A Christmas Carol

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Charles Dickens
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Title: A Christmas Carol
Author: Charles Dickens
Illustrator: Arthur Rackham
Release Date: December 24, 2007 [EBook #24022]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS
CAROL ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship and the
Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
"How now?" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.
"What do you want with me?"
A CHRISTMAS
CAROL
BY
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CHARLES DICKENS
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ILLUSTRATED BY
ARTHUR RACKHAM
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PHILADELPHIA AND NEW YORK
FIRST PUBLISHED 1915
ISBN: 0-397-00033-2
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
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PREFACE
I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book to raise the Ghost of
an Idea which shall not put my readers out of humour with them-
selves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt
their house pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.
Their faithful Friend and Servant,
C. D.
December, 1843.
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CHARACTERS
Bob Cratchit, clerk to Ebenezer Scrooge.
Peter Cratchit, a son of the preceding.
Tim Cratchit ("Tiny Tim"), a cripple, youngest son
of Bob Cratchit.
Mr. Fezziwig, a kind-hearted, jovial old merchant.
Fred, Scrooge's nephew.
Ghost of Christmas Past, a phantom showing
things past.
Ghost of Christmas Present, a spirit of a kind, gen-
erous, and hearty nature.
Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, an apparition
showing the shadows of things which yet may hap-
pen.
Ghost of Jacob Marley, a spectre of Scrooge's
former partner in business.
Joe, a marine-store dealer and receiver of stolen
goods.
Ebenezer Scrooge, a grasping, covetous old man,
the surviving partner of the firm of Scrooge and Mar-
ley.
Mr. Topper, a bachelor.
Dick Wilkins, a fellow apprentice of Scrooge's.
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Belle, a comely matron, an old sweetheart of
Scrooge's.
Caroline, wife of one of Scrooge's debtors.
Mrs. Cratchit, wife of Bob Cratchit.
Belinda and Martha Cratchit, daughters of the pre-
ceding.
Mrs. Dilber, a laundress.
Fan, the sister of Scrooge.
Mrs. Fezziwig, the worthy partner of Mr. Fezziwig.
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CONTENTS
STAVE ONE—MARLEY'S GHOST
3
STAVE TWO—THE FIRST OF THE
THREE SPIRITS
37
STAVE THREE—THE SECOND OF
THE THREE SPIRITS
69
STAVE FOUR—THE LAST OF THE
SPIRITS
111
STAVE FIVE—THE END OF IT
137
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LIST OF
ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOUR
"How now?" said Scrooge, caustic
and cold as ever.
"What do you want with me?"
Frontispiece
Bob Cratchit went down a slide on
Cornhill, at the end of a lane of
boys, twenty times, in honour of its
being Christmas Eve
16
Nobody under the bed; nobody in
the closet; nobody in his dressing-
gown, which was hanging up in a
suspicious attitude against the wall
20
The air was filled with phantoms,
wandering hither and thither in
restless haste and moaning as they
went
32
Then old Fezziwig stood out to
dance with Mrs. Fezziwig
54
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A flushed and boisterous group
62
Laden with Christmas toys and
presents
64
The way he went after that plump
sister in the lace tucker!
100
"How are you?" said one.
"How are you?" returned the other.
"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch
has got his own at last, hey?"
114
"What do you call this?" said Joe.
"Bed-curtains!"
"Ah!" returned the woman,
laughing.... "Bed-curtains!"
"You don't mean to say you took
'em down, rings and all, with him
lying there?" said Joe.
"Yes, I do," replied the woman.
"Why not?"
120
"It's I, your uncle Scrooge. I have
come to dinner. Will you let me in,
Fred?"
144
"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,"
said Scrooge. "I am not going to
stand this sort of thing any longer."
146
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IN BLACK AND WHITE
Tailpiece
vi
Tailpiece to List of Coloured Illustrations
x
Tailpiece to List of Black and White
Illustrations
xi
Heading to Stave One
3
They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to
behold
12
On the wings of the wind
28-29
Tailpiece to Stave One
34
Heading to Stave Two
37
He produced a decanter of curiously light
wine and a block of curiously heavy cake
50
She left him, and they parted
60
Tailpiece to Stave Two
65
Heading to Stave Three
69
There was nothing very cheerful in the
climate
75
He had been Tim's blood-horse all the way
from church
84-85
With the pudding
88
Heading to Stave Four
111
Heading to Stave Five
137
Tailpiece to Stave Five
147
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STAVE ONE
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MARLEY'S GHOST
Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about
that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the
clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it.
And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose
to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge, what
there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been in-
clined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of iron-
mongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the
simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the
country's done for. You will, therefore, permit me to repeat, em-
phatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be oth-
erwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many
years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his
sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole
mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad
event but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day
of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.
The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I star-
ted from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be
distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I
am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that
Hamlet's father died before the play began, there would be nothing
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more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind,
upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-
aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot—say
St. Paul's Churchyard, for instance—literally to astonish his son's
weak mind.
Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years
afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The
firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to
the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he
answered to both names. It was all the same to him.
Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a
squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old
sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever
struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as
an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his
pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes
red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.
A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry
chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him;
he iced his office in the dog-days, and didn't thaw it one degree at
Christmas.
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth
could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was
bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose,
no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know
where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet
could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They of-
ten 'came down' handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks,
'My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?'
No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him
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what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life in-
quired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind
men's dogs appeared to know him; and, when they saw him com-
ing on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and
then would wag their tails as though they said, 'No eye at all is bet-
ter than an evil eye, dark master!'
But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge
his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sym-
pathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call 'nuts' to
Scrooge.
Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas
Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak,
biting weather; foggy withal; and he could hear the people in the
court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon
their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to
warm them. The City clocks had only just gone three, but it was
quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles were
flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy
smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at
every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that, although
the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere
phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring
everything, one might have thought that nature lived hard by, and
was brewing on a large scale.
The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that he might
keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a
sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but
the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one
coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in
his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel,
the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part.
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Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm
himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong
imagination, he failed.
'A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!' cried a cheerful voice. It
was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly
that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
'Bah!' said Scrooge. 'Humbug!'
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost,
this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was
ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked
again.
'Christmas a humbug, uncle!' said Scrooge's nephew. 'You don't
mean that, I am sure?'
'I do,' said Scrooge. 'Merry Christmas! What right have you to be
merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.'
'Come, then,' returned the nephew gaily. 'What right have you to be
dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.'
Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment,
said, 'Bah!' again; and followed it up with 'Humbug!'
'Don't be cross, uncle!' said the nephew.
'What else can I be,' returned the uncle, 'when I live in such a world
of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas!
What's Christmas-time to you but a time for paying bills without
money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour
richer; a time for balancing your books, and having every item in
'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you?
If I could work my will,' said Scrooge indignantly, 'every idiot who
goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips should be boiled
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with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his
heart. He should!'
'Uncle!' pleaded the nephew.
'Nephew!' returned the uncle sternly, 'keep Christmas in your own
way, and let me keep it in mine.'
'Keep it!' repeated Scrooge's nephew. 'But you don't keep it.'
'Let me leave it alone, then,' said Scrooge. 'Much good may it do
you! Much good it has ever done you!'
'There are many things from which I might have derived good, by
which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew; 'Christ-
mas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of
Christmas-time, when it has come round—apart from the venera-
tion due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it
can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charit-
able, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of
the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their
shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they
really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of
creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it
has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it
has done me good and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!'
The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immedi-
ately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extin-
guished the last frail spark for ever.
'Let me hear another sound from you,' said Scrooge, 'and you'll
keep your Christmas by losing your situation! You're quite a
powerful speaker, sir,' he added, turning to his nephew. 'I wonder
you don't go into Parliament.'
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'Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.'
Scrooge said that he would see him——Yes, indeed he did. He went
the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him
in that extremity first.
'But why?' cried Scrooge's nephew. 'Why?'
'Why did you get married?' said Scrooge.
'Because I fell in love.'
'Because you fell in love!' growled Scrooge, as if that were the only
one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas.
'Good afternoon!'
'Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened.
Why give it as a reason for not coming now?'
'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.
'I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be
friends?'
'Good afternoon!' said Scrooge.
'I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have nev-
er had any quarrel to which I have been a party. But I have made
the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas hu-
mour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!'
'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.
'And A Happy New Year!'
'Good afternoon!' said Scrooge.
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His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding.
He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season
on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he
returned them cordially.
'There's another fellow,' muttered Scrooge, who overheard him:
'my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talk-
ing about a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.'
This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other
people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and
now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books
and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.
'Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,' said one of the gentlemen, refer-
ring to his list. 'Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or
Mr. Marley?'
'Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,' Scrooge replied. 'He
died seven years ago, this very night.'
'We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving
partner,' said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.
THEY WERE PORTLY GENTLEMEN, PLEASANT TO BEHOLD THEY WERE PORTLY GENTLEMEN,
PLEASANT TO BEHOLD
It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the omin-
ous word 'liberality' Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and
handed the credentials back.
'At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,' said the gentleman,
taking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should
make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer
greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of
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common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of com-
mon comforts, sir.'
'Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge.
'Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
'And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge. 'Are they still in
operation?'
'They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, 'I wish I could say they
were not.'
'The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?' said
Scrooge.
'Both very busy, sir.'
'Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had
occurred to stop them in their useful course,' said Scrooge. 'I am
very glad to hear it.'
'Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of
mind or body to the multitude,' returned the gentleman, 'a few of
us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and
drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a
time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance re-
joices. What shall I put you down for?'
'Nothing!' Scrooge replied.
'You wish to be anonymous?'
'I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. 'Since you ask me what I
wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at
Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to
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support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough:
and those who are badly off must go there.'
'Many can't go there; and many would rather die.'
'If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and
decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don't
know that.'
'But you might know it,' observed the gentleman.
'It's not my business,' Scrooge returned. 'It's enough for a man to
understand his own business, and not to interfere with other
people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon,
gentlemen!'
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the
gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an im-
proved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than
was usual with him.
Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran
about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before
horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient
tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly
down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invis-
ible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremu-
lous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chattering in its
frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the main street,
at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-
pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party
of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and
winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug be-
ing left in solitude, its overflowings suddenly congealed, and
turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops, where
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holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows,
made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers'
trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it
was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bar-
gain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the strong-
hold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks
and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should;
and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the
previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets,
stirred up to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife
and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.
Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good
St. Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of
such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then
indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one
scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as
bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to
regale him with a Christmas carol; but, at the first sound of
'God bless you, merry gentleman,
May nothing you dismay!'
Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer
fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog, and even more con-
genial frost.
At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With
an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted
the fact to the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly snuffed his
candle out, and put on his hat.
'You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?' said Scrooge.
'If quite convenient, sir.'
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'It's not convenient,' said Scrooge, 'and it's not fair. If I was to stop
half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill used, I'll be bound?'
The clerk smiled faintly.
'And yet,' said Scrooge, 'you don't think me ill used when I pay a
day's wages for no work.'
Bob Cratchit went down a slide on Cornhill,
at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times,
in honour of its being Christmas Eve
The clerk observed that it was only once a year.
'A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of
December!' said Scrooge, buttoning his greatcoat to the chin. 'But I
suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next
morning.'
The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a
growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the
long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he
boasted no greatcoat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of
a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve,
and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to
play at blind man's-buff.
Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tav-
ern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of
the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed. He lived in
chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They
were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a
yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely
help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house,
playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and have forgotten the
way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough; for
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nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as
offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every
stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung
about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the
Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the
threshold.
Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the
knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact
that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole res-
idence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called
fancy about him as any man in the City of London, even includ-
ing—which is a bold word—the corporation, aldermen, and livery.
Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one
thought on Marley since his last mention of his seven-years'-dead
partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he
can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the
door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate
process of change—not a knocker, but Marley's face.
Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as the other ob-
jects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad
lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at
Scrooge as Marley used to look; with ghostly spectacles turned up
on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by
breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were
perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible;
but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face, and beyond its con-
trol, rather than a part of its own expression.
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker
again.
To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious
of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy,
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would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relin-
quished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.
He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the
door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expec-
ted to be terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into
the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the
screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said, 'Pooh, pooh!'
and closed it with a bang.
The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room
above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, ap-
peared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was
not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and
walked across the hall, and up the stairs: slowly, too: trimming his
candle as he went.
You may talk vaguely about driving a coach and six up a good old
flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I
mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and
taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall, and the
door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of
width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why
Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in
the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have
lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty
dark with Scrooge's dip.
Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap,
and Scrooge liked it. But, before he shut his heavy door, he walked
through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough re-
collection of the face to desire to do that.
Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be.
Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the
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grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel
(Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the
bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was
hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room
as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish baskets, washing-stand
on three legs, and a poker.
Nobody under the bed;
nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown,
which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall
Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double
locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against
surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slip-
pers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his
gruel.
It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was
obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract
the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fire-
place was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and
paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the
Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters,
Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air
on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles put-
ting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his
thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like
the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each
smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some
picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his
thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley's head on
every one.
'Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the room.
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After several turns he sat down again. As he threw his head back in
the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell,
that hung in the room, and communicated, for some purpose now
forgotten, with a chamber in the highest storey of the building. It
was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable
dread, that, as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung
so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it
rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an
hour. The bells ceased, as they had begun, together. They were suc-
ceeded by a clanking noise deep down below as if some person
were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant's
cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in
haunted houses were described as dragging chains.
The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he
heard the noise much louder on the floors below; then coming up
the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.
'It's humbug still!' said Scrooge. 'I won't believe it.'
His colour changed, though, when, without a pause, it came on
through the heavy door and passed into the room before his eyes.
Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, 'I
know him! Marley's Ghost!' and fell again.
The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waist-
coat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his
pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain
he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound
about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it
closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy
purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent: so that Scrooge,
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observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the
two buttons on his coat behind.
Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he
had never believed it until now.
No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom
through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he
felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes, and marked the
very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin,
which wrapper he had not observed before, he was still incredu-
lous, and fought against his senses.
'How now!' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. 'What do you
want with me?'
'Much!'—Marley's voice; no doubt about it.
'Who are you?'
'Ask me who I was.'
'Who were you, then?' said Scrooge, raising his voice. 'You're par-
ticular, for a shade.' He was going to say 'to a shade,' but substi-
tuted this, as more appropriate.
'In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.'
'Can you—can you sit down?' asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at
him.
'I can.'
'Do it, then.'
Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a
ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a
chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might
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involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the
Ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were
quite used to it.
'You don't believe in me,' observed the Ghost.
'I don't,' said Scrooge.
'What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your
own senses?'
'I don't know,' said Scrooge.
'Why do you doubt your senses?'
'Because,' said Scrooge, 'a little thing affects them. A slight disorder
of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit
of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an un-
derdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you,
whatever you are!'
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel
in his heart by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried
to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keep-
ing down his terror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very mar-
row in his bones.
To sit staring at those fixed, glazed eyes in silence, for a moment,
would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was
something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an
infernal atmosphere of his own. Scrooge could not feel it himself,
but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly mo-
tionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels were still agitated as by the
hot vapour from an oven.
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'You see this toothpick?' said Scrooge, returning quickly to the
charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were
only for a second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.
'I do,' replied the Ghost.
'You are not looking at it,' said Scrooge.
'But I see it,' said the Ghost, 'notwithstanding.'
'Well!' returned Scrooge, 'I have but to swallow this, and be for the
rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own cre-
ation. Humbug, I tell you: humbug!'
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with
such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his
chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much great-
er was his horror when the phantom, taking off the bandage round
his head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw
dropped down upon its breast!
Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.
'Mercy!' he said. 'Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?'
'Man of the worldly mind!' replied the Ghost, 'do you believe in me
or not?'
'I do,' said Scrooge; 'I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and
why do they come to me?'
'It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, 'that the spirit
within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel
far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is con-
demned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the
world—oh, woe is me!—and witness what it cannot share, but
might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!'
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Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its
shadowy hands.
'You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. 'Tell me why?'
'I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. 'I made it link
by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of
my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?'
Scrooge trembled more and more.
'Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, 'the weight and length of
the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as
this seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a
ponderous chain!'
Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of find-
ing himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable;
but he could see nothing.
'Jacob!' he said imploringly. 'Old Jacob Marley, tell me more!
Speak comfort to me, Jacob!'
'I have none to give,' the Ghost replied. 'It comes from other re-
gions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to
other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little
more is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot
linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-
house—mark me;—in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow
limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before
me!'
It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put
his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost
had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting
off his knees.
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ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND
'You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,' Scrooge observed
in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference.
'Slow!' the Ghost repeated.
'Seven years dead,' mused Scrooge. 'And travelling all the time?'
'The whole time,' said the Ghost. 'No rest, no peace. Incessant tor-
ture of remorse.'
'You travel fast?' said Scrooge.
'On the wings of the wind,' replied the Ghost.
'You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,'
said Scrooge.
The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its
chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward
would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.
'Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,' cried the phantom, 'not to
know that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this
earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is suscept-
ible is all developed! Not to know that any Christian spirit working
kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal
life too short for its vast means of usefulness! Not to know that no
space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities mis-
used! Yet such was I! Oh, such was I!'
'But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered
Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
'Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 'Mankind was
my business. The common welfare was my business; charity,
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mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The
dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive
ocean of my business!'
It held up its chain at arm's-length, as if that were the cause of all
its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
'At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said, 'I suffer most.
Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes
turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led
the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which
its light would have conducted me?'
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at
this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.
'Hear me!' cried the Ghost. 'My time is nearly gone.'
'I will,' said Scrooge. 'But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery,
Jacob! Pray!'
'How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I
may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.'
It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the per-
spiration from his brow.
'That is no light part of my penance,' pursued the Ghost. 'I am here
to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escap-
ing my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.'
'You were always a good friend to me,' said Scrooge. 'Thankee!'
'You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, 'by Three Spirits.'
Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.
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'Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?' he demanded
in a faltering voice.
'It is.'
'I—I think I'd rather not,' said Scrooge.
'Without their visits,' said the Ghost, 'you cannot hope to shun the
path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow when the bell tolls One.'
'Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?' hinted
Scrooge.
'Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third,
upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vi-
brate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake,
you remember what has passed between us!'
When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from
the table, and bound it round its head as before. Scrooge knew this
by the smart sound its teeth made when the jaws were brought to-
gether by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and
found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude,
with its chain wound over and about its arm.
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste
and moaning as they went
The apparition walked backward from him; and, at every step it
took, the window raised itself a little, so that, when the spectre
reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach,
which he did. When they were within two paces of each other,
Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer.
Scrooge stopped.
Not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear; for, on the rais-
ing of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air;
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incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpress-
ibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a
moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the
bleak, dark night.
Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He
looked out.
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in
restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore
chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty govern-
ments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been per-
sonally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar
with one old ghost in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe
attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a
wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below upon a door-
step. The misery with them all was clearly, that they sought to in-
terfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for
ever.
Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them,
he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together;
and the night became as it had been when he walked home.
Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the
Ghost had entered. It was double locked, as he had locked it with
his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say
'Humbug!' but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the
emotions he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his
glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the
Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, went
straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep upon the
instant.
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STAVE TWO
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THE FIRST OF THE
THREE SPIRITS
When Scrooge awoke it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he
could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque
walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness
with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church
struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.
To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to sev-
en, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then
stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock
was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!
He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most prepos-
terous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and stopped.
'Why, it isn't possible,' said Scrooge, 'that I can have slept through
a whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that any-
thing has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!'
The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and
groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off
with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything;
and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it
was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise
of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there un-
questionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day,
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and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because
'Three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenez-
er Scrooge or his order,' and so forth, would have become a mere
United States security if there were no days to count by.
Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought
it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he
thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he endeav-
oured not to think, the more he thought.
Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved
within himself, after mature inquiry that it was all a dream, his
mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first posi-
tion, and presented the same problem to be worked all through,
'Was it a dream or not?'
Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three-quarters
more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had
warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to
lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could
no more go to sleep than go to heaven, this was, perhaps, the
wisest resolution in his power.
The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he
must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At
length it broke upon his listening ear.
'Ding, dong!'
'A quarter past,' said Scrooge, counting.
'Ding, dong!'
'Half past,' said Scrooge.
'Ding, dong!'
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'A quarter to it.' said Scrooge.
'Ding, dong!'
'The hour itself,' said Scrooge triumphantly, 'and nothing else!'
He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a
deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room
upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.
The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not
the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to
which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn
aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude,
found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew
them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the
spirit at your elbow.
It was a strange figure—like a child; yet not so like a child as like an
old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave
him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being di-
minished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its
neck and down its back, was white, as if with age; and yet the face
had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin.
The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if
its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delic-
ately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic
of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt,
the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green
holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry em-
blem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the
strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there
sprang a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and
which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller
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moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under
its arm.
Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing stead-
iness, was not its strangest quality. For, as its belt sparkled and
glittered, now in one part and now in another, and what was light
one instant at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated
in its distinctness; being now a thing with one arm, now with one
leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a
head without a body: of which dissolving parts no outline would be
visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And, in the
very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as
ever.
'Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?' asked
Scrooge.
'I am!'
The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if, instead of being
so close behind him, it were at a distance.
'Who and what are you?' Scrooge demanded.
'I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.'
'Long Past?' inquired Scrooge, observant of its dwarfish stature.
'No. Your past.'
Perhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody
could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit
in his cap, and begged him to be covered.
'What!' exclaimed the Ghost, 'would you so soon put out, with
worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of
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those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole
trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?'
Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any know-
ledge of having wilfully 'bonneted' the Spirit at any period of his
life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him
there.
'Your welfare!' said the Ghost.
Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help think-
ing that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive
to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said
immediately—
'Your reclamation, then. Take heed!'
It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the
arm.
'Rise! and walk with me!'
It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather
and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed
was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he
was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap;
and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though
gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose; but,
finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped its robe
in supplication.
'I am a mortal,' Scrooge remonstrated, 'and liable to fall.'
'Bear but a touch of my hand there,' said the Spirit, laying it upon
his heart, 'and you shall be upheld in more than this!'
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As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood
upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had
entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness
and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter
day, with snow upon the ground.
'Good Heaven!' said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he
looked about him. 'I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!'
The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had
been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old
man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours
floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts,
and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long forgotten!
'Your lip is trembling,' said the Ghost. 'And what is that upon your
cheek?'
Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was
a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.
'You recollect the way?' inquired the Spirit.
'Remember it!' cried Scrooge with fervour;
'I could walk it
blindfold.'
'Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!' observed the
Ghost. 'Let us go on.'
They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and
post, and tree, until a little market-town appeared in the distance,
with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies
now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs,
who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farm-
ers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other,
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until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air
laughed to hear it.
'These are but shadows of the things that have been,' said the
Ghost. 'They have no consciousness of us.'
The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew
and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all
bounds to see them? Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart
leap up as they went past? Why was he filled with gladness when
he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at
cross-roads and by-ways for their several homes? What was merry
Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had
it ever done to him?
'The school is not quite deserted,' said the Ghost. 'A solitary child,
neglected by his friends, is left there still.'
Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.
They left the high-road by a well-remembered lane and soon ap-
proached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weather-cock
surmounted cupola on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a
large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices
were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows
broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the
stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were overrun with grass.
Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state within; for, entering
the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many
rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There
was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place,
which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by
candle light and not too much to eat.
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They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the
back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long,
bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal
forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a
feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his
poor forgotten self as he had used to be.
Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the
mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-
spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs
of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-
house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of
Scrooge with softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his
tears.
The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self,
intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man in foreign garments, won-
derfully real and distinct to look at, stood outside the window, with
an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with
wood.
'Why, it's Ali Baba!' Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. 'It's dear old
honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas-time, when yon-
der solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first
time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,' said Scrooge, 'and his
wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what's his name, who was
put down in his drawers, asleep, at the gate of Damascus; don't you
see him? And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii;
there he is upon his head! Serve him right! I'm glad of it. What
business had he to be married to the Princess?'
To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on
such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and
crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have
been a surprise to his business friends in the City, indeed.
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'There's the Parrot!' cried Scrooge. 'Green body and yellow tail,
with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there
he is! Poor Robin Crusoe he called him, when he came home again
after sailing round the island. "Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you
been, Robin Crusoe?" The man thought he was dreaming, but he
wasn't. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for
his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!'
Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual charac-
ter, he said, in pity for his former self, 'Poor boy!' and cried again.
'I wish,' Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and
looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff; 'but it's too
late now.'
'What is the matter?' asked the Spirit.
'Nothing,' said Scrooge. 'Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christ-
mas carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him
something: that's all.'
The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand, saying as it did
so, 'Let us see another Christmas!'
Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room be-
came a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the win-
dows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the
naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought
about Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was
quite correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was,
alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly
holidays.
He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly.
Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and, with a mournful shaking of his
head, glanced anxiously towards the door.
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It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came dart-
ing in, and, putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him,
addressed him as her 'dear, dear brother.'
'I have come to bring you home, dear brother!' said the child, clap-
ping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. 'To bring you
home, home, home!'
'Home, little Fan?' returned the boy.
'Yes!' said the child, brimful of glee. 'Home for good and all. Home
for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that
home's like heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when
I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if
you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in
a coach to bring you. And you're to be a man!' said the child, open-
ing her eyes; 'and are never to come back here; but first we're to be
together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all
the world.'
'You are quite a woman, little Fan!' exclaimed the boy.
She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head;
but, being too little laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace
him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, to-
wards the door; and he, nothing loath to go, accompanied her.
A terrible voice in the hall cried, 'Bring down Master Scrooge's box,
there!' and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who
glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and
threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with
him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well
of a shivering best parlour that ever was seen, where the maps
upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the win-
dows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of
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curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and ad-
ministered instalments of those dainties to the young people; at the
same time sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of
'something' to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gen-
tleman, but, if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had
rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to the
top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye
right willingly; and, getting into it, drove gaily down the garden
sweep; the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off
the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.
HE PRODUCED A DECANTER OF CURIOUSLY LIGHT WINE, AND A BLOCK OF CURIOUSLY HEAVY CAKE HE PRODUCED A
DECANTER OF CURIOUSLY LIGHT WINE, AND A BLOCK OF CURIOUSLY HEAVY CAKE
'Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,'
said the Ghost. 'But she had a large heart!'
'So she had,' cried Scrooge. 'You're right. I will not gainsay it, Spir-
it. God forbid!'
'She died a woman,' said the Ghost, 'and had, as I think, children.'
'One child,' Scrooge returned.
'True,' said the Ghost. 'Your nephew!'
Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind, and answered briefly, 'Yes.'
Although they had but that moment left the school behind them,
they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy
passengers passed and re-passed; where shadowy carts and
coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real
city were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops,
that here, too, it was Christmas-time again; but it was evening, and
the streets were lighted up.
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The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge
if he knew it.
'Know it!' said Scrooge. 'Was I apprenticed here?'
They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting
behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller, he
must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in
great excitement—
'Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive again!'
Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which
pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his ca-
pacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his
organ of benevolence; and called out, in a comfortable, oily, rich,
fat, jovial voice—
'Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!'
Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, ac-
companied by his fellow-'prentice.
'Dick Wilkins, to be sure!' said Scrooge to the Ghost. 'Bless me, yes.
There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor
Dick! Dear, dear!'
'Yo ho, my boys!' said Fezziwig. 'No more work to-night. Christmas
Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up,' cried
old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, 'before a man can say
Jack Robinson!'
You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! They
charged into the street with the shutters—one, two, three—had 'em
up in their places—four, five, six—barred 'em and pinned 'em—sev-
en, eight, nine—and came back before you could have got to twelve,
panting like racehorses.
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'Hilli-ho!' cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk
with wonderful agility. 'Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of
room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!'
Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or
couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was
done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dis-
missed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and
watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire;
and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a
ball-room as you would desire to see upon a winter's night.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk,
and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In
came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three
Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young follow-
ers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and wo-
men employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her
cousin the baker. In came the cook with her brother's particular
friend the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was
suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to
hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was
proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all
came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully,
some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came,
any how and every how. Away they all went, twenty couple at once;
hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle
and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate
grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new
top couple starting off again as soon as they got there; all top
couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When this res-
ult was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the
dance, cried out, 'Well done!' and the fiddler plunged his hot face
into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But,
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scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again,
though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been
carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new
man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.
Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig
There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances,
and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great
piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and
there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of
the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an
artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better
than you or I could have told it him!) struck up 'Sir Roger de
Coverley.' Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig.
Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them;
three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to
be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of
walking.
But if they had been twice as many—ah! four times—old Fezziwig
would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As
to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term.
If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive
light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every
part of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any
given time, what would become of them next. And when old Fezzi-
wig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance
and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsy, cork-screw,
thread-the-needle, and back again to your place: Fezziwi</p>