Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and
sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be
told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was
restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of
holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob
Marley's intervention. But, finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he
began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put
them every one aside with his own hands; and lying down again, established a
sharp look-out all round the bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the
moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and made
nervous.
Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted
with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide
range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for
anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite extremes,
no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects.
Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on
you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances,
and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very
much.
Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for
nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he
was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quater
of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the
very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the
clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a
dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and
was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting
case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At
last, however, he began to think -- as you or I would have thought at first; for
it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been
done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too -- at last, I say, he
began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the
adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This
idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his
slippers to the door.
The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his
name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.
It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a
surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green,
that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming
berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back
the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a
mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth
had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter
season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys,
geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of
sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chesnuts,
cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and
seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.
In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see: who
bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high
up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.
``Come in!'' exclaimed the Ghost. ``Come in. and know me better, man!''
Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the
dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he
did not like to meet them.
``I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,'' said the Spirit. ``Look upon me!''
Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or
mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure,
that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed
by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment,
were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath,
set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and
free: free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery
voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle
was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was
eaten up with rust.
``You have never seen the like of me before!'' exclaimed the Spirit.
``Never,'' Scrooge made answer to it.
``Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for
I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?'' pursued the
Phantom.
``I don't think I have,'' said Scrooge. ``I am afraid I have not. Have you
had many brothers, Spirit?''
``More than eighteen hundred,'' said the Ghost.
``A tremendous family to provide for!'' muttered Scrooge.
The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.
``Spirit,'' said Scrooge submissively, ``conduct me where you will. I went
forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now.
To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.''
``Touch my robe!''
Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.
Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn,
meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished
instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and
they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was
severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in
scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the
tops of their houses: whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come
plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little
snow-storms.
The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting
with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow
upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the
heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other
hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made intricate
channels, hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was
gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed,
half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in shower of sooty atoms, as if
all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were
blazing away to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful in
the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that
the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to
diffuse in vain.
For the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full
of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then
exchanging a facetious snowball -- better-natured missile far than many a wordy
jest -- laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went
wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were
radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of
chesnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the
doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were
ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of
their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton
slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up
mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids;
there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence to dangle
from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed;
there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance,
ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through
withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the
yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy
persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and
eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice
fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared
to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round
and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.
The Grocers'! oh the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down,
or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales
descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller
parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like
juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so
grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the
almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the
other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten
sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor
was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in
modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good
to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so
eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other
at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon
the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the
like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were
so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their
aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection,
and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.
But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away
they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their
gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets,
lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the
baker' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit
very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking
off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from
his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when
there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other,
he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored
directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it
was! God love it, so it was!
In time the bells ceased, and the bakers' were shut up; and yet there was a
genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking,
in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked
as if its stones were cooking too.
``Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?'' asked
Scrooge.
``There is. My own.''
``Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?'' asked Scrooge.
``To any kindly given. To a poor one most.''
``Why to a poor one most?'' asked Scrooge.
``Because it needs it most.''
``Spirit,'' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, ``I wonder you, of all
the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's
opportunities of innocent enjoyment.''
``I!'' cried the Spirit.
``You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often
the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,'' said Scrooge.
``Wouldn't you?''
``I!'' cried the Spirit.
``You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?'' said Scrooge. ``And it
comes to the same thing.''
``I seek!'' exclaimed the Spirit.
``Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in
that of your family,'' said Scrooge.
``There are some upon this earth of yours,'' returned the Spirit, ``who lay
claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred,
envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out
kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings
on themselves, not us.''
Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been
before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost
(which Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding his gigantic
size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood
beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it
was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.
And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power
of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy
with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he
went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of
the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with
the sprinkling of his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen bob a-week
himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and
yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!
Then up rose Mrs Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a
twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show
for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of
her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork
into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt
collar (Bob's private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the
day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned
to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy
and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the
goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of
sage-and-onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master
Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly
choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly
at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.
``What has ever got your precious father then.'' said Mrs Cratchit. ``And
your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by
half-an-hour!''
``Here's Martha, mother!'' said a girl, appearing as she spoke.
``Here's Martha, mother!'' cried the two young Cratchits. ``Hurrah! There's
such a goose, Martha!''
``Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!'' said Mrs
Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her
with officious zeal.
``We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,'' replied the girl, ``and had
to clear away this morning, mother!''
``Well! Never mind so long as you are come,'' said Mrs Cratchit. ``Sit ye
down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!''
``No, no! There's father coming,'' cried the two young Cratchits, who were
everywhere at once. ``Hide, Martha, hide!''
So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least
three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and
his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim
upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs
supported by an iron frame!
``Why, where's our Martha?'' cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.
``Not coming,'' said Mrs Cratchit.
``Not coming!'' said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for
he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home
rampant. ``Not coming upon Christmas Day!''
Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she
came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while
the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house,
that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.
``And how did little Tim behave?'' asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied
Bob on his credulity and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.
``As good as gold,'' said Bob, ``and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful,
sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He
told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he
was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day,
who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.''
Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he
said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.
His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim
before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool
before the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs -- as if, poor fellow, they
were capable of being made more shabby -- compounded some hot mixture in a jug
with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to
simmer; Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the
goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all
birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course; and
in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs Cratchit made the
gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed
the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce;
Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at
the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting
themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their
mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped.
At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a
breathless pause, as Mrs Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife,
prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long
expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round
the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the
table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!
There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such
a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes
of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a
sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs Cratchit said with great
delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it
all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in
particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates
being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone -- too nervous
to bear witnesses -- to take the pudding up, and bring it in.
Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out!
Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it,
while they were merry with the goose: a supposition at which the two young
Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.
Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like
a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a
pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That
was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered: flushed, but smiling
proudly: with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm,
blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas
holly stuck into the top.
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded
it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs
Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had
had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about
it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family.
It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint
at such a thing.
At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and
the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect,
apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chesnuts on the
fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit
called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the
family display of glass; two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets
would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chesnuts on
the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:
``A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!''
Which all the family re-echoed.
``God bless us every one!'' said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob held his
withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by
his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.
``Spirit,'' said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, ``tell
me if Tiny Tim will live.''
``I see a vacant seat,'' replied the Ghost, ``in the poor chimney-corner, and
a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain
unaltered by the Future, the child will die.''
``No, no,'' said Scrooge. ``Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.''
``If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,''
returned the Ghost, ``will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he
had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.''
Scrooge hung his head to hear his wn words quoted by the Spirit, and was
overcome with penitence and grief.
``Man,'' said the Ghost, ``if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that
wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will
you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight
of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this
poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too
much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!''
Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the
ground. But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name.
``Mr Scrooge!'' said Bob; ``I'll give you Mr Scrooge, the Founder of the
Feast!''
``The Founder of the Feast indeed!'' cried Mrs Cratchit, reddening. ``I wish
I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd
have a good appetite for it.''
``My dear,'' said Bob, ``the children; Christmas Day.''
``It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,'' said she, ``on which one drinks
the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr Scrooge. You
know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!''
``My dear,'' was Bob's mild answer, ``Christmas Day.''
``I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,''said Mrs Cratchit,
``not for his. Long life to him. A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He'll
be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!''
The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings
which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care
twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name
cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.
After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the
mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how
he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if
obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed
tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter himself
looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were
deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the
receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a
milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours
she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie a-bed to-morrow morning for a
good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had
seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord ``was much about
as tall as Peter;'' at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you
couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chesnuts
and the jug went round and round; and bye and bye they had a song, about a lost
child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim; who had a plaintive little voice,
and sang it very well indeed.
There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they
were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their
clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside
of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and
contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the
bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon
them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.
By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge
and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in
kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering
of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking
through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to
shut out cold and darkness. There all the children of the house were running out
into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts,
and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blind of
guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and
fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near
neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter -- artful
witches, well they knew it -- in a glow!
But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly
gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome
when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its
fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How it bared
its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on,
outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything
within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky
street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere,
laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed: though little kenned the lamplighter
that he had any company but Christmas!
And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak
and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though
it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it
listed; or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and
nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass. Down in the west the
setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for
an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in
the thick gloom of darkest night.
``What place is this?'' asked Scrooge.
``A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,''
returned the Spirit. ``But they know me. See!''
A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it.
Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company
assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children
and their children's children, and another generation beyond that, all decked
out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose
above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a
Christmas song : it had been a very old song when he was a boy; and from time to
time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the
old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour
sank again.
The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on
above the moor, sped whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking
back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and
his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled, and roared, and
raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine
the earth.
Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on
which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a
solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds
-- born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water -- rose and fell
about it, like the waves they skimmed.
But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through
the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful
sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they
wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them: the
elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the
figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a
Gale in itself.
Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea -- on, on -- until,
being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They
stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers
who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every
man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke
below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward
hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad,
had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and
had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared
for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.
It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the
wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely
darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death:
it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh.
It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew's
and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing
smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability!
``Ha, ha!'' laughed Scrooge's nephew. ``Ha, ha, ha!''
If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a
laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too.
Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is
infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly
contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this
way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most
extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as
he. And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.
``Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!''
``He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!'' cried Scrooge's nephew.
``He believed it too!''
``More shame for him, Fred!'' said Scrooge's niece, indignantly. Bless those
women; they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.
She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking,
capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed -- as no doubt
it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one
another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any
little creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking,
you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory!
``He's a comical old fellow,'' said Scrooge's nephew, ``that's the truth: and
not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own
punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.''
``I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,'' hinted Scrooge's niece. ``At least you
always tell me so.''
``What of that, my dear!'' said Scrooge's nephew. ``His wealth is of no use
to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it.
He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking -- ha, ha, ha! -- that he is ever going
to benefit Us with it.''
``I have no patience with him,'' observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's niece's
sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.
``Oh, I have!'' said Scrooge's nephew. ``I am sorry for him; I couldn't be
angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always. Here,
he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us.
What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner.''
``Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,'' interrupted Scrooge's niece.
Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent
judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table,
were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.
``Well! I'm very glad to hear it,'' said Scrooge's nephew, ``because I
haven't great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?''
Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for he
answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an
opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister -- the plump one with
the lace tucker: not the one with the roses -- blushed.
``Do go on, Fred,'' said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. ``He never
finishes what he begins to say. He is such a ridiculous fellow!''
Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep
the infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic
vinegar; his example was unanimously followed.
``I was only going to say,'' said Scrooge's nephew, ``that the consequence of
his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that
he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses
pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy
old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every
year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till
he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it -- I defy him -- if he finds me
going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are
you? If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds,
that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday.''
It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But
being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that
they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the
bottle joyously.
After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what
they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially
Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the
large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Scrooge's niece
played well upon the harp; and played among other tunes a simple little air (a
mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been
familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had
been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded,
all the things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he softened more
and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he
might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own
hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.
But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played
at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at
at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first
a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper
was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it
was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of
Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace
tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the
fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering
himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there went he. He always knew
where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up
against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint of
endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your
understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump
sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. But when
at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her
rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape;
then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his
pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure
himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a
certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told him her
opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office, they were so very
confidential together, behind the curtains.
Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party, but was made
comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the
Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and
loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise at
the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and to the secret joy of
Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as
Topper could have told you. There might have been twenty people there, young and
old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for, wholly forgetting in the
interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their
ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and vey often guessed
quite right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to
cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to
be.
The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him
with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the
guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done.
``Here is a new game,'' said Scrooge. ``One half hour, Spirit, only one!''
It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of
something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions
yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was
exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal,
rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and
grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about
the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't
live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or
an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a
bear. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a
fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to
get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a similar
state, cried out:
``I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!''
``What is it?'' cried Fred.
``It's your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!''
Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some
objected that the reply to ``Is it a bear?'' ought to have been ``Yes;''
inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their
thoughts from Mr Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.
``He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,'' said Fred, ``and it would
be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to
our hand at the moment; and I say, ``Uncle Scrooge!''''
``Well! Uncle Scrooge.'' they cried.
``A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!''
said Scrooge's nephew. ``He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it,
nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!''
Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he
would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an
inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed
off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit
were again upon their travels.
Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always
with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on
foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were
patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse,
hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief
authority had not made fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he left his
blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.
It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of
this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of
time they passed together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained
unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had
observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children's
Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an
open place, he noticed that its hair was grey.
``Are spirits' lives so short?'' asked Scrooge.
``My life upon this globe, is very brief,'' replied the Ghost. ``It ends
to-night.''
``To-night!'' cried Scrooge.
``To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.''
The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.
``Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,'' said Scrooge, looking
intently at the Spirit's robe, ``but I see something strange, and not belonging
to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw!''
``It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,'' was the Spirit's
sorrowful reply. ``Look here.''
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject,
frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the
outside of its garment.
``Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!'' exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but
prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their
features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled
hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into
shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out
menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade,
through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible
and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he
tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather
than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
``Spirit! are they yours?'' Scrooge could say no more.
``They are Man's,'' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ``And they cling
to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.
Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for
on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny
it!'' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. ``Slander
those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse!
And bide the end!''
``Have they no refuge or resource?'' cried Scrooge.
``Are there no prisons?'' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time
with his own words. ``Are there no workhouses?''
The bell struck twelve.
Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke
ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting
up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist
along the ground, towards him.
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