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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.'
"The Ghost of Christmas Present"
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, 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 our
kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their
doings on themselves, not us.'
Scrooge
promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been
before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the
Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding his
gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that
he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural
creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.
And
perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of
his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy
with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he
went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold
of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling
with the sprinkling of his torch. Think of that. Bob had but fifteen bob
a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian
name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house.
Then
up rose Mrs Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a
twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly
show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit,
second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit
plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his
monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private property, conferred upon his son and
heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so
gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.
And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that
outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own;
and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits
danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies,
while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire,
until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to
be let out and peeled.
`What
has ever got your precious father then.' said Mrs Cratchit. `And your brother, Tiny Tim. And Martha warn't as
late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour.'
`Here's
Martha, mother.' said a girl, appearing as she spoke.
`Here's
Martha, mother.' cried the two young Cratchits. `Hurrah. There's such a
goose, Martha.'
`Why,
bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are.' said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off
her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.
`We'd
a deal of work to finish up last night,' replied the girl,' and had to clear
away this morning, mother.'
`Well.
Never mind so long as you are come,' said Mrs Cratchit. `Sit ye down before
the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye.'
`No,
no. There's father coming,' cried the two young Cratchits, who were
everywhere at once. `Hide, Martha, hide.'
So
Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three
feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his
threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim
upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his
limbs supported by an iron frame.
"Tiny Tim upon his shoulder"
`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.
"Mrs. Cratchit entered"
Oh,
a wonderful pudding. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it
as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs
Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she
had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to
say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a
large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would
have blushed to hint at such a thing.
At
last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and
the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered
perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of
chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth,
in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob
Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a
custard-cup without a handle.
These
held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would
have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on
the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:
`A
Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us.'
Which
all the family re-echoed.
`God
bless us every one.' said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
He
sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob held his
withered little hand in his, as if he loved the
child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might
be taken from him.
`Spirit,'
said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, `tell me if Tiny
Tim will live.'
`I
see a vacant seat,' replied the Ghost, `in the poor chimney-corner, and a
crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain
unaltered by the Future, the child will die.'
`No,
no,' said Scrooge. `Oh, no, kind Spirit. say he will be spared.'
`If
these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,'
returned the Ghost, `will find him here. What then. If he be like to die, he
had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.'
Scrooge
hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome
with penitence and grief. `Man,' said the Ghost, `if man you be in heart,
not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the
surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men
shall die. It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless
and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God. to
hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his
hungry brothers in the dust.'
Scrooge
bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground.
But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name.
`Mr
Scrooge.' said Bob; `I'll give you Mr Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast.'
`The
Founder of the Feast indeed.' cried Mrs Cratchit, reddening. `I wish I had
him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd
have a good appetite for it.'
`My
dear,' said Bob, `the children. Christmas Day.'
`It
should be Christmas Day, I am sure,' said she, `on which one drinks the
health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr Scrooge. You
know he is, Robert. Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow.'
`My
dear,' was Bob's mild answer, `Christmas Day.'
`I'll
drink his health for your sake and the Day's,' said Mrs Cratchit, `not for
his. Long life to him. A merry Christmas and a happy new year. He'll be very
merry and very happy, I have no doubt.'
The
children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings
which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care
twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name
cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five
minutes.
After
it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere
relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he
had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if
obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed
tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter
himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he
were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came
into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor
apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do,
and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed
to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed
at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and
how the lord was much about as tall as Peter; at which Peter pulled up his
collars so high that you couldn't
have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and
the jug went round and round; and by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost
child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little
voice, and sang it very well indeed.
There
was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were
not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes
were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of
a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another,
and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in
the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye
upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.
By
this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge
and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires
in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the
flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot
plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains,
ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There all the children of
the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters,
brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here,
again, were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a
group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at
once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour's house; where, woe upon
the single man who saw them enter -- artful witches, well they knew it -- in
a glow.
But,
if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly
gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them
welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and
piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost
exulted. How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm,
and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless
mirth on everything within its reach. The very lamplighter, who ran on
before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed
to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed,
though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas.
And
now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and
desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though
it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it
listed, or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and
nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass. Down in the west the
setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation
for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was
lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.
`What
place is this.' asked Scrooge.
`A
place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,' returned
the Spirit. `But they know me. See.'
A
light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it.
Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company
assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their
children and their children's children, and another generation beyond that,
all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that
seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing
them a Christmas song -- it had
been a very old song when he was a boy -- and from time to time they all
joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got
quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.
The
Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on
above the moor, sped -- whither. Not to sea. To sea. To Scrooge's horror,
looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks,
behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it
rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and
fiercely tried to undermine the earth.
Built
upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which
the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary
lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds --
born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water -- rose and
fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.
But
even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the
loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful
sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they
wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them: the
elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the
figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a
Gale in itself.
Again
the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea -- on, on -- until, being
far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They
stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the
officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations;
but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas
thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas
Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or
sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on
any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and
had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they
delighted to remember him.
It
was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind,
and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely
darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as
Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a
hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as
his own nephew's and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with
the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew
with approving affability.
`Ha,
ha.' laughed Scrooge's nephew. `Ha, ha, ha.'
If
you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a
laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him
too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.
It
is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is
infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so
irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew
laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his
face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage,
laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being not a bit
behindhand, roared out lustily.
`Ha,
ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha.'
`He
said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live.' cried Scrooge's nephew. `He
believed it too.'
`More
shame for him, Fred.' said Scrooge's niece,
indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by halves.
They are always in earnest.
She
was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking,
capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed -- as no
doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into
one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in
any little creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have called
provoking, you know; but satisfactory.
`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.
Ignorance and Want
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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