Stave 3:  The Second of the Three Spirits

     


         Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and
    sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had
    no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the
    stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness
    in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding
    a conference with the second messenger despatched to him
    through Jacob Marley's intervention. But, finding that he
    turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which
    of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put
    them every one aside with his own hands, and lying down
    again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For,
    he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its
    appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and
    made nervous.

         Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves
    on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually
    equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their
    capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for
    anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which
    opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and
    comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for
    Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you
    to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of
    strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and
    rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

         Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by
    any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the
    Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a
    violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter
    of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay
    upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy
    light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the
    hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than
    a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it
    meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive
    that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of
    spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of
    knowing it. At last, however, he began to think -- as you or
    I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not
    in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done
    in it, and would unquestionably have done it too -- at last, I
    say, he began to think that the source and secret of this
    ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence,
    on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking
    full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in
    his slippers to the door.

         The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange
    voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He
    obeyed.

         It was his own room. There was no doubt about that.
    But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls
    and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a
    perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming
    berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and
    ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had
    been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring
    up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had
    never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and
    many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form
    a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn,
    great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages,
    mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts,
    cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears,
    immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that
    made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy
    state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to
    see:, who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's
    horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge,
    as he came peeping round the door.

         `Come in.' exclaimed the Ghost. `Come in. and know
    me better, man.'

         Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this
    Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and
    though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like
    to meet them.

         `I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,' said the Spirit.
    `Look upon me.'

         Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple
    green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment
    hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was
    bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any
    artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the
    garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other
    covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining
    icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its
    genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice,
    its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded
    round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword
    was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

         `You have never seen the like of me before.' exclaimed
    the Spirit.

         `Never,' Scrooge made answer to it.

         `Have never walked forth with the younger members of
    my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers
    born in these later years.' pursued the Phantom.

         `I don't think I have,' said Scrooge. `I am afraid I have
    not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit.'

         `More than eighteen hundred,' said the Ghost.

         `A tremendous family to provide for.' muttered Scrooge.

         The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

         `Spirit,' said Scrooge submissively,' conduct me where
    you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt
    a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught
    to teach me, let me profit by it.'

         `Touch my robe.'

         Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

         Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game,
    poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings,
    fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room,
    the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood
    in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the
    weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and
    not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the
    pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of
    their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see
    it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting
    into artificial little snow-storms.

         The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows
    blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow
    upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground;
    which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by
    the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed
    and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great
    streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace
    in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy,
    and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,
    half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended
    in shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great
    Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away
    to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful
    in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of
    cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest
    summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

         For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops
    were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another
    from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious
    snowball -- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest --
    laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it
    went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and
    the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great,
    round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the
    waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling
    out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were
    ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Friars, and winking
    from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went
    by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were
    pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there
    were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence
    to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might
    water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy
    and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among
    the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered
    leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting
    off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great
    compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and
    beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after
    dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among
    these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and
    stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was
    something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and
    round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

         The Grocers'. oh the Grocers'. nearly closed, with perhaps
    two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such
    glimpses. It was not alone that the scales descending on the
    counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller
    parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled
    up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended
    scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even
    that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so
    extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight,
    the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and
    spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on
    feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs
    were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in
    modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that
    everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but
    the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful
    promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other
    at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left
    their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to
    fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in
    the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people
    were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which
    they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own,
    worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws
    to peck at if they chose.

         But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and
    chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in
    their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the
    same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and
    nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners
    to the baker' shops. The sight of these poor revellers
    appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with
    Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the
    covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their
    dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind
    of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words
    between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he
    shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good
    humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame
    to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love
    it, so it was.

         In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and
    yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners
    and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of
    wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as
    if its stones were cooking too.

         `Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from
    your torch.' asked Scrooge.

         `There is. My own.'

         `Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day.'
    asked Scrooge.

         `To any kindly given. To a poor one most.'

         `Why to a poor one most.' asked Scrooge.

         `Because it needs it most.'

         `Spirit,' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought,' I wonder
    you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should
    desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent
    enjoyment.'

         `I.' cried the Spirit.

         `You would deprive them of their means of dining every
    seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said
    to dine at all,' said Scrooge. `Wouldn't you.'

         `I.' cried the Spirit.

         `You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day.' said
    Scrooge. `And it comes to the same thing.'

         `I seek.' exclaimed the Spirit.

         `Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your
    name, or at least in that of your family,' said Scrooge.

         `There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the
    Spirit,' who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds
    of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and
    selfishness
    in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and
    kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge
    their doings on themselves, not us.'

         Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on,
    invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the
    town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which
    Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding
    his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place
    with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as
    gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible
    he could have done in any lofty hall.

         And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in
    showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind,
    generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor
    men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he
    went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and
    on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped
    to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his
    torch. Think of that. Bob had but fifteen bob a-week
    himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his
    Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present
    blessed his four-roomed house.

         Then up rose Mrs Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out
    but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons,
    which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and
    she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of
    her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter
    Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and
    getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private
    property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the
    day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly
    attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.
    And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing
    in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the
    e the baker's they had smelt the
    goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious
    thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced
    about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the
    skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked
    him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up,
    knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and
    peeled.

         `What has ever got your precious father then.' said Mrs
    Cratchit. `And your brother, Tiny Tim. And Martha
    warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour.'
     

         `Here's Martha, mother.' said a girl, appearing as she
    spoke.

         `Here's Martha, mother.' cried the two young Cratchits.
    `Hurrah. There's such a goose, Martha.'

         `Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are.'
    said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off
    her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

         `We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,' replied the
    girl,' and had to clear away this morning, mother.'

         `Well. Never mind so long as you are come,' said Mrs
    Cratchit. `Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have
    a warm, Lord bless ye.'

         `No, no. There's father coming,' cried the two young
    Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. `Hide, Martha,
    hide.'

         So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father,
    with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe,
    hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned
    up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his
    shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and
    had his limbs supported by an iron frame.

         `Why, where's our Martha.' cried Bob Cratchit, looking
    round.

         `Not coming,' said Mrs Cratchit.

         `Not coming.' said Bob, with a sudden declension in his
    high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way
    from church, and had come home rampant. `Not coming
    upon Christmas Day.'

         Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only
    in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet
    door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits
    hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house,
    that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

         `And how did little Tim behave. asked Mrs Cratchit,
    when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had
    hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

         `As good as gold,' said Bob,' and better. Somehow he
    gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the
    strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home,
    that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he
    was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember
    upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind
    men see.'

         Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and
    trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing
    strong and hearty.

         His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back
    came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by
    his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while
    Bob, turning up his cuffs -- as if, poor fellow, they were
    capable of being made more shabby -- compounded some hot
    mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round
    and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter,
    and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the
    goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

         Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose
    the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a
    black swan was a matter of course -- and in truth it was
    something very like it in that house. Mrs Cratchit made
    the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot;
    Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour;
    Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted
    the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny
    corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for
    everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard
    upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest
    they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be
    helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was
    said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs
    Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared
    to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the
    long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of
    delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim,
    excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with
    the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah.

         There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe
    there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and
    flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal
    admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes,
    it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as
    Mrs Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small
    atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at
    last. Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest
    Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to
    the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Miss
    Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone -- too nervous to
    bear witnesses -- to take the pudding up and bring it in.

         Suppose it should not be done enough. Suppose it should
    break in turning out. Suppose somebody should have got
    over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they
    were merry with the goose -- a supposition at which the two
    young Cratchits became livid. All sorts of horrors were
    supposed.

         Hallo. A great deal of steam. The pudding was out of
    the copper. A smell like a washing-day. That was the
    cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next
    door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that.
    That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit
    entered -- flushed, but smiling proudly -- with the pudding,
    like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half
    of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with
    Christmas holly stuck into the top.

         Oh, a wonderful pudding. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly
    too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by
    Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that
    now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had
    had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had
    something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it
    was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have
    been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed
    to hint at such a thing.

         At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the
    hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the
    jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges
    were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the
    fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in
    what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and
    at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass.
    Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

         These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as
    golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with
    beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and
    cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

         `A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us.'

         Which all the family re-echoed.

         `God bless us every one.' said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

         He sat very close to his father's side upon his little
    stool.
    Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the
    child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that
    he might be taken from him.

         `Spirit,' said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt
    before, `tell me if Tiny Tim will live.'

         `I see a vacant seat,' replied the Ghost, `in the poor
    chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully
    preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,
    the child will die.'

         `No, no,' said Scrooge. `Oh, no, kind Spirit. say he
    will be spared.'

         `If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none
    other of my race,' returned the Ghost, `will find him here.
    What then. If he be like to die, he had better do it, and
    decrease the surplus population.'

         Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by
    the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.
         `Man,' said the Ghost, `if man you be in heart, not
    adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered
    What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what
    men shall live, what men shall die. It may be, that in the
    sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live
    than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God. to hear
    the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life
    among his hungry brothers in the dust.'

         Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast
    his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on
    hearing his own name.

         `Mr Scrooge.' said Bob; `I'll give you Mr Scrooge, the
    Founder of the Feast.'

         `The Founder of the Feast indeed.' cried Mrs Cratchit,
    reddening. `I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece
    of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good
    appetite for it.'

         `My dear,' said Bob, `the children. Christmas Day.'

         `It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,' said she, `on
    which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard,
    unfeeling man as Mr Scrooge. You know he is, Robert.
    Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow.'

         `My dear,' was Bob's mild answer, `Christmas Day.'

         `I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,' said
    Mrs Cratchit, `not for his. Long life to him. A merry
    Christmas and a happy new year. He'll be very merry and
    very happy, I have no doubt.'

         The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of
    their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank
    it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge
    was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast
    a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full
    five minutes.

         After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than
    before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done
    with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his
    eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full
    five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed
    tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business;
    and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from
    between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular
    investments he should favour when he came into the receipt
    of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor
    apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work
    she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch,
    and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a
    good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at
    home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some
    days before, and how the lord was much about as tall as
    Peter;' at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you
    couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this
    time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and
    by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in
    the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice,
    and sang it very well indeed.

         There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not
    a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes
    were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty;
    and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside
    of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased
    with one another, and contented with the time; and when
    they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings
    of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon
    them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

         By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty
    heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets,
    the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and
    all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of
    the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot
    plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep
    red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness.
    There all the children of the house were running out
    into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins,
    uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again,
    were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and
    there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted,
    and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near
    neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw
    them enter -- artful witches, well they knew it -- in a glow.

         But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on
    their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought
    that no one was at home to give them welcome when they
    got there, instead of every house expecting company, and
    piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how
    the Ghost exulted. How it bared its breadth of breast, and
    opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with
    a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything
    within its reach. The very lamplighter, who ran on before,
    dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was
    dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly
    as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter
    that he had any company but Christmas.

         And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they
    stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses
    of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place
    of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed,
    or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner;
    and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass.
    Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery
    red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a
    sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in
    the thick gloom of darkest night.

         `What place is this.' asked Scrooge.

         `A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of
    the earth,' returned the Spirit. `But they know me. See.'

         Alight shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they
    advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and
    stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a
    glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their
    children and their children's children, and another generation
    beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.
    The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling
    of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a
    Christmas song -- it had been a very old song when he was a
    boy -- and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.
    So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite
    blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour
    sank again.

         The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his
    robe, and passing on above the moor, sped -- whither. Not
    to sea. To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw
    the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them;
    and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it
    rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it
    had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

         Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league
    or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed,
    the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.
    Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds
    -- born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the
    water -- rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

         But even here, two men who watched the light had made
    a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed
    out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their
    horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they
    wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and
    one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and
    scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship
    might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in
    itself.

         Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea
    -- on, on -- until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any
    shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman
    at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who
    had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations;
    but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or
    had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his
    companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward
    hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or
    sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another
    on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared
    to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those
    he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted
    to remember him.

         It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the
    moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it
    was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown
    abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it
    was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear
    a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge
    to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a
    bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling
    by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving
    affability.

         `Ha, ha.' laughed Scrooge's nephew. `Ha, ha, ha.'

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

         It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that
    while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing
    in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and
    good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way: holding
    his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the
    most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage,
    laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being
    not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.

         `Ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha.'

         `He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live.' cried
    Scrooge's nephew. `He believed it too.'

         `More shame for him, Fred.' said Scrooge's niece,
    indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by
    halves. They are always in earnest.

         She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled,
    surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that
    seemed made to be kissed -- as no doubt it was; all kinds of
    good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another
    when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever
    saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what
    you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory,

         `He's a comical old fellow,' said Scrooge's nephew,' that's
    the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However,
    his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing
    to say against him.'

         `I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,' hinted Scrooge's niece.
    `At least you always tell me so.'

         `What of that, my dear.' said Scrooge's nephew. `His
    wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it.
    He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the
    satisfaction of thinking -- ha, ha, ha. -- that he is ever going
    to benefit us with it.'

         `I have no patience with him,' observed Scrooge's niece.
    Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed
    the same opinion.

         `Oh, I have.' said Scrooge's nephew. `I am sorry for
    him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers
    by his ill whims. Himself, always. Here, he takes it into
    his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us.
    What's the consequence. He don't lose much of a dinner.'

         `Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,' interrupted
    Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they
    must be allowed to have been competent judges, because
    they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the
    table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.

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

         Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's
    sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast,
    who had no right to express an opinion on the subject.
    Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister -- the plump one with the lace
    tucker: not the one with the roses -- blushed.

         `Do go on, Fred,' said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands.
    `He never finishes what he begins to say. He is such a
    ridiculous fellow.'

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

         `I was only going to say,' said Scrooge's nephew,' that
    the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making
    merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant
    moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses
    pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts,
    either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I
    mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he
    likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas
    till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it -- I defy
    him -- if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after
    year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you. If it only
    puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds,
    that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday.'

         It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking
    Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much
    caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any
    rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the
    bottle joyously.

         After tea. they had some music. For they were a musical
    family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a
    Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who
    could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never
    swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face
    over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and
    played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing:
    you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had
    been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the
    boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of
    Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the
    things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he
    softened more and more; and thought that if he could have
    listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the
    kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands,
    without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob
    Marley.

         But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After
    a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children
    sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its
    mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop. There was first
    a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I
    no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he
    had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done
    thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the
    Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after
    that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the
    credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons,
    tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano,
    smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went,
    there went he. He always knew where the plump sister was.
    He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up
    against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would
    have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would
    have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly
    have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.
    She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not.
    But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her
    silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got
    her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his
    conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to
    know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her
    head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by
    pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain
    about her neck; was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told
    him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in
    office, they were so very confidential together, behind the
    curtains.

         Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party,
    but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool,
    in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close
    behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her
    love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet.
    Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was
    very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat
    her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as
    could have told you. There might have been twenty people there,
    young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge, for,
    wholly forgetting the interest he had in what was going on, that
    his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with
    his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too;
    for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut
    in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in
    his head to be.

         The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood,
    and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like
    a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But
    this the Spirit said could not be done.

         `Here is a new game,' said Scrooge. `One half hour,
    Spirit, only one.'

         It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew
    had to think of something, and the rest must find out what;
    he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case
    was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed,
    elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live
    animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an
    animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes,
    and lived in London, and walked about the streets,
    and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and
    didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market,
    and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a
    tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh
    question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a
    fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that
    he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last
    the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

         `I have found it out. I know what it is, Fred. I know
    what it is.'

         `What is it.' cried Fred.

         `It's your Uncle Scrooge.'

         Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal
    sentiment, though some objected that the reply to `Is it a
    bear.' ought to have been `Yes;' inasmuch as an answer
    in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts
    from Mr Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency
    that way.

         `He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,' said
    Fred,' and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health.
    Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the
    moment; and I say, "Uncle Scrooge."'

         `Well. Uncle Scrooge.' they cried.

         `A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old
    man, whatever he is.' said Scrooge's nephew. `He wouldn't
    take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle
    Scrooge.'

         Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light
    of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious
    company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech,
    if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene
    passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his
    nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

         Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they
    visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood
    beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands,
    and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they
    were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was
    rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every
    refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not
    made fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he left his
    blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.

         It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge
    had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared
    to be condensed into the space of time they passed
    together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained
    unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly
    older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of
    it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night party, when,
    looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place,
    he noticed that its hair was grey.

         `Are spirits' lives so short.' asked Scrooge.

         `My life upon this globe, is very brief,' replied the Ghost.
    `It ends to-night.'

         `To-night.' cried Scrooge.

         `To-night at midnight. Hark. The time is drawing
    near.'

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

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

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

         From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children;
    wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt
    down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

         `Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed
    the Ghost.

         They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged,
    scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where
    graceful youth should have filled their features out, and
    touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled
    hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and
    pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat
    enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No
    change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any
    grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has
    monsters half so horrible and dread.

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

         `Spirit. are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more.

         `They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon
    them. `And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.
    This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
    and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for
    on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the
    writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out
    its hand towards the city. `Slander those who tell it ye.
    Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.
    And abide the end.'

         `Have they no refuge or resource.' cried Scrooge.

         `Are there no prisons.' said the Spirit, turning on him
    for the last time with his own words. `Are there no workhouses.'
    The bell struck twelve.

         Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it
    not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the
    prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting
    up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and
    hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards
    him.

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