, when the jaws were brought together\r\nby the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again,\r\nand found his supernatural visitor confronting him\r\nin an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and\r\nabout its arm.\r\n\r\nThe apparition walked backward from him; and at\r\nevery step it took, the window raised itself a little,\r\nso that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.\r\n\r\nIt beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.\r\nWhen they were within two paces of each other,\r\nMarley\'s Ghost held up its hand, warning him to\r\ncome no nearer. Scrooge stopped.\r\n\r\nNot so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear:\r\nfor on the raising of the hand, he became sensible\r\nof confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of\r\nlamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and\r\nself-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment,\r\njoined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the\r\nbleak, dark night.\r\n\r\nScrooge followed to the window: desperate in his\r\ncuriosity. He looked out.\r\n\r\nThe air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither\r\nand thither in restless haste, and moaning as they\r\nwent. Every one of them wore chains like Marley\'s\r\nGhost; some few (they might be guilty governments)\r\nwere linked together; none were free. Many had\r\nbeen personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He\r\nhad been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white\r\nwaistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to\r\nits ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist\r\na wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below,\r\nupon a door-step. The misery with them all was,\r\nclearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in\r\nhuman matters, and had lost the power for ever.\r\n\r\nWhether these creatures faded into mist, or mist\r\nenshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and\r\ntheir spirit voices faded together; and the night became\r\nas it had been when he walked home.\r\n\r\nScrooge closed the window, and examined the door\r\nby which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked,\r\nas he had locked it with his own hands, and\r\nthe bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say "Humbug!"\r\nbut stopped at the first syllable. And being,\r\nfrom the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues\r\nof the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or\r\nthe dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of\r\nthe hour, much in need of repose; went straight to\r\nbed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the\r\ninstant.\r\n\r\n\r\nSTAVE II:  THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS\r\n\r\nWHEN Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed,\r\nhe could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from\r\nthe opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to\r\npierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a\r\nneighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened\r\nfor the hour.\r\n\r\nTo his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from\r\nsix to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to\r\ntwelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he\r\nwent to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have\r\ngot into the works. Twelve!\r\n\r\nHe touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most\r\npreposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve:\r\nand stopped.\r\n\r\n"Why, it isn\'t possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have\r\nslept through a whole day and far into another night. It\r\nisn\'t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and\r\nthis is twelve at noon!"\r\n\r\nThe idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed,\r\nand groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub\r\nthe frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he\r\ncould see anything; and could see very little then. All he\r\ncould make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely\r\ncold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro,\r\nand making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been\r\nif night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the\r\nworld.  This was a great relief, because "three days after sight\r\nof this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his\r\norder," and so forth, would have become a mere United States\'\r\nsecurity if there were no days to count by.\r\n\r\nScrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought\r\nit over and over and over, and could make nothing of it.  The more he\r\nthought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured\r\nnot to think, the more he thought.\r\n\r\nMarley\'s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved\r\nwithin himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his\r\nmind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first\r\nposition, and presented the same problem to be worked all through,\r\n"Was it a dream or not?"\r\n\r\nScrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters\r\nmore, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned\r\nhim of a visitation when the bell tolled one.  He resolved to lie\r\nawake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could\r\nno more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the\r\nwisest resolution in his power.\r\n\r\nThe quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he\r\nmust have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock.\r\nAt length it broke upon his listening ear.\r\n\r\n"Ding, dong!"\r\n\r\n"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting.\r\n\r\n"Ding, dong!"\r\n\r\n"Half-past!" said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"Ding, dong!"\r\n\r\n"A quarter to it," said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"Ding, dong!"\r\n\r\n"The hour itself," said Scrooge, triumphantly, "and nothing else!"\r\n\r\nHe spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a\r\ndeep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE.  Light flashed up in the room\r\nupon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.\r\n\r\nThe curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a\r\nhand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his\r\nback, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains\r\nof his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a\r\nhalf-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the\r\nunearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now\r\nto you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.\r\n\r\nIt was a strange figure--like a child: yet not so like a\r\nchild as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural\r\nmedium, which gave him the appearance of having receded\r\nfrom the view, and being diminished to a child\'s proportions.\r\nIts hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was\r\nwhite as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in\r\nit, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were\r\nvery long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold\r\nwere of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately\r\nformed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic\r\nof the purest white; and round its waist was bound\r\na lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held\r\na branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular\r\ncontradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed\r\nwith summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was,\r\nthat from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear\r\njet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was\r\ndoubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a\r\ngreat extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.\r\n\r\nEven this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing\r\nsteadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt\r\nsparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another,\r\nand what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so\r\nthe figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a\r\nthing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs,\r\nnow a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a\r\nbody: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible\r\nin the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the\r\nvery wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and\r\nclear as ever.\r\n\r\n"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to\r\nme?" asked Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"I am!"\r\n\r\nThe voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if\r\ninstead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.\r\n\r\n"Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded.\r\n\r\n"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."\r\n\r\n"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish\r\nstature.\r\n\r\n"No. Your past."\r\n\r\nPerhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if\r\nanybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire\r\nto see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.\r\n\r\n"What!" exclaimed the Ghost, "would you so soon put out,\r\nwith worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough\r\nthat you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and\r\nforce me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon\r\nmy brow!"\r\n\r\nScrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend\r\nor any knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" the Spirit at\r\nany period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what\r\nbusiness brought him there.\r\n\r\n"Your welfare!" said the Ghost.\r\n\r\nScrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not\r\nhelp thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been\r\nmore conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard\r\nhim thinking, for it said immediately:\r\n\r\n"Your reclamation, then. Take heed!"\r\n\r\nIt put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him\r\ngently by the arm.\r\n\r\n"Rise! and walk with me!"\r\n\r\nIt would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the\r\nweather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes;\r\nthat bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below\r\nfreezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers,\r\ndressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at\r\nthat time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman\'s hand,\r\nwas not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit\r\nmade towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.\r\n\r\n"I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable to fall."\r\n\r\n"Bear but a touch of my hand there," said the Spirit,\r\nlaying it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more\r\nthan this!"\r\n\r\nAs the words were spoken, they passed through the wall,\r\nand stood upon an open country road, with fields on either\r\nhand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it\r\nwas to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished\r\nwith it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon\r\nthe ground.\r\n\r\n"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands together,\r\nas he looked about him. "I was bred in this place. I was\r\na boy here!"\r\n\r\nThe Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch,\r\nthough it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still\r\npresent to the old man\'s sense of feeling. He was conscious\r\nof a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected\r\nwith a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares\r\nlong, long, forgotten!\r\n\r\n"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is\r\nthat upon your cheek?"\r\n\r\nScrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice,\r\nthat it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him\r\nwhere he would.\r\n\r\n"You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit.\r\n\r\n"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervour; "I could\r\nwalk it blindfold."\r\n\r\n"Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" observed\r\nthe Ghost. "Let us go on."\r\n\r\nThey walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every\r\ngate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared\r\nin the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river.\r\nSome shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them\r\nwith boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in\r\ncountry gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys\r\nwere in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the\r\nbroad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air\r\nlaughed to hear it!\r\n\r\n"These are but shadows of the things that have been," said\r\nthe Ghost. "They have no consciousness of us."\r\n\r\nThe jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge\r\nknew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond\r\nall bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and\r\nhis heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled\r\nwith gladness when he heard them give each other Merry\r\nChristmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for\r\ntheir several homes! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge?\r\nOut upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done\r\nto him?\r\n\r\n"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A\r\nsolitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still."\r\n\r\nScrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.\r\n\r\nThey left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and\r\nsoon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little\r\nweathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell\r\nhanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken\r\nfortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls\r\nwere damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their\r\ngates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables;\r\nand the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass.\r\nNor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for\r\nentering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open\r\ndoors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished,\r\ncold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a\r\nchilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow\r\nwith too much getting up by candle-light, and not too\r\nmuch to eat.\r\n\r\nThey went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a\r\ndoor at the back of the house. It opened before them, and\r\ndisclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by\r\nlines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely\r\nboy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down\r\nupon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he\r\nused to be.\r\n\r\nNot a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle\r\nfrom the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the\r\nhalf-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among\r\nthe leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle\r\nswinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in\r\nthe fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening\r\ninfluence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.\r\n\r\nThe Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his\r\nyounger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in\r\nforeign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at:\r\nstood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and\r\nleading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.\r\n\r\n"Why, it\'s Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It\'s\r\ndear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas\r\ntime, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone,\r\nhe did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And\r\nValentine," said Scrooge, "and his wild brother, Orson; there\r\nthey go! And what\'s his name, who was put down in his\r\ndrawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don\'t you see him!\r\nAnd the Sultan\'s Groom turned upside down by the Genii;\r\nthere he is upon his head! Serve him right. I\'m glad of it.\r\nWhat business had he to be married to the Princess!"\r\n\r\nTo hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature\r\non such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between\r\nlaughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited\r\nface; would have been a surprise to his business friends in\r\nthe city, indeed.\r\n\r\n"There\'s the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and\r\nyellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the\r\ntop of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called\r\nhim, when he came home again after sailing round the\r\nisland. \'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin\r\nCrusoe?\'  The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn\'t.\r\nIt was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running\r\nfor his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!"\r\n\r\nThen, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his\r\nusual character, he said, in pity for his former self, "Poor\r\nboy!" and cried again.\r\n\r\n"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his\r\npocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his\r\ncuff: "but it\'s too late now."\r\n\r\n"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.\r\n\r\n"Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a boy\r\nsinging a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should\r\nlike to have given him something: that\'s all."\r\n\r\nThe Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand:\r\nsaying as it did so, "Let us see another Christmas!"\r\n\r\nScrooge\'s former self grew larger at the words, and the\r\nroom became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk,\r\nthe windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the\r\nceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how\r\nall this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you\r\ndo. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything\r\nhad happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all\r\nthe other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.\r\n\r\nHe was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly.\r\nScrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of\r\nhis head, glanced anxiously towards the door.\r\n\r\nIt opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy,\r\ncame darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and\r\noften kissing him, addressed him as her "Dear, dear\r\nbrother."\r\n\r\n"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the\r\nchild, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh.\r\n"To bring you home, home, home!"\r\n\r\n"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy.\r\n\r\n"Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home, for good\r\nand all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder\r\nthan he used to be, that home\'s like Heaven! He spoke so\r\ngently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that\r\nI was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come\r\nhome; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach\r\nto bring you. And you\'re to be a man!" said the child,\r\nopening her eyes, "and are never to come back here; but\r\nfirst, we\'re to be together all the Christmas long, and have\r\nthe merriest time in all the world."\r\n\r\n"You are quite a woman, little Fan!" exclaimed the boy.\r\n\r\nShe clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his\r\nhead; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on\r\ntiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her\r\nchildish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to\r\ngo, accompanied her.\r\n\r\nA terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master\r\nScrooge\'s box, there!" and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster\r\nhimself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious\r\ncondescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind\r\nby shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his\r\nsister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that\r\never was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial\r\nand terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold.\r\nHere he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a\r\nblock of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments\r\nof those dainties to the young people: at the same time,\r\nsending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of "something"\r\nto the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman,\r\nbut if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had\r\nrather not. Master Scrooge\'s trunk being by this time tied\r\non to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster\r\ngood-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove\r\ngaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the\r\nhoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens\r\nlike spray.\r\n\r\n"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have\r\nwithered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large heart!"\r\n\r\n"So she had," cried Scrooge. "You\'re right. I will not\r\ngainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!"\r\n\r\n"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I think,\r\nchildren."\r\n\r\n"One child," Scrooge returned.\r\n\r\n"True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!"\r\n\r\nScrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly,\r\n"Yes."\r\n\r\nAlthough they had but that moment left the school behind\r\nthem, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city,\r\nwhere shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy\r\ncarts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and\r\ntumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by\r\nthe dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas\r\ntime again; but it was evening, and the streets were\r\nlighted up.\r\n\r\nThe Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked\r\nScrooge if he knew it.\r\n\r\n"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed here!"\r\n\r\nThey went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh\r\nwig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two\r\ninches taller he must have knocked his head against the\r\nceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:\r\n\r\n"Why, it\'s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it\'s Fezziwig\r\nalive again!"\r\n\r\nOld Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the\r\nclock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his\r\nhands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over\r\nhimself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and\r\ncalled out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:\r\n\r\n"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"\r\n\r\nScrooge\'s former self, now grown a young man, came briskly\r\nin, accompanied by his fellow-\'prentice.\r\n\r\n"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost.\r\n"Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached\r\nto me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!"\r\n\r\n"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night.\r\nChristmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let\'s\r\nhave the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap\r\nof his hands, "before a man can say Jack Robinson!"\r\n\r\nYou wouldn\'t believe how those two fellows went at it!\r\nThey charged into the street with the shutters--one, two,\r\nthree--had \'em up in their places--four, five, six--barred\r\n\'em and pinned \'em--seven, eight, nine--and came back\r\nbefore you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.\r\n\r\n"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the\r\nhigh desk, with wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads,\r\nand let\'s have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup,\r\nEbenezer!"\r\n\r\nClear away! There was nothing they wouldn\'t have cleared\r\naway, or couldn\'t have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking\r\non. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if\r\nit were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was\r\nswept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon\r\nthe fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and\r\nbright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter\'s\r\nnight.\r\n\r\nIn came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the\r\nlofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty\r\nstomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial\r\nsmile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and\r\nlovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they\r\nbroke. In came all the young men and women employed in\r\nthe business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the\r\nbaker. In came the cook, with her brother\'s particular friend,\r\nthe milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was\r\nsuspected of not having board enough from his master; trying\r\nto hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who\r\nwas proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress.\r\nIn they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly,\r\nsome gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling;\r\nin they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went,\r\ntwenty couple at once; hands half round and back again\r\nthe other way; down the middle and up again; round\r\nand round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old\r\ntop couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top\r\ncouple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top\r\ncouples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When\r\nthis result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his\r\nhands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the\r\nfiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially\r\nprovided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his\r\nreappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no\r\ndancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home,\r\nexhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man\r\nresolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.\r\n\r\nThere were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more\r\ndances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there\r\nwas a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece\r\nof Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.\r\nBut the great effect of the evening came after the Roast\r\nand Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort\r\nof man who knew his business better than you or I could\r\nhave told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley."  Then\r\nold Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top\r\ncouple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them;\r\nthree or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were\r\nnot to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no\r\nnotion of walking.\r\n\r\nBut if they had been twice as many--ah, four times--old\r\nFezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would\r\nMrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner\r\nin every sense of the term. If that\'s not high praise, tell me\r\nhigher, and I\'ll use it. A positive light appeared to issue\r\nfrom Fezziwig\'s calves. They shone in every part of the\r\ndance like moons. You couldn\'t have predicted, at any given\r\ntime, what would have become of them next. And when old\r\nFezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance;\r\nadvance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and\r\ncurtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to\r\nyour place; Fezziwig "cut"--cut so deftly, that he appeared\r\nto wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without\r\na stagger.\r\n\r\nWhen the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up.\r\nMr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side\r\nof the door, and shaking hands with every person individually\r\nas he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas.\r\nWhen everybody had retired but the two \'prentices, they did\r\nthe same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away,\r\nand the lads were left to their beds; which were under a\r\ncounter in the back-shop.\r\n\r\nDuring the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a\r\nman out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene,\r\nand with his former self. He corroborated everything,\r\nremembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent\r\nthe strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the\r\nbright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from\r\nthem, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious\r\nthat it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its\r\nhead burnt very clear.\r\n\r\n"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly\r\nfolks so full of gratitude."\r\n\r\n"Small!" echoed Scrooge.\r\n\r\nThe Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices,\r\nwho were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig:\r\nand when he had done so, said,\r\n\r\n"Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of\r\nyour mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so\r\nmuch that he deserves this praise?"\r\n\r\n"It isn\'t that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and\r\nspeaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self.\r\n"It isn\'t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy\r\nor unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a\r\npleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and\r\nlooks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is\r\nimpossible to add and count \'em up: what then? The happiness\r\nhe gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."\r\n\r\nHe felt the Spirit\'s glance, and stopped.\r\n\r\n"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.\r\n\r\n"Nothing particular," said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted.\r\n\r\n"No," said Scrooge, "No. I should like to be able to say\r\na word or two to my clerk just now. That\'s all."\r\n\r\nHis former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance\r\nto the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by\r\nside in the open air.\r\n\r\n"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"\r\n\r\nThis was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he\r\ncould see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again\r\nScrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime\r\nof life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later\r\nyears; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice.\r\nThere was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which\r\nshowed the passion that had taken root, and where the\r\nshadow of the growing tree would fall.\r\n\r\nHe was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young\r\ngirl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears,\r\nwhich sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of\r\nChristmas Past.\r\n\r\n"It matters little," she said, softly. "To you, very little.\r\nAnother idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort\r\nyou in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have\r\nno just cause to grieve."\r\n\r\n"What Idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.\r\n\r\n"A golden one."\r\n\r\n"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said.\r\n"There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and\r\nthere is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity\r\nas the pursuit of wealth!"\r\n\r\n"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently.\r\n"All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being\r\nbeyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your\r\nnobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion,\r\nGain, engrosses you. Have I not?"\r\n\r\n"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so\r\nmuch wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you."\r\n\r\nShe shook her head.\r\n\r\n"Am I?"\r\n\r\n"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were\r\nboth poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could\r\nimprove our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You\r\nare changed. When it was made, you were another man."\r\n\r\n"I was a boy," he said impatiently.\r\n\r\n"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you\r\nare," she returned. "I am. That which promised happiness\r\nwhen we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that\r\nwe are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of\r\nthis, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it,\r\nand can release you."\r\n\r\n"Have I ever sought release?"\r\n\r\n"In words. No. Never."\r\n\r\n"In what, then?"\r\n\r\n"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another\r\natmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In\r\neverything that made my love of any worth or value in your\r\nsight. If this had never been between us," said the girl,\r\nlooking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; "tell me,\r\nwould you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"\r\n\r\nHe seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in\r\nspite of himself. But he said with a struggle, "You think\r\nnot."\r\n\r\n"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered,\r\n"Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this,\r\nI know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you\r\nwere free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe\r\nthat you would choose a dowerless girl--you who, in your\r\nvery confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or,\r\nchoosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your\r\none guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your\r\nrepentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I\r\nrelease you. With a full heart, for the love of him you\r\nonce were."\r\n\r\nHe was about to speak; but with her head turned from\r\nhim, she resumed.\r\n\r\n"You may--the memory of what is past half makes me\r\nhope you will--have pain in this. A very, very brief time,\r\nand you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an\r\nunprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you\r\nawoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!"\r\n\r\nShe left him, and they parted.\r\n\r\n"Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Conduct\r\nme home. Why do you delight to torture me?"\r\n\r\n"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.\r\n\r\n"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don\'t wish to\r\nsee it. Show me no more!"\r\n\r\nBut the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms,\r\nand forced him to observe what happened next.\r\n\r\nThey were in another scene and place; a room, not very\r\nlarge or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter\r\nfire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge\r\nbelieved it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely\r\nmatron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this\r\nroom was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children\r\nthere, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count;\r\nand, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not\r\nforty children conducting themselves like one, but every\r\nchild was conducting itself like forty. The consequences\r\nwere uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care;\r\non the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily,\r\nand enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to\r\nmingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands\r\nmost ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of\r\nthem! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I\r\nwouldn\'t for the wealth of all the world have crushed that\r\nbraided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little\r\nshoe, I wouldn\'t have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to\r\nsave my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they\r\ndid, bold young brood, I couldn\'t have done it; I should\r\nhave expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment,\r\nand never come straight again. And yet I should\r\nhave dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have\r\nquestioned her, that she might have opened them; to have\r\nlooked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never\r\nraised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of\r\nwhich would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should\r\nhave liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence\r\nof a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its\r\nvalue.\r\n\r\nBut now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a\r\nrush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and\r\nplundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed\r\nand boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who\r\ncame home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys\r\nand presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and\r\nthe onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter!\r\nThe scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his\r\npockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight\r\nby his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back,\r\nand kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of\r\nwonder and delight with which the development of every\r\npackage was received! The terrible announcement that the\r\nbaby had been taken in the act of putting a doll\'s frying-pan\r\ninto his mouth, and was more than suspected of having\r\nswallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter!\r\nThe immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy,\r\nand gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike.\r\nIt is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions\r\ngot out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the\r\ntop of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.\r\n\r\nAnd now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever,\r\nwhen the master of the house, having his daughter leaning\r\nfondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his\r\nown fireside; and when he thought that such another\r\ncreature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might\r\nhave called him father, and been a spring-time in the\r\nhaggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.\r\n\r\n"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a\r\nsmile, "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon."\r\n\r\n"Who was it?"\r\n\r\n"Guess!"\r\n\r\n"How can I? Tut, don\'t I know?" she added in the\r\nsame breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."\r\n\r\n"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as\r\nit was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could\r\nscarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point\r\nof death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in\r\nthe world, I do believe."\r\n\r\n"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me\r\nfrom this place."\r\n\r\n"I told you these were shadows of the things that have\r\nbeen," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do\r\nnot blame me!"\r\n\r\n"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed, "I cannot bear it!"\r\n\r\nHe turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon\r\nhim with a face, in which in some strange way there were\r\nfragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.\r\n\r\n"Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"\r\n\r\nIn the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which\r\nthe Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was\r\nundisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed\r\nthat its light was burning high and bright; and dimly\r\nconnecting that with its influence over him, he seized the\r\nextinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down\r\nupon its head.\r\n\r\nThe Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher\r\ncovered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down\r\nwith all his force, he could not hide the light: which streamed\r\nfrom under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.\r\n\r\nHe was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an\r\nirresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own\r\nbedroom.  He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand\r\nrelaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank\r\ninto a heavy sleep.\r\n\r\n\r\nSTAVE III:  THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS\r\n\r\nAWAKING in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and\r\nsitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had\r\nno occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the\r\nstroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness\r\nin the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding\r\na conference with the second messenger despatched to him\r\nthrough Jacob Marley\'s intervention. But finding that he\r\nturned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which\r\nof his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put\r\nthem every one aside with his own hands; and lying down\r\nagain, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For\r\nhe wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its\r\nappearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and\r\nmade nervous.\r\n\r\nGentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves\r\non being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually\r\nequal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their\r\ncapacity for adventure by observing that they are good for\r\nanything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which\r\nopposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and\r\ncomprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for\r\nScrooge quite as hardily as this, I don\'t mind calling on you\r\nto believe that he was ready for a good broad field of\r\nstrange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and\r\nrhinoceros would have astonished him very much.\r\n\r\nNow, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by\r\nany means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the\r\nBell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a\r\nviolent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter\r\nof an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay\r\nupon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy\r\nlight, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the\r\nhour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than\r\na dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it\r\nmeant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive\r\nthat he might be at that very moment an interesting case of\r\nspontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of\r\nknowing it. At last, however, he began to think--as you or\r\nI would have thought at first; for it is always the person not\r\nin the predicament who knows what ought to have been done\r\nin it, and would unquestionably have done it too--at last, I\r\nsay, he began to think that the source and secret of this\r\nghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence,\r\non further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking\r\nfull possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in\r\nhis slippers to the door.\r\n\r\nThe moment Scrooge\'s hand was on the lock, a strange\r\nvoice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He\r\nobeyed.\r\n\r\nIt was his own room. There was no doubt about that.\r\nBut it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls\r\nand ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a\r\nperfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming\r\nberries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and\r\nivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had\r\nbeen scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring\r\nup the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had\r\nnever known in Scrooge\'s time, or Marley\'s, or for many and\r\nmany a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form\r\na kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn,\r\ngreat joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages,\r\nmince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts,\r\ncherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears,\r\nimmense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that\r\nmade the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy\r\nstate upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to\r\nsee; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty\'s\r\nhorn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge,\r\nas he came peeping round the door.\r\n\r\n"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in! and know\r\nme better, man!"\r\n\r\nScrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this\r\nSpirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and\r\nthough the Spirit\'s eyes were clear and kind, he did not like\r\nto meet them.\r\n\r\n"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit.\r\n"Look upon me!"\r\n\r\nScrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple\r\ngreen robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment\r\nhung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was\r\nbare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any\r\nartifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the\r\ngarment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other\r\ncovering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining\r\nicicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its\r\ngenial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice,\r\nits unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded\r\nround its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword\r\nwas in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.\r\n\r\n"You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed\r\nthe Spirit.\r\n\r\n"Never," Scrooge made answer to it.\r\n\r\n"Have never walked forth with the younger members of\r\nmy family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers\r\nborn in these later years?" pursued the Phantom.\r\n\r\n"I don\'t think I have," said Scrooge. "I am afraid I have\r\nnot. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?"\r\n\r\n"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost.\r\n\r\n"A tremendous family to provide for!" muttered Scrooge.\r\n\r\nThe Ghost of Christmas Present rose.\r\n\r\n"Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where\r\nyou will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt\r\na lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught\r\nto teach me, let me profit by it."\r\n\r\n"Touch my robe!"\r\n\r\nScrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.\r\n\r\nHolly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game,\r\npoultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings,\r\nfruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room,\r\nthe fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood\r\nin the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the\r\nweather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and\r\nnot unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the\r\npavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of\r\ntheir houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see\r\nit come plumping down into the road below, and splitting\r\ninto artificial little snow-storms.\r\n\r\nThe house fronts looked black enough, and the windows\r\nblacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow\r\nupon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground;\r\nwhich last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by\r\nthe heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed\r\nand re-crossed each other hundreds of times where the great\r\nstreets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace\r\nin the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy,\r\nand the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,\r\nhalf thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended\r\nin a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great\r\nBritain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away\r\nto their dear hearts\' content. There was nothing very cheerful\r\nin the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of\r\ncheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest\r\nsummer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.\r\n\r\nFor, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops\r\nwere jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another\r\nfrom the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious\r\nsnowball--better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest--\r\nlaughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it\r\nwent wrong. The poulterers\' shops were still half open, and the\r\nfruiterers\' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round,\r\npot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats\r\nof jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out\r\ninto the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were\r\nruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in\r\nthe fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking\r\nfrom their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went\r\nby, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were\r\npears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there\r\nwere bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers\' benevolence\r\nto dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people\'s mouths might\r\nwater gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy\r\nand brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among\r\nthe woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered\r\nleaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthy, setting\r\noff the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great\r\ncompactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and\r\nbeseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after\r\ndinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among\r\nthese choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and\r\nstagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was\r\nsomething going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and\r\nround their little world in slow and passionless excitement.\r\n\r\nThe Grocers\'! oh, the Grocers\'! nearly closed, with perhaps\r\ntwo shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such\r\nglimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the\r\ncounter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller\r\nparted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled\r\nup and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended\r\nscents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even\r\nthat the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so\r\nextremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight,\r\nthe other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and\r\nspotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on\r\nfeel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs\r\nwere moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in\r\nmodest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that\r\neverything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but\r\nthe customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful\r\npromise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other\r\nat the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left\r\ntheir purchases upon the counter, and came running back to\r\nfetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in\r\nthe best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people\r\nwere so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which\r\nthey fastened their aprons behind might have been their own,\r\nworn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws\r\nto peck at if they chose.\r\n\r\nBut soon the steeples called good people all, to church and\r\nchapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in\r\ntheir best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the\r\nsame time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and\r\nnameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners\r\nto the bakers\' shops. The sight of these poor revellers\r\nappeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with\r\nScrooge beside him in a baker\'s doorway, and taking off the\r\ncovers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their\r\ndinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind\r\nof torch, for once or twice when there were angry words\r\nbetween some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he\r\nshed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good\r\nhumour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame\r\nto quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love\r\nit, so it was!\r\n\r\nIn time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and\r\nyet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners\r\nand the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of\r\nwet above each baker\'s oven; where the pavement smoked as\r\nif its stones were cooking too.\r\n\r\n"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from\r\nyour torch?" asked Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"There is. My own."\r\n\r\n"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?"\r\nasked Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."\r\n\r\n"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"Because it needs it most."\r\n\r\n"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment\'s thought, "I wonder\r\nyou, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should\r\ndesire to cramp these people\'s opportunities of innocent\r\nenjoyment."\r\n\r\n"I!" cried the Spirit.\r\n\r\n"You would deprive them of their means of dining every\r\nseventh day, often the only day on which they can be said\r\nto dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn\'t you?"\r\n\r\n"I!" cried the Spirit.\r\n\r\n"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?" said\r\nScrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."\r\n\r\n"I seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.\r\n\r\n"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your\r\nname, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit,\r\n"who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion,\r\npride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness\r\nin our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and\r\nkin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge\r\ntheir doings on themselves, not us."\r\n\r\nScrooge promised that he would; and they went on,\r\ninvisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the\r\ntown. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which\r\nScrooge had observed at the baker\'s), that notwithstanding\r\nhis gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place\r\nwith ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as\r\ngracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible\r\nhe could have done in any lofty hall.\r\n\r\nAnd perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in\r\nshowing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind,\r\ngenerous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor\r\nmen, that led him straight to Scrooge\'s clerk\'s; for there he\r\nwent, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and\r\non the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped\r\nto bless Bob Cratchit\'s dwelling with the sprinkling of his\r\ntorch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob" a-week\r\nhimself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his\r\nChristian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present\r\nblessed his four-roomed house!\r\n\r\nThen up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit\'s wife, dressed out\r\nbut poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons,\r\nwhich are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and\r\nshe laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of\r\nher daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter\r\nCratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and\r\ngetting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob\'s private\r\nproperty, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the\r\nday) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly\r\nattired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.\r\nAnd now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing\r\nin, screaming that outside the baker\'s they had smelt the\r\ngoose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious\r\nthoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced\r\nabout the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the\r\nskies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked\r\nhim) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up,\r\nknocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and\r\npeeled.\r\n\r\n"What has ever got your precious father then?" said Mrs.\r\nCratchit. "And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha\r\nwarn\'t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?"\r\n\r\n"Here\'s Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she\r\nspoke.\r\n\r\n"Here\'s Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits.\r\n"Hurrah! There\'s such a goose, Martha!"\r\n\r\n"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!"\r\nsaid Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off\r\nher shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.\r\n\r\n"We\'d a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the\r\ngirl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!"\r\n\r\n"Well! Never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs.\r\nCratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have\r\na warm, Lord bless ye!"\r\n\r\n"No, no! There\'s father coming," cried the two young\r\nCratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha,\r\nhide!"\r\n\r\nSo Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father,\r\nwith at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe,\r\nhanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned\r\nup and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his\r\nshoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and\r\nhad his limbs supported by an iron frame!\r\n\r\n"Why, where\'s our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking\r\nround.\r\n\r\n"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.\r\n\r\n"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his\r\nhigh spirits; for he had been Tim\'s blood horse all the way\r\nfrom church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming\r\nupon Christmas Day!"\r\n\r\nMartha didn\'t like to see him disappointed, if it were only\r\nin joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet\r\ndoor, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits\r\nhustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house,\r\nthat he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.\r\n\r\n"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit,\r\nwhen she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had\r\nhugged his daughter to his heart\'s content.\r\n\r\n"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he\r\ngets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the\r\nstrangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home,\r\nthat he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he\r\nwas a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember\r\nupon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind\r\nmen see."\r\n\r\nBob\'s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and\r\ntrembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing\r\nstrong and hearty.\r\n\r\nHis active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back\r\ncame Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by\r\nhis brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while\r\nBob, turning up his cuffs--as if, poor fellow, they were\r\ncapable of being made more shabby--compounded some hot\r\nmixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round\r\nand round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter,\r\nand the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the\r\ngoose, with which they soon returned in high procession.\r\n\r\nSuch a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose\r\nthe rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a\r\nblack swan was a matter of course--and in truth it was\r\nsomething very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made\r\nthe gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot;\r\nMaster Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour;\r\nMiss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted\r\nthe hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny\r\ncorner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for\r\neverybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard\r\nupon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest\r\nthey should shriek for goose before their turn came to be\r\nhelped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was\r\nsaid. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs.\r\nCratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared\r\nto plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the\r\nlong expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of\r\ndelight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim,\r\nexcited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with\r\nthe handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!\r\n\r\nThere never was such a goose. Bob said he didn\'t believe\r\nthere ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and\r\nflavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal\r\nadmiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes,\r\nit was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as\r\nMrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small\r\natom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn\'t ate it all at\r\nlast! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest\r\nCratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to\r\nthe eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss\r\nBelinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to\r\nbear witnesses--to take the pudding up and bring it in.\r\n\r\nSuppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should\r\nbreak in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got\r\nover the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they\r\nwere merry with the goose--a supposition at which the two\r\nyoung Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were\r\nsupposed.\r\n\r\nHallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of\r\nthe copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the\r\ncloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook\'s next\r\ndoor to each other, with a laundress\'s next door to that!\r\nThat was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit\r\nentered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding,\r\nlike a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half\r\nof half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with\r\nChristmas holly stuck into the top.\r\n\r\nOh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly\r\ntoo, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by\r\nMrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that\r\nnow the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had\r\nhad her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had\r\nsomething to say about it, but nobody said or thought it\r\nwas at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have\r\nbeen flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed\r\nto hint at such a thing.\r\n\r\nAt last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the\r\nhearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the\r\njug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges\r\nwere put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the\r\nfire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in\r\nwhat Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and\r\nat Bob Cratchit\'s elbow stood the family display of glass.\r\nTwo tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.\r\n\r\nThese held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as\r\ngolden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with\r\nbeaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and\r\ncracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:\r\n\r\n"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"\r\n\r\nWhich all the family re-echoed.\r\n\r\n"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.\r\n\r\nHe sat very close to his father\'s side upon his little\r\nstool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he\r\nloved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and\r\ndreaded that he might be taken from him.\r\n\r\n"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt\r\nbefore, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live."\r\n\r\n"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor\r\nchimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully\r\npreserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,\r\nthe child will die."\r\n\r\n"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he\r\nwill be spared."\r\n\r\n"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none\r\nother of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here.\r\nWhat then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and\r\ndecrease the surplus population."\r\n\r\nScrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by\r\nthe Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.\r\n\r\n"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not\r\nadamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered\r\nWhat the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what\r\nmen shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the\r\nsight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live\r\nthan millions like this poor man\'s child. Oh God! to hear\r\nthe Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life\r\namong his hungry brothers in the dust!"\r\n\r\nScrooge bent before the Ghost\'s rebuke, and trembling cast\r\nhis eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on\r\nhearing his own name.\r\n\r\n"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I\'ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the\r\nFounder of the Feast!"\r\n\r\n"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit,\r\nreddening. "I wish I had him here. I\'d give him a piece\r\nof my mind to feast upon, and I hope he\'d have a good\r\nappetite for it."\r\n\r\n"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas Day."\r\n\r\n"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said she, "on\r\nwhich one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard,\r\nunfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert!\r\nNobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!"\r\n\r\n"My dear," was Bob\'s mild answer, "Christmas Day."\r\n\r\n"I\'ll drink his health for your sake and the Day\'s," said\r\nMrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life to him! A merry\r\nChristmas and a happy new year! He\'ll be very merry and\r\nvery happy, I have no doubt!"\r\n\r\nThe children drank the toast after her. It was the first of\r\ntheir proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank\r\nit last of all, but he didn\'t care twopence for it. Scrooge\r\nwas the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast\r\na dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full\r\nfive minutes.\r\n\r\nAfter it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than\r\nbefore, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done\r\nwith. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his\r\neye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full\r\nfive-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed\r\ntremendously at the idea of Peter\'s being a man of business;\r\nand Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from\r\nbetween his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular\r\ninvestments he should favour when he came into the receipt\r\nof that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor\r\napprentice at a milliner\'s, then told them what kind of work\r\nshe had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch,\r\nand how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a\r\ngood long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at\r\nhome. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some\r\ndays before, and how the lord "was much about as tall as\r\nPeter;" at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you\r\ncouldn\'t have seen his head if you had been there. All this\r\ntime the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and\r\nby-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in\r\nthe snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice,\r\nand sang it very well indeed.\r\n\r\nThere was nothing of high mark in this. They were not\r\na handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes\r\nwere far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty;\r\nand Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside\r\nof a pawnbroker\'s. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased\r\nwith one another, and contented with the time; and when\r\nthey faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings\r\nof the Spirit\'s torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon\r\nthem, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.\r\n\r\nBy this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty\r\nheavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets,\r\nthe brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and\r\nall sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of\r\nthe blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot\r\nplates baking through and through before the fire, and deep\r\nred curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness.\r\nThere all the children of the house were running out\r\ninto the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins,\r\nuncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again,\r\nwere shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and\r\nthere a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted,\r\nand all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near\r\nneighbour\'s house; where, woe upon the single man who saw\r\nthem enter--artful witches, well they knew it--in a glow!\r\n\r\nBut, if you had judged from the numbers of people on\r\ntheir way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought\r\nthat no one was at home to give them welcome when they\r\ngot there, instead of every house expecting company, and\r\npiling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how\r\nthe Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and\r\nopened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with\r\na generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything\r\nwithin its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before,\r\ndotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was\r\ndressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly\r\nas the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter\r\nthat he had any company but Christmas!\r\n\r\nAnd now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they\r\nstood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses\r\nof rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place\r\nof giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed,\r\nor would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner;\r\nand nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass.\r\nDown in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery\r\nred, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a\r\nsullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in\r\nthe thick gloom of darkest night.\r\n\r\n"What place is this?" asked Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of\r\nthe earth," returned the Spirit. "But they know me. See!"\r\n\r\nA light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they\r\nadvanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and\r\nstone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a\r\nglowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their\r\nchildren and their children\'s children, and another generation\r\nbeyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.\r\nThe old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling\r\nof the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a\r\nChristmas song--it had been a very old song when he was a\r\nboy--and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.\r\nSo surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite\r\nblithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour\r\nsank again.\r\n\r\nThe Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his\r\nrobe, and passing on above the moor, sped--whither? Not\r\nto sea? To sea. To Scrooge\'s horror, looking back, he saw\r\nthe last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them;\r\nand his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it\r\nrolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it\r\nhad worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.\r\n\r\nBuilt upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league\r\nor so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed,\r\nthe wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.\r\nGreat heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds\r\n--born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the\r\nwater--rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.\r\n\r\nBut even here, two men who watched the light had made\r\na fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed\r\nout a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their\r\nhorny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they\r\nwished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and\r\none of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and\r\nscarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship\r\nmight be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in\r\nitself.\r\n\r\nAgain the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea\r\n--on, on--until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any\r\nshore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman\r\nat the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who\r\nhad the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations;\r\nbut every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or\r\nhad a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his\r\ncompanion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward\r\nhopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or\r\nsleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another\r\non that day than on any day in the year; and had shared\r\nto some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those\r\nhe cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted\r\nto remember him.\r\n\r\nIt was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the\r\nmoaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it\r\nwas to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown\r\nabyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it\r\nwas a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear\r\na hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge\r\nto recognise it as his own nephew\'s and to find himself in a\r\nbright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling\r\nby his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving\r\naffability!\r\n\r\n"Ha, ha!" laughed Scrooge\'s nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!"\r\n\r\nIf you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a\r\nman more blest in a laugh than Scrooge\'s nephew, all I can\r\nsay is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me,\r\nand I\'ll cultivate his acquaintance.\r\n\r\nIt is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that\r\nwhile there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing\r\nin the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and\r\ngood-humour. When Scrooge\'s nephew laughed in this way: holding\r\nhis sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the\r\nmost extravagant contortions: Scrooge\'s niece, by marriage,\r\nlaughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being\r\nnot a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.\r\n\r\n"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"\r\n\r\n"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" cried\r\nScrooge\'s nephew. "He believed it too!"\r\n\r\n"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge\'s niece,\r\nindignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by\r\nhalves. They are always in earnest.\r\n\r\nShe was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled,\r\nsurprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that\r\nseemed made to be kissed--as no doubt it was; all kinds of\r\ngood little dots about her chin, that melted into one another\r\nwhen she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever\r\nsaw in any little creature\'s head. Altogether she was what\r\nyou would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too.\r\nOh, perfectly satisfactory.\r\n\r\n"He\'s a comical old fellow," said Scrooge\'s nephew, "that\'s\r\nthe truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However,\r\nhis offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing\r\nto say against him."\r\n\r\n"I\'m sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge\'s niece.\r\n"At least you always tell me so."\r\n\r\n"What of that, my dear!" said Scrooge\'s nephew. "His\r\nwealth is of no use to him. He don\'t do any good with it.\r\nHe don\'t make himself comfortable with it. He hasn\'t the\r\nsatisfaction of thinking--ha, ha, ha!--that he is ever going\r\nto benefit US with it."\r\n\r\n"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge\'s niece.\r\nScrooge\'s niece\'s sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed\r\nthe same opinion.\r\n\r\n"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge\'s nephew. "I am sorry for\r\nhim; I couldn\'t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers\r\nby his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he takes it into\r\nhis head to dislike us, and he won\'t come and dine with us.\r\nWhat\'s the consequence? He don\'t lose much of a dinner."\r\n\r\n"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted\r\nScrooge\'s niece. Everybody else said the same, and they\r\nmust be allowed to have been competent judges, because\r\nthey had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the\r\ntable, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.\r\n\r\n"Well! I\'m very glad to hear it," said Scrooge\'s nephew,\r\n"because I haven\'t great faith in these young housekeepers.\r\nWhat do you say, Topper?"\r\n\r\nTopper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge\'s niece\'s\r\nsisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast,\r\nwho had no right to express an opinion on the subject.\r\nWhereat Scrooge\'s niece\'s sister--the plump one with the lace\r\ntucker: not the one with the roses--blushed.\r\n\r\n"Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge\'s niece, clapping her hands.\r\n"He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a\r\nridiculous fellow!"\r\n\r\nScrooge\'s nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was\r\nimpossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister\r\ntried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was\r\nunanimously followed.\r\n\r\n"I was only going to say," said Scrooge\'s nephew, "that\r\nthe consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making\r\nmerry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant\r\nmoments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses\r\npleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts,\r\neither in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I\r\nmean to give him the same chance every year, whether he\r\nlikes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas\r\ntill he dies, but he can\'t help thinking better of it--I defy\r\nhim--if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after\r\nyear, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only\r\nputs him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds,\r\nthat\'s something; and I think I shook him yesterday."\r\n\r\nIt was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking\r\nScrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much\r\ncaring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any\r\nrate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the\r\nbottle joyously.\r\n\r\nAfter tea, they had some music. For they were a musical\r\nfamily, and knew what they were about, when they sung a\r\nGlee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who\r\ncould growl away in the bass like a good one, and never\r\nswell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face\r\nover it. Scrooge\'s niece played well upon the harp; and\r\nplayed among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing:\r\nyou might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had\r\nbeen familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the\r\nboarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of\r\nChristmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the\r\nthings that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he\r\nsoftened more and more; and thought that if he could have\r\nlistened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the\r\nkindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands,\r\nwithout resorting to the sexton\'s spade that buried Jacob\r\nMarley.\r\n\r\nBut they didn\'t devote the whole evening to music. After\r\na while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children\r\nsometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its\r\nmighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first\r\na game at blind-man\'s buff. Of course there was. And I\r\nno more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he\r\nhad eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done\r\nthing between him and Scrooge\'s nephew; and that the\r\nGhost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after\r\nthat plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the\r\ncredulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons,\r\ntumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano,\r\nsmothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went,\r\nthere went he! He always knew where the plump sister was.\r\nHe wouldn\'t catch anybody else. If you had fallen up\r\nagainst him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would\r\nhave made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would\r\nhave been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly\r\nhave sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.\r\nShe often cried out that it wasn\'t fair; and it really was not.\r\nBut when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her\r\nsilken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got\r\nher into a corner whence there was no escape; then his\r\nconduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to\r\nknow her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her\r\nhead-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by\r\npressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain\r\nabout her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told\r\nhim her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in\r\noffice, they were so very confidential together, behind the\r\ncurtains.\r\n\r\nScrooge\'s niece was not one of the blind-man\'s buff party,\r\nbut was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool,\r\nin a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close\r\nbehind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her\r\nlove to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet.\r\nLikewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was\r\nvery great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge\'s nephew, beat\r\nher sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as Topper\r\ncould have told you. There might have been twenty people there,\r\nyoung and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for\r\nwholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that\r\nhis voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with\r\nhis guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too;\r\nfor the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut\r\nin the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in\r\nhis head to be.\r\n\r\nThe Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood,\r\nand looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like\r\na boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But\r\nthis the Spirit said could not be done.\r\n\r\n"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half hour,\r\nSpirit, only one!"\r\n\r\nIt was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge\'s nephew\r\nhad to think of something, and the rest must find out what;\r\nhe only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case\r\nwas. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed,\r\nelicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live\r\nanimal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an\r\nanimal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes,\r\nand lived in London, and walked about the streets,\r\nand wasn\'t made a show of, and wasn\'t led by anybody, and\r\ndidn\'t live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market,\r\nand was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a\r\ntiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh\r\nquestion that was put to him, this nephew burst into a\r\nfresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that\r\nhe was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last\r\nthe plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:\r\n\r\n"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know\r\nwhat it is!"\r\n\r\n"What is it?" cried Fred.\r\n\r\n"It\'s your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!"\r\n\r\nWhich it certainly was. Admiration was the universal\r\nsentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a\r\nbear?" ought to have been "Yes;" inasmuch as an answer\r\nin the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts\r\nfrom Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency\r\nthat way.\r\n\r\n"He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," said\r\nFred, "and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health.\r\nHere is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the\r\nmoment; and I say, \'Uncle Scrooge!\'"\r\n\r\n"Well! Uncle Scrooge!" they cried.\r\n\r\n"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old\r\nman, whatever he is!" said Scrooge\'s nephew. "He wouldn\'t\r\ntake it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle\r\nScrooge!"\r\n\r\nUncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light\r\nof heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious\r\ncompany in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech,\r\nif the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene\r\npassed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his\r\nnephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.\r\n\r\nMuch they saw, and far they went, and many homes they\r\nvisited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood\r\nbeside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands,\r\nand they were close at home; by struggling men, and they\r\nwere patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was\r\nrich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery\'s every\r\nrefuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not\r\nmade fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his\r\nblessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.\r\n\r\nIt was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge\r\nhad his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared\r\nto be condensed into the space of time they passed\r\ntogether. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained\r\nunaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly\r\nolder. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of\r\nit, until they left a children\'s Twelfth Night party, when,\r\nlooking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place,\r\nhe noticed that its hair was grey.\r\n\r\n"Are spirits\' lives so short?" asked Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"My life upon this globe, is very brief," replied the Ghost.\r\n"It ends to-night."\r\n\r\n"To-night!" cried Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing\r\nnear."\r\n\r\nThe chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at\r\nthat moment.\r\n\r\n"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said\r\nScrooge, looking intently at the Spirit\'s robe, "but I see\r\nsomething strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding\r\nfrom your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?"\r\n\r\n"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was\r\nthe Spirit\'s sorrowful reply. "Look here."\r\n\r\nFrom the foldings of its robe, it brought two children;\r\nwretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt\r\ndown at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.\r\n\r\n"Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!" exclaimed\r\nthe Ghost.\r\n\r\nThey were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling,\r\nwolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where\r\ngraceful youth should have filled their features out, and\r\ntouched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled\r\nhand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and\r\npulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat\r\nenthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No\r\nchange, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any\r\ngrade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has\r\nmonsters half so horrible and dread.\r\n\r\nScrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to\r\nhim in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but\r\nthe words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie\r\nof such enormous magnitude.\r\n\r\n"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.\r\n\r\n"They are Man\'s," said the Spirit, looking down upon\r\nthem. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.\r\nThis boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,\r\nand all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for\r\non his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the\r\nwriting be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out\r\nits hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye!\r\nAdmit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.\r\nAnd bide the end!"\r\n\r\n"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him\r\nfor the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"\r\n\r\nThe bell struck twelve.\r\n\r\nScrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not.\r\nAs the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the\r\nprediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes,\r\nbeheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like\r\na mist along the ground, towards him.\r\n\r\n\r\nSTAVE IV:  THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS\r\n\r\nTHE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When\r\nit came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in\r\nthe very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to\r\nscatter gloom and mystery.\r\n\r\nIt was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed\r\nits head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible\r\nsave one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been\r\ndifficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it\r\nfrom the darkness by which it was surrounded.\r\n\r\nHe felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside\r\nhim, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a\r\nsolemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither\r\nspoke nor moved.\r\n\r\n"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To\r\nCome?" said Scrooge.\r\n\r\nThe Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its\r\nhand.\r\n\r\n"You are about to show me shadows of the things that\r\nhave not happened, but will happen in the time before us,"\r\nScrooge pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?"\r\n\r\nThe upper portion of the garment was contracted for an\r\ninstant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head.\r\nThat was the only answer he received.\r\n\r\nAlthough well used to ghostly company by this time,\r\nScrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled\r\nbeneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when\r\nhe prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as\r\nobserving his condition, and giving him time to recover.\r\n\r\nBut Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him\r\nwith a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the\r\ndusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon\r\nhim, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost,\r\ncould see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap\r\nof black.\r\n\r\n"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more\r\nthan any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose\r\nis to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another\r\nman from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company,\r\nand do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak\r\nto me?"\r\n\r\nIt gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight\r\nbefore them.\r\n\r\n"Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night is\r\nwaning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead\r\non, Spirit!"\r\n\r\nThe Phantom moved away as it had come towards him.\r\nScrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him\r\nup, he thought, and carried him along.\r\n\r\nThey scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather\r\nseemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its\r\nown act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on\r\n\'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down,\r\nand chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in\r\ngroups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully\r\nwith their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had\r\nseen them often.\r\n\r\nThe Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men.\r\nObserving that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge\r\nadvanced to listen to their talk.\r\n\r\n"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "I\r\ndon\'t know much about it, either way. I only know he\'s\r\ndead."\r\n\r\n"When did he die?" inquired another.\r\n\r\n"Last night, I believe."\r\n\r\n"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third,\r\ntaking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box.\r\n"I thought he\'d never die."\r\n\r\n"God knows," said the first, with a yawn.\r\n\r\n"What has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced\r\ngentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his\r\nnose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.\r\n\r\n"I haven\'t heard," said the man with the large chin,\r\nyawning again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn\'t\r\nleft it to me. That\'s all I know."\r\n\r\nThis pleasantry was received with a general laugh.\r\n\r\n"It\'s likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same\r\nspeaker; "for upon my life I don\'t know of anybody to go\r\nto it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?"\r\n\r\n"I don\'t mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the\r\ngentleman with the excrescence on his nose. "But I must\r\nbe fed, if I make one."\r\n\r\nAnother laugh.\r\n\r\n"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,"\r\nsaid the first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves, and I\r\nnever eat lunch. But I\'ll offer to go, if anybody else will.\r\nWhen I come to think of it, I\'m not at all sure that I wasn\'t\r\nhis most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak\r\nwhenever we met. Bye, bye!"\r\n\r\nSpeakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with\r\nother groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the\r\nSpirit for an explanation.\r\n\r\nThe Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed\r\nto two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking\r\nthat the explanation might lie here.\r\n\r\nHe knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business:\r\nvery wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point\r\nalways of standing well in their esteem: in a business point\r\nof view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.\r\n\r\n"How are you?" said one.\r\n\r\n"How are you?" returned the other.\r\n\r\n"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own at\r\nlast, hey?"\r\n\r\n"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn\'t it?"\r\n\r\n"Seasonable for Christmas time. You\'re not a skater, I\r\nsuppose?"\r\n\r\n"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!"\r\n\r\nNot another word. That was their meeting, their\r\nconversation, and their parting.\r\n\r\nScrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the\r\nSpirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so\r\ntrivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden\r\npurpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be.\r\nThey could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the\r\ndeath of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this\r\nGhost\'s province was the Future. Nor could he think of any\r\none immediately connected with himself, to whom he could\r\napply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they\r\napplied they had some latent moral for his own improvement,\r\nhe resolved to treasure up every word he heard,\r\nand everything he saw; and especially to observe the\r\nshadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation\r\nthat the conduct of his future self would give him\r\nthe clue he missed, and would render the solution of these\r\nriddles easy.\r\n\r\nHe looked about in that very place for his own image; but\r\nanother man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the\r\nclock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he\r\nsaw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured\r\nin through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however;\r\nfor he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and\r\nthought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried\r\nout in this.\r\n\r\nQuiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its\r\noutstretched hand. When he roused himself from his\r\nthoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and\r\nits situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes\r\nwere looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel\r\nvery cold.\r\n\r\nThey left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part\r\nof the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before,\r\nalthough he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The\r\nways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched;\r\nthe people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and\r\narchways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of\r\nsmell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the\r\nwhole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.\r\n\r\nFar in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed,\r\nbeetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags,\r\nbottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor\r\nwithin, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges,\r\nfiles, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets\r\nthat few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in\r\nmountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and\r\nsepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a\r\ncharcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal,\r\nnearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the\r\ncold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous\r\ntatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury\r\nof calm retirement.\r\n\r\nScrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this\r\nman, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the\r\nshop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman,\r\nsimilarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by\r\na man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight\r\nof them, than they had been upon the recognition of each\r\nother. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which\r\nthe old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three\r\nburst into a laugh.\r\n\r\n"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who\r\nhad entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the second;\r\nand let the undertaker\'s man alone to be the third. Look\r\nhere, old Joe, here\'s a chance! If we haven\'t all three met\r\nhere without meaning it!"\r\n\r\n"You couldn\'t have met in a better place," said old Joe,\r\nremoving his pipe from his mouth. "Come into the parlour.\r\nYou were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other\r\ntwo an\'t strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop.\r\nAh! How it skreeks! There an\'t such a rusty bit of metal\r\nin the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I\'m sure there\'s\r\nno such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We\'re all suitable\r\nto our calling, we\'re well matched. Come into the\r\nparlour. Come into the parlour."\r\n\r\nThe parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The\r\nold man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and\r\nhaving trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the\r\nstem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.\r\n\r\nWhile he did this, the woman who had already spoken\r\nthrew her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting\r\nmanner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and\r\nlooking with a bold defiance at the other two.\r\n\r\n"What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said the\r\nwoman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves.\r\nHe always did."\r\n\r\n"That\'s true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No man\r\nmore so."\r\n\r\n"Why then, don\'t stand staring as if you was afraid,\r\nwoman; who\'s the wiser? We\'re not going to pick holes in\r\neach other\'s coats, I suppose?"\r\n\r\n"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together.\r\n"We should hope not."\r\n\r\n"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That\'s enough.\r\nWho\'s the worse for the loss of a few things like these?\r\nNot a dead man, I suppose."\r\n\r\n"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.\r\n\r\n"If he wanted to keep \'em after he was dead, a wicked old\r\nscrew," pursued the woman, "why wasn\'t he natural in his\r\nlifetime? If he had been, he\'d have had somebody to look\r\nafter him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying\r\ngasping out his last there, alone by himself."\r\n\r\n"It\'s the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs.\r\nDilber. "It\'s a judgment on him."\r\n\r\n"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the\r\nwoman; "and it should have been, you may depend upon it,\r\nif I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that\r\nbundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out\r\nplain. I\'m not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to\r\nsee it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves,\r\nbefore we met here, I believe. It\'s no sin. Open the bundle,\r\nJoe."\r\n\r\nBut the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this;\r\nand the man in faded black, mounting the breach first,\r\nproduced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two,\r\na pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no\r\ngreat value, were all. They were severally examined and\r\nappraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed\r\nto give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a\r\ntotal when he found there was nothing more to come.\r\n\r\n"That\'s your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn\'t give\r\nanother sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it.\r\nWho\'s next?"\r\n\r\nMrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing\r\napparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of\r\nsugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall\r\nin the same manner.\r\n\r\n"I always give too much to ladies. It\'s a weakness of mine,\r\nand that\'s the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That\'s\r\nyour account. If you asked me for another penny, and made\r\nit an open question, I\'d repent of being so liberal and knock\r\noff half-a-crown."\r\n\r\n"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first woman.\r\n\r\nJoe went down on his knees for the greater convenience\r\nof opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots,\r\ndragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.\r\n\r\n"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains!"\r\n\r\n"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward\r\non her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains!"\r\n\r\n"You don\'t mean to say you took \'em down, rings and\r\nall, with him lying there?" said Joe.\r\n\r\n"Yes I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"\r\n\r\n"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and\r\nyou\'ll certainly do it."\r\n\r\n"I certainly shan\'t hold my hand, when I can get anything\r\nin it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He\r\nwas, I promise you, Joe," returned the woman coolly. "Don\'t\r\ndrop that oil upon the blankets, now."\r\n\r\n"His blankets?" asked Joe.\r\n\r\n"Whose else\'s do you think?" replied the woman. "He\r\nisn\'t likely to take cold without \'em, I dare say."\r\n\r\n"I hope he didn\'t die of anything catching? Eh?" said\r\nold Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.\r\n\r\n"Don\'t you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I\r\nan\'t so fond of his company that I\'d loiter about him for\r\nsuch things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that\r\nshirt till your eyes ache; but you won\'t find a hole in it, nor\r\na threadbare place. It\'s the best he had, and a fine one too.\r\nThey\'d have wasted it, if it hadn\'t been for me."\r\n\r\n"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.\r\n\r\n"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied\r\nthe woman with a laugh. "Somebody was fool enough to\r\ndo it, but I took it off again. If calico an\'t good enough for\r\nsuch a purpose, it isn\'t good enough for anything. It\'s quite\r\nas becoming to the body. He can\'t look uglier than he did\r\nin that one."\r\n\r\nScrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat\r\ngrouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by\r\nthe old man\'s lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and\r\ndisgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they\r\nhad been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.\r\n\r\n"Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe,\r\nproducing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their\r\nseveral gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, you\r\nsee! He frightened every one away from him when he was\r\nalive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!"\r\n\r\n"Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. "I\r\nsee, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own.\r\nMy life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is\r\nthis!"\r\n\r\nHe recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now\r\nhe almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which,\r\nbeneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up,\r\nwhich, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful\r\nlanguage.\r\n\r\nThe room was very dark, too dark to be observed with\r\nany accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience\r\nto a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it\r\nwas. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon\r\nthe bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept,\r\nuncared for, was the body of this man.\r\n\r\nScrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand\r\nwas pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted\r\nthat the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon\r\nScrooge\'s part, would have disclosed the face. He thought\r\nof it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it;\r\nbut had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss\r\nthe spectre at his side.\r\n\r\nOh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar\r\nhere, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy\r\ncommand: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved,\r\nrevered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair\r\nto thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is\r\nnot that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released;\r\nit is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the\r\nhand WAS open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm,\r\nand tender; and the pulse a man\'s. Strike, Shadow, strike!\r\nAnd see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow\r\nthe world with life immortal!\r\n\r\nNo voice pronounced these words in Scrooge\'s ears, and\r\nyet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He\r\nthought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be\r\nhis foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares?\r\nThey have brought him to a rich end, truly!\r\n\r\nHe lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a\r\nwoman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this\r\nor that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be\r\nkind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was\r\na sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What\r\nthey wanted in the room of death, and why they were so\r\nrestless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.\r\n\r\n"Spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. In leaving it,\r\nI shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!"\r\n\r\nStill the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the\r\nhead.\r\n\r\n"I understand you," Scrooge returned, "and I would do\r\nit, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have\r\nnot the power."\r\n\r\nAgain it seemed to look upon him.\r\n\r\n"If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion\r\ncaused by this man\'s death," said Scrooge quite agonised,\r\n"show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!"\r\n\r\nThe Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a\r\nmoment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room\r\nby daylight, where a mother and her children were.\r\n\r\nShe was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness;\r\nfor she walked up and down the room; started at every\r\nsound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock;\r\ntried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly\r\nbear the voices of the children in their play.\r\n\r\nAt length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried\r\nto the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was\r\ncareworn and depressed, though he was young. There was\r\na remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight\r\nof which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.\r\n\r\nHe sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for\r\nhim by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news\r\n(which was not until after a long silence), he appeared\r\nembarrassed how to answer.\r\n\r\n"Is it good?" she said, "or bad?"--to help him.\r\n\r\n"Bad," he answered.\r\n\r\n"We are quite ruined?"\r\n\r\n"No. There is hope yet, Caroline."\r\n\r\n"If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Nothing is\r\npast hope, if such a miracle has happened."\r\n\r\n"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead."\r\n\r\nShe was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke\r\ntruth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she\r\nsaid so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next\r\nmoment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of\r\nher heart.\r\n\r\n"What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last\r\nnight, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a\r\nweek\'s delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid\r\nme; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only\r\nvery ill, but dying, then."\r\n\r\n"To whom will our debt be transferred?"\r\n\r\n"I don\'t know. But before that time we shall be ready\r\nwith the money; and even though we were not, it would be\r\na bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his\r\nsuccessor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!"\r\n\r\nYes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter.\r\nThe children\'s faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what\r\nthey so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier\r\nhouse for this man\'s death! The only emotion that the\r\nGhost could show him, caused by the event, was one of\r\npleasure.\r\n\r\n"Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said\r\nScrooge; "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just\r\nnow, will be for ever present to me."\r\n\r\nThe Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar\r\nto his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and\r\nthere to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They\r\nentered poor Bob Cratchit\'s house; the dwelling he had\r\nvisited before; and found the mother and the children seated\r\nround the fire.\r\n\r\nQuiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as\r\nstill as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter,\r\nwho had a book before him. The mother and her daughters\r\nwere engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet!\r\n\r\n"\'And He took a child, and set him in the midst of\r\nthem.\'"\r\n\r\nWhere had Scrooge heard those words? He had not\r\ndreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he\r\nand the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not\r\ngo on?\r\n\r\nThe mother laid her work upon the table, and put her\r\nhand up to her face.\r\n\r\n"The colour hurts my eyes," she said.\r\n\r\nThe colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!\r\n\r\n"They\'re better now again," said Cratchit\'s wife. "It\r\nmakes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn\'t show weak\r\neyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It\r\nmust be near his time."\r\n\r\n"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book.\r\n"But I think he has walked a little slower than he used,\r\nthese few last evenings, mother."\r\n\r\nThey were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a\r\nsteady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:\r\n\r\n"I have known him walk with--I have known him walk\r\nwith Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed."\r\n\r\n"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often."\r\n\r\n"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all.\r\n\r\n"But he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent upon\r\nher work, "and his father loved him so, that it was no\r\ntrouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door!"\r\n\r\nShe hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter\r\n--he had need of it, poor fellow--came in. His tea\r\nwas ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should\r\nhelp him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got\r\nupon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against\r\nhis face, as if they said, "Don\'t mind it, father. Don\'t be\r\ngrieved!"\r\n\r\nBob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to\r\nall the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and\r\npraised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls.\r\nThey would be done long before Sunday, he said.\r\n\r\n"Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?" said his\r\nwife.\r\n\r\n"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have\r\ngone. It would have done you good to see how green a\r\nplace it is. But you\'ll see it often. I promised him that I\r\nwould walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!"\r\ncried Bob. "My little child!"\r\n\r\nHe broke down all at once. He couldn\'t help it. If he\r\ncould have helped it, he and his child would have been farther\r\napart perhaps than they were.\r\n\r\nHe left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above,\r\nwhich was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas.\r\nThere was a chair set close beside the child, and there were\r\nsigns of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat\r\ndown in it, and when he had thought a little and composed\r\nhimself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what\r\nhad happened, and went down again quite happy.\r\n\r\nThey drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother\r\nworking still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness\r\nof Mr. Scrooge\'s nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but\r\nonce, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing\r\nthat he looked a little--"just a little down you know," said\r\nBob, inquired what had happened to distress him. "On\r\nwhich," said Bob, "for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman\r\nyou ever heard, I told him. \'I am heartily sorry for it, Mr.\r\nCratchit,\' he said, \'and heartily sorry for your good wife.\'\r\nBy the bye, how he ever knew that, I don\'t know."\r\n\r\n"Knew what, my dear?"\r\n\r\n"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob.\r\n\r\n"Everybody knows that!" said Peter.\r\n\r\n"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope they\r\ndo. \'Heartily sorry,\' he said, \'for your good wife. If I\r\ncan be of service to you in any way,\' he said, giving me\r\nhis card, \'that\'s where I live. Pray come to me.\' Now, it\r\nwasn\'t," cried Bob, "for the sake of anything he might be\r\nable to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was\r\nquite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our\r\nTiny Tim, and felt with us."\r\n\r\n"I\'m sure he\'s a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit.\r\n\r\n"You would be surer of it, my dear," returned Bob, "if\r\nyou saw and spoke to him. I shouldn\'t be at all surprised--\r\nmark what I say!--if he got Peter a better situation."\r\n\r\n"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit.\r\n\r\n"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be keeping\r\ncompany with some one, and setting up for himself."\r\n\r\n"Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning.\r\n\r\n"It\'s just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these days;\r\nthough there\'s plenty of time for that, my dear. But however\r\nand whenever we part from one another, I am sure we\r\nshall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim--shall we--or this\r\nfirst parting that there was among us?"\r\n\r\n"Never, father!" cried they all.\r\n\r\n"And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that when\r\nwe recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he\r\nwas a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among\r\nourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it."\r\n\r\n"No, never, father!" they all cried again.\r\n\r\n"I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am very happy!"\r\n\r\nMrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the\r\ntwo young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook\r\nhands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from\r\nGod!\r\n\r\n"Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me that our\r\nparting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not\r\nhow. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?"\r\n\r\nThe Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as\r\nbefore--though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there\r\nseemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were\r\nin the Future--into the resorts of business men, but showed\r\nhim not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything,\r\nbut went straight on, as to the end just now desired,\r\nuntil besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.\r\n\r\n"This court," said Scrooge, "through which we hurry now,\r\nis where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length\r\nof time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be,\r\nin days to come!"\r\n\r\nThe Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.\r\n\r\n"The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. "Why do you\r\npoint away?"\r\n\r\nThe inexorable finger underwent no change.\r\n\r\nScrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked\r\nin. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was\r\nnot the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself.\r\nThe Phantom pointed as before.\r\n\r\nHe joined it once again, and wondering why and whither\r\nhe had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate.\r\nHe paused to look round before entering.\r\n\r\nA churchyard. Here, then; the wretched man whose name\r\nhe had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a\r\nworthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and\r\nweeds, the growth of vegetation\'s death, not life; choked up\r\nwith too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A\r\nworthy place!\r\n\r\nThe Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to\r\nOne. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was\r\nexactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new\r\nmeaning in its solemn shape.\r\n\r\n"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,"\r\nsaid Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the\r\nshadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of\r\nthings that May be, only?"\r\n\r\nStill the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which\r\nit stood.\r\n\r\n"Men\'s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if\r\npersevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the\r\ncourses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is\r\nthus with what you show me!"\r\n\r\nThe Spirit was immovable as ever.\r\n\r\nScrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and\r\nfollowing the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected\r\ngrave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.\r\n\r\n"Am I that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, upon\r\nhis knees.\r\n\r\nThe finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.\r\n\r\n"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!"\r\n\r\nThe finger still was there.\r\n\r\n"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me!\r\nI am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must\r\nhave been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I\r\nam past all hope!"\r\n\r\nFor the first time the hand appeared to shake.\r\n\r\n"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he\r\nfell before it: "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities\r\nme. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you\r\nhave shown me, by an altered life!"\r\n\r\nThe kind hand trembled.\r\n\r\n"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it\r\nall the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the\r\nFuture. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I\r\nwill not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I\r\nmay sponge away the writing on this stone!"\r\n\r\nIn his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to\r\nfree itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it.\r\nThe Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.\r\n\r\nHolding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate\r\nreversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom\'s hood and dress.\r\nIt shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.\r\n\r\n\r\nSTAVE V:  THE END OF IT\r\n\r\nYES! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own,\r\nthe room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time\r\nbefore him was his own, to make amends in!\r\n\r\n"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!"\r\nScrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "The Spirits\r\nof all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley!\r\nHeaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say\r\nit on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!"\r\n\r\nHe was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions,\r\nthat his broken voice would scarcely answer to his\r\ncall. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the\r\nSpirit, and his face was wet with tears.\r\n\r\n"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one of\r\nhis bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings\r\nand all. They are here--I am here--the shadows of the\r\nthings that would have been, may be dispelled. They will\r\nbe. I know they will!"\r\n\r\nHis hands were busy with his garments all this time;\r\nturning them inside out, putting them on upside down,\r\ntearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every\r\nkind of extravagance.\r\n\r\n"I don\'t know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and\r\ncrying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocooen of\r\nhimself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I\r\nam as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I\r\nam as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to\r\neverybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo\r\nhere! Whoop! Hallo!"\r\n\r\nHe had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing\r\nthere: perfectly winded.\r\n\r\n"There\'s the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried\r\nScrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace.\r\n"There\'s the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley\r\nentered! There\'s the corner where the Ghost of Christmas\r\nPresent, sat! There\'s the window where I saw the wandering\r\nSpirits! It\'s all right, it\'s all true, it all happened.\r\nHa ha ha!"\r\n\r\nReally, for a man who had been out of practice for so\r\nmany years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh.\r\nThe father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!\r\n\r\n"I don\'t know what day of the month it is!" said\r\nScrooge. "I don\'t know how long I\'ve been among the\r\nSpirits. I don\'t know anything. I\'m quite a baby. Never\r\nmind. I don\'t care. I\'d rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop!\r\nHallo here!"\r\n\r\nHe was checked in his transports by the churches ringing\r\nout the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang,\r\nhammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang,\r\nclash! Oh, glorious, glorious!\r\n\r\nRunning to the window, he opened it, and put out his\r\nhead. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold;\r\ncold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight;\r\nHeavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious!\r\nGlorious!\r\n\r\n"What\'s to-day!" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a\r\nboy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look\r\nabout him.\r\n\r\n"EH?" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.\r\n\r\n"What\'s to-day, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"To-day!" replied the boy. "Why, CHRISTMAS DAY."\r\n\r\n"It\'s Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I\r\nhaven\'t missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night.\r\nThey can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of\r\ncourse they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!"\r\n\r\n"Hallo!" returned the boy.\r\n\r\n"Do you know the Poulterer\'s, in the next street but one,\r\nat the corner?" Scrooge inquired.\r\n\r\n"I should hope I did," replied the lad.\r\n\r\n"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy!\r\nDo you know whether they\'ve sold the prize Turkey that\r\nwas hanging up there?--Not the little prize Turkey: the\r\nbig one?"\r\n\r\n"What, the one as big as me?" returned the boy.\r\n\r\n"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It\'s a pleasure\r\nto talk to him. Yes, my buck!"\r\n\r\n"It\'s hanging there now," replied the boy.\r\n\r\n"Is it?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it."\r\n\r\n"Walk-ER!" exclaimed the boy.\r\n\r\n"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest. Go and buy\r\nit, and tell \'em to bring it here, that I may give them the\r\ndirection where to take it. Come back with the man, and\r\nI\'ll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than\r\nfive minutes and I\'ll give you half-a-crown!"\r\n\r\nThe boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady\r\nhand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.\r\n\r\n"I\'ll send it to Bob Cratchit\'s!" whispered Scrooge,\r\nrubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "He sha\'n\'t\r\nknow who sends it. It\'s twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe\r\nMiller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob\'s\r\nwill be!"\r\n\r\nThe hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady\r\none, but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to\r\nopen the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer\'s\r\nman. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker\r\ncaught his eye.\r\n\r\n"I shall love it, as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, patting\r\nit with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it before.\r\nWhat an honest expression it has in its face! It\'s a\r\nwonderful knocker!--Here\'s the Turkey! Hallo! Whoop!\r\nHow are you! Merry Christmas!"\r\n\r\nIt was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his\r\nlegs, that bird. He would have snapped \'em short off in a\r\nminute, like sticks of sealing-wax.\r\n\r\n"Why, it\'s impossible to carry that to Camden Town,"\r\nsaid Scrooge. "You must have a cab."\r\n\r\nThe chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with\r\nwhich he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which\r\nhe paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed\r\nthe boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle\r\nwith which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and\r\nchuckled till he cried.\r\n\r\nShaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to\r\nshake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when\r\nyou don\'t dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the\r\nend of his nose off, he would have put a piece of\r\nsticking-plaister over it, and been quite satisfied.\r\n\r\nHe dressed himself "all in his best," and at last got out\r\ninto the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth,\r\nas he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present;\r\nand walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded\r\nevery one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly\r\npleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows\r\nsaid, "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!"\r\nAnd Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe\r\nsounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.\r\n\r\nHe had not gone far, when coming on towards him he\r\nbeheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his\r\ncounting-house the day before, and said, "Scrooge and Marley\'s, I\r\nbelieve?"  It sent a pang across his heart to think how this\r\nold gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he\r\nknew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.\r\n\r\n"My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and\r\ntaking the old gentleman by both his hands. "How do you\r\ndo? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of\r\nyou. A merry Christmas to you, sir!"\r\n\r\n"Mr. Scrooge?"\r\n\r\n"Yes," said Scrooge. "That is my name, and I fear it\r\nmay not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon.\r\nAnd will you have the goodness"--here Scrooge whispered in\r\nhis ear.\r\n\r\n"Lord bless me!" cried the gentleman, as if his breath\r\nwere taken away. "My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?"\r\n\r\n"If you please," said Scrooge. "Not a farthing less. A\r\ngreat many back-payments are included in it, I assure you.\r\nWill you do me that favour?"\r\n\r\n"My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with him.\r\n"I don\'t know what to say to such munifi--"\r\n\r\n"Don\'t say anything, please," retorted Scrooge. "Come\r\nand see me. Will you come and see me?"\r\n\r\n"I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he\r\nmeant to do it.\r\n\r\n"Thank\'ee," said Scrooge. "I am much obliged to you.\r\nI thank you fifty times. Bless you!"\r\n\r\nHe went to church, and walked about the streets, and\r\nwatched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children\r\non the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into\r\nthe kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found\r\nthat everything could yield him pleasure. He had never\r\ndreamed that any walk--that anything--could give him so\r\nmuch happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps\r\ntowards his nephew\'s house.\r\n\r\nHe passed the door a dozen times, before he had the\r\ncourage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and\r\ndid it:\r\n\r\n"Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge to the\r\ngirl. Nice girl! Very.\r\n\r\n"Yes, sir."\r\n\r\n"Where is he, my love?" said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n"He\'s in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I\'ll\r\nshow you up-stairs, if you please."\r\n\r\n"Thank\'ee. He knows me," said Scrooge, with his hand\r\nalready on the dining-room lock. "I\'ll go in here, my dear."\r\n\r\nHe turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door.\r\nThey were looking at the table (which was spread out in\r\ngreat array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous\r\non such points, and like to see that everything is right.\r\n\r\n"Fred!" said Scrooge.\r\n\r\nDear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started!\r\nScrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting\r\nin the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn\'t have done\r\nit, on any account.\r\n\r\n"Why bless my soul!" cried Fred, "who\'s that?"\r\n\r\n"It\'s I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner.\r\nWill you let me in, Fred?"\r\n\r\nLet him in! It is a mercy he didn\'t shake his arm off.\r\nHe was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier.\r\nHis niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he\r\ncame. So did the plump sister when she came. So did\r\nevery one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful\r\ngames, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!\r\n\r\nBut he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was\r\nearly there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob\r\nCratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his\r\nheart upon.\r\n\r\nAnd he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No\r\nBob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen\r\nminutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his\r\ndoor wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.\r\n\r\nHis hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter\r\ntoo. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his\r\npen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o\'clock.\r\n\r\n"Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as\r\nnear as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming\r\nhere at this time of day?"\r\n\r\n"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I am behind my time."\r\n\r\n"You are?" repeated Scrooge. "Yes. I think you are.\r\nStep this way, sir, if you please."\r\n\r\n"It\'s only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, appearing from\r\nthe Tank. "It shall not be repeated. I was making rather\r\nmerry yesterday, sir."\r\n\r\n"Now, I\'ll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge, "I\r\nam not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And\r\ntherefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving\r\nBob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into\r\nthe Tank again; "and therefore I am about to raise your\r\nsalary!"\r\n\r\nBob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He\r\nhad a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it,\r\nholding him, and calling to the people in the court for help\r\nand a strait-waistcoat.\r\n\r\n"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an earnestness\r\nthat could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the\r\nback. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I\r\nhave given you, for many a year! I\'ll raise your salary, and\r\nendeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss\r\nyour affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of\r\nsmoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another\r\ncoal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!"\r\n\r\n\r\nScrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and\r\ninfinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was\r\na second father. He became as good a friend, as good a\r\nmaster, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or\r\nany other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old\r\nworld. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him,\r\nbut he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was\r\nwise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this\r\nglobe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill\r\nof laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these\r\nwould be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they\r\nshould wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in\r\nless attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was\r\nquite enough for him.\r\n\r\nHe had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon\r\nthe Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was\r\nalways said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas\r\nwell, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that\r\nbe truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim\r\nobserved, God bless Us, Every One!\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nEnd of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens\r\n\r\n*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CAROL ***\r\n\r\n***** This file should be named 46.txt or 46.zip *****\r\nThis and all associated files of various formats will be found in:\r\n        http://www.gutenberg.net/4/46/\r\n\r\nProduced by Jose Menendez\r\n\r\nUpdated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions\r\nwill be renamed.\r\n\r\nCreating the works from public domain print editions means that no\r\none owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation\r\n(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without\r\npermission and without paying copyright royalties.  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