A CHRISTMAS CAROL

 A Ghost Story of Christmas

 by Charles Dickens

 STAVE I:  MARLEY'S GHOST

 MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt

 whatever about that. The register of his burial was

 signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,

 and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and

 Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he

 chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a

 door-nail.

 Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my

 own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about

 a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to

 regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery

 in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors

 is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands

 shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You

 will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that

 Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

 Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.

 How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were

 partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge

 was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole

 assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and

 sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully

 cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent

 man of business on the very day of the funeral,

 and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

 The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to

 the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley

 was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or

 nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going

 to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that

 Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there

 would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a

 stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,

 than there would be in any other middle-aged

 gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy

 spot--say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance--

 literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

 Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name.

 There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse

 door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as

 Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the

 business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley,

 but he answered to both names. It was all the

 same to him.

 Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone,

 Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping,

 clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint,

 from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire;

 secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The

 cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed

 nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his

 eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his

 grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his

 eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low

 temperature always about with him; he iced his office in

 the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

 External heat and cold had little influence on

 Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather

 chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he,

 no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no

 pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't

 know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and

 snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage

 over him in only one respect. They often "came down"

 handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

 Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with

 gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you?

 When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored

 him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him

 what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all

 his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of

 Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to

 know him; and when they saw him coming on, would

 tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and

 then would wag their tails as though they said, "No

 eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

 But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing

 he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths

 of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance,

 was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.

 Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year,

 on Christmas Eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his

 counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy

 withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside,

 go wheezing up and down, beating their hands

 upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the

 pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had

 only just gone three, but it was quite dark already--

 it had not been light all day--and candles were flaring

 in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like

 ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog

 came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was

 so dense without, that although the court was of the

 narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.

 To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring

 everything, one might have thought that Nature

 lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

 The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open

 that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a

 dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying

 letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's

 fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one

 coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept

 the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the

 clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted

 that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore

 the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to

 warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being

 a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

 "A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried

 a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's

 nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was

 the first intimation he had of his approach.

 "Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"

 He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the

 fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was

 all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his

 eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

 "Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's

 nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"

 "I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What

 right have you to be merry? What reason have you

 to be merry? You're poor enough."

 "Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What

 right have you to be dismal? What reason have you

 to be morose? You're rich enough."

 Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur

 of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up

 with "Humbug."

 "Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.

 "What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I

 live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas!

 Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas

 time to you but a time for paying bills without

 money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but

 not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books

 and having every item in 'em through a round dozen

 of months presented dead against you? If I could

 work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot

 who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips,

 should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried

 with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

 "Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.

 "Nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep Christmas

 in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."

 "Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you

 don't keep it."

 "Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much

 good may it do you! Much good it has ever done

 you!"

 "There are many things from which I might have

 derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare

 say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the

 rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas

 time, when it has come round--apart from the

 veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything

 belonging to it can be apart from that--as a

 good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant

 time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar

 of the year, when men and women seem by one consent

 to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think

 of people below them as if they really were

 fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race

 of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,

 uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or

 silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me

 good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

 The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.

 Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,

 he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark

 for ever.

 "Let me hear another sound from you," said

 Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing

 your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker,

 sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you

 don't go into Parliament."

 "Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow."

 Scrooge said that he would see him--yes, indeed he

 did. He went the whole length of the expression,

 and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

 "But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"

 "Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.

 "Because I fell in love."

 "Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if

 that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous

 than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"

 "Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before

 that happened. Why give it as a reason for not

 coming now?"

 "Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

 "I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you;

 why cannot we be friends?"

 "Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

 "I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so

 resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I

 have been a party. But I have made the trial in

 homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas

 humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"

 "Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

 "And A Happy New Year!"

 "Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

 His nephew left the room without an angry word,

 notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to

 bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who,

 cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned

 them cordially.

 "There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who

 overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a

 week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry

 Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam."

 This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had

 let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen,

 pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off,

 in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in

 their hands, and bowed to him.

 "Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the

 gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure

 of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"

 "Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,"

 Scrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very

 night."

 "We have no doubt his liberality is well represented

 by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting

 his credentials.

 It certainly was; for they had been two kindred

 spirits. At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge

 frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials

 back.

 "At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,"

 said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than

 usually desirable that we should make some slight

 provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer

 greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in

 want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands

 are in want of common comforts, sir."

 "Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

 "Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down

 the pen again.

 "And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge.

 "Are they still in operation?"

 "They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish

 I could say they were not."

 "The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour,

 then?" said Scrooge.

 "Both very busy, sir."

 "Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first,

 that something had occurred to stop them in their

 useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to

 hear it."

 "Under the impression that they scarcely furnish

 Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,"

 returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring

 to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink,

 and means of warmth. We choose this time, because

 it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt,

 and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down

 for?"

 "Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

 "You wish to be anonymous?"

 "I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you

 ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.

 I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't

 afford to make idle people merry. I help to support

 the establishments I have mentioned--they cost

 enough; and those who are badly off must go there."

 "Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

 "If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had

 better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

 Besides--excuse me--I don't know that."

 "But you might know it," observed the gentleman.

 "It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's

 enough for a man to understand his own business, and

 not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies

 me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

 Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue

 their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed

 his labours with an improved opinion of himself,

 and in a more facetious temper than was usual

 with him.

 Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that

 people ran about with flaring links, proffering their

 services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct

 them on their way. The ancient tower of a church,

 whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down

 at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became

 invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the

 clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if

 its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.

 The cold became intense. In the main street, at the

 corner of the court, some labourers were repairing

 the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier,

 round which a party of ragged men and boys were

 gathered: warming their hands and winking their

 eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug

 being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed,

 and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness

 of the shops where holly sprigs and berries

 crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale

 faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers'

 trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant,

 with which it was next to impossible to believe that

 such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything

 to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the

 mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks

 and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's

 household should; and even the little tailor, whom he

 had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for

 being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up

 to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean

 wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.

 Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting

 cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped

 the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather

 as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then

 indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The

 owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled

 by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,

 stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with

 a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of

         "God bless you, merry gentleman!

          May nothing you dismay!"

 Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action,

 that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to

 the fog and even more congenial frost.

 At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house

 arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his

 stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant

 clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out,

 and put on his hat.

 "You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said

 Scrooge.

 "If quite convenient, sir."

 "It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not

 fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd

 think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"

 The clerk smiled faintly.

 "And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used,

 when I pay a day's wages for no work."

 The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

 "A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every

 twenty-fifth of December!" said Scrooge, buttoning

 his great-coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must

 have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next

 morning."

 The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge

 walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a

 twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his

 white comforter dangling below his waist (for he

 boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill,

 at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in

 honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home

 to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play

 at blindman's-buff.

 Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual

 melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and

 beguiled the rest of the evening with his

 banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in

 chambers which had once belonged to his deceased

 partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a

 lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so

 little business to be, that one could scarcely help

 fancying it must have run there when it was a young

 house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses,

 and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough

 now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but

 Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices.

 The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew

 its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands.

 The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway

 of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of

 the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the

 threshold.

 Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all

 particular about the knocker on the door, except that it

 was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had

 seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence

 in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what

 is called fancy about him as any man in the city of

 London, even including--which is a bold word--the

 corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be

 borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one

 thought on Marley, since his last mention of his

 seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then

 let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened

 that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door,

 saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate

 process of change--not a knocker, but Marley's face.

 Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow

 as the other objects in the yard were, but had a

 dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark

 cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked

 at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly

 spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The

 hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air;

 and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly

 motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it

 horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the

 face and beyond its control, rather than a part of

 its own expression.

 As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it

 was a knocker again.

 To say that he was not startled, or that his blood

 was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it

 had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue.

 But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished,

 turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.

 He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before

 he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind

 it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the

 sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall.

 But there was nothing on the back of the door, except

 the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he

 said "Pooh, pooh!" and closed it with a bang.

 The sound resounded through the house like thunder.

 Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's

 cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal

 of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to

 be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and

 walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too:

 trimming his candle as he went.

 You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six

 up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad

 young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you

 might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken

 it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall

 and the door towards the balustrades: and done it

 easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room

 to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge

 thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before

 him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of

 the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well,

 so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with

 Scrooge's dip.

 Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.

 Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before

 he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms

 to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection

 of the face to desire to do that.

 Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they

 should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under

 the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin

 ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had

 a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the

 bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown,

 which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude

 against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard,

 old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three

 legs, and a poker.

 Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked

 himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his

 custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off

 his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and

 his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take

 his gruel.

 It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a

 bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and

 brood over it, before he could extract the least

 sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel.

 The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch

 merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint

 Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures.

 There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters;

 Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending

 through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams,

 Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats,

 hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts;

 and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came

 like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the

 whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first,

 with power to shape some picture on its surface from

 the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would

 have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one.

 "Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the

 room.

 After several turns, he sat down again. As he

 threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened

 to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the

 room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten

 with a chamber in the highest story of the

 building. It was with great astonishment, and with

 a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he

 saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in

 the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it

 rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

 This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute,

 but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had

 begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking

 noise, deep down below; as if some person were

 dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the

 wine-merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have

 heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as

 dragging chains.

 The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound,

 and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors

 below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight

 towards his door.

 "It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won't believe it."

 His colour changed though, when, without a pause,

 it came on through the heavy door, and passed into

 the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the

 dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know

 him; Marley's Ghost!" and fell again.

 The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail,

 usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on

 the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts,

 and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was

 clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound

 about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge

 observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks,

 ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.

 His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him,

 and looking through his waistcoat, could see

 the two buttons on his coat behind.

 Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no

 bowels, but he had never believed it until now.

 No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he

 looked the phantom through and through, and saw

 it standing before him; though he felt the chilling

 influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very

 texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head

 and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before;

 he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.

 "How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.

 "What do you want with me?"

 "Much!"--Marley's voice, no doubt about it.

 "Who are you?"

 "Ask me who I was."

 "Who were you then?" said Scrooge, raising his

 voice. "You're particular, for a shade." He was going

 to say "to a shade," but substituted this, as more

 appropriate.

 "In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley."

 "Can you--can you sit down?" asked Scrooge, looking

 doubtfully at him.

 "I can."

 "Do it, then."

 Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know

 whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in

 a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event

 of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity

 of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat

 down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he

 were quite used to it.

 "You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost.

 "I don't," said Scrooge.

 "What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of

 your senses?"

 "I don't know," said Scrooge.

 "Why do you doubt your senses?"

 "Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them.

 A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may

 be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of

 cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of

 gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

 Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking

 jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means

 waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be

 smart, as a means of distracting his own attention,

 and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice

 disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

 To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence

 for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very

 deuce with him. There was something very awful,

 too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal

 atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it

 himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the

 Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts,

 and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour

 from an oven.

 "You see this toothpick?" said Scrooge, returning

 quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned;

 and wishing, though it were only for a second, to

 divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.

 "I do," replied the Ghost.

 "You are not looking at it," said Scrooge.

 "But I see it," said the Ghost, "notwithstanding."

 "Well!" returned Scrooge, "I have but to swallow

 this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a

 legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug,

 I tell you! humbug!"

 At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook

 its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that

 Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself

 from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was

 his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage

 round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors,

 its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!

 Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands

 before his face.

 "Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do

 you trouble me?"

 "Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do

 you believe in me or not?"

 "I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits

 walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"

 "It is required of every man," the Ghost returned,

 "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among

 his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that

 spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so

 after death. It is doomed to wander through the

 world--oh, woe is me!--and witness what it cannot

 share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to

 happiness!"

 Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain

 and wrung its shadowy hands.

 "You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell

 me why?"

 "I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost.

 "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded

 it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I

 wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"

 Scrooge trembled more and more.

 "Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the

 weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?

 It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven

 Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since.

 It is a ponderous chain!"

 Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the

 expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty

 or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see

 nothing.

 "Jacob," he said, imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley,

 tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!"

 "I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes

 from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed

 by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor

 can I tell you what I would. A very little more is

 all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I

 cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked

 beyond our counting-house--mark me!--in life my

 spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our

 money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before

 me!"

 It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became

 thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets.

 Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now,

 but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his

 knees.

 "You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,"

 Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though

 with humility and deference.

 "Slow!" the Ghost repeated.

 "Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And travelling

 all the time!"

 "The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no

 peace. Incessant torture of remorse."

 "You travel fast?" said Scrooge.

 "On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.

 "You might have got over a great quantity of

 ground in seven years," said Scrooge.

 The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and

 clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of

 the night, that the Ward would have been justified in

 indicting it for a nuisance.

 "Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the

 phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour

 by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into

 eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is

 all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit

 working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may

 be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast

 means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of

 regret can make amends for one life's opportunity

 misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"

 "But you were always a good man of business,

 Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this

 to himself.

 "Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands

 again. "Mankind was my business. The common

 welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance,

 and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings

 of my trade were but a drop of water in the

 comprehensive ocean of my business!"

 It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were

 the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it

 heavily upon the ground again.

 "At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said,

 "I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of

 fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never

 raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise

 Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to

 which its light would have conducted me!"

 Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the

 spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake

 exceedingly.

 "Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly

 gone."

 "I will," said Scrooge. "But don't be hard upon

 me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!"

 "How it is that I appear before you in a shape that

 you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible

 beside you many and many a day."

 It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered,

 and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

 "That is no light part of my penance," pursued

 the Ghost. "I am here to-night to warn you, that you

 have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A

 chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."

 "You were always a good friend to me," said

 Scrooge. "Thank'ee!"

 "You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by

 Three Spirits."

 Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the

 Ghost's had done.

 "Is that the chance and hope you mentioned,

 Jacob?" he demanded, in a faltering voice.

 "It is."

 "I--I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.

 "Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot

 hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow,

 when the bell tolls One."

 "Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over,

 Jacob?" hinted Scrooge.

 "Expect the second on the next night at the same

 hour. The third upon the next night when the last

 stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see

 me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you

 remember what has passed between us!"

 When it had said these words, the spectre took its

 wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head,

 as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its

 teeth made, when the jaws were brought together

 by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again,

 and found his supernatural visitor confronting him

 in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and

 about its arm.

 The apparition walked backward from him; and at

 every step it took, the window raised itself a little,

 so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.

 It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.

 When they were within two paces of each other,

 Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to

 come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.

 Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear:

 for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible

 of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of

 lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and

 self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment,

 joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the

 bleak, dark night.

 Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his

 curiosity. He looked out.

 The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither

 and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they

 went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's

 Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments)

 were linked together; none were free. Many had

 been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He

 had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white

 waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to

 its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist

 a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below,

 upon a door-step. The misery with them all was,

 clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in

 human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

 Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist

 enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and

 their spirit voices faded together; and the night became

 as it had been when he walked home.

 Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door

 by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked,

 as he had locked it with his own hands, and

 the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say "Humbug!"

 but stopped at the first syllable. And being,

 from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues

 of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or

 the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of

 the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to

 bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the

 instant.

 STAVE II:  THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS

 WHEN Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed,

 he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from

 the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to

 pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a

 neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened

 for the hour.

 To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from

 six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to

 twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he

 went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have

 got into the works. Twelve!

 He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most

 preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve:

 and stopped.

 "Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have

 slept through a whole day and far into another night. It

 isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and

 this is twelve at noon!"

 The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed,

 and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub

 the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he

 could see anything; and could see very little then. All he

 could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely

 cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro,

 and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been

 if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the

 world.  This was a great relief, because "three days after sight

 of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his

 order," and so forth, would have become a mere United States'

 security if there were no days to count by.

 Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought

 it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it.  The more he

 thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured

 not to think, the more he thought.

 Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved

 within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his

 mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first

 position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through,

 "Was it a dream or not?"

 Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters

 more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned

 him of a visitation when the bell tolled one.  He resolved to lie

 awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could

 no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the

 wisest resolution in his power.

 The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he

 must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock.

 At length it broke upon his listening ear.

 "Ding, dong!"

 "A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting.

 "Ding, dong!"

 "Half-past!" said Scrooge.

 "Ding, dong!"

 "A quarter to it," said Scrooge.

 "Ding, dong!"

 "The hour itself," said Scrooge, triumphantly, "and nothing else!"

 He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a

 deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE.  Light flashed up in the room

 upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.

 The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a

 hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his

 back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains

 of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a

 half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the

 unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now

 to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

 It was a strange figure--like a child: yet not so like a

 child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural

 medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded

 from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions.

 Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was

 white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in

 it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were

 very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold

 were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately

 formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic

 of the purest white; and round its waist was bound

 a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held

 a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular

 contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed

 with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was,

 that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear

 jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was

 doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a

 great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

 Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing

 steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt

 sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another,

 and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so

 the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a

 thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs,

 now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a

 body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible

 in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the

 very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and

 clear as ever.

 "Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to

 me?" asked Scrooge.

 "I am!"

 The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if

 instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

 "Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded.

 "I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

 "Long Past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish

 stature.

 "No. Your past."

 Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if

 anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire

 to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.

 "What!" exclaimed the Ghost, "would you so soon put out,

 with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough

 that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and

 force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon

 my brow!"

 Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend

 or any knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" the Spirit at

 any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what

 business brought him there.

 "Your welfare!" said the Ghost.

 Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not

 help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been

 more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard

 him thinking, for it said immediately:

 "Your reclamation, then. Take heed!"

 It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him

 gently by the arm.

 "Rise! and walk with me!"

 It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the

 weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes;

 that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below

 freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers,

 dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at

 that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand,

 was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit

 made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.

 "I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable to fall."

 "Bear but a touch of my hand there," said the Spirit,

 laying it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more

 than this!"

 As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall,

 and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either

 hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it

 was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished

 with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon

 the ground.

 "Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands together,

 as he looked about him. "I was bred in this place. I was

 a boy here!"

 The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch,

 though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still

 present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious

 of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected

 with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares

 long, long, forgotten!

 "Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is

 that upon your cheek?"

 Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice,

 that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him

 where he would.

 "You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit.

 "Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervour; "I could

 walk it blindfold."

 "Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" observed

 the Ghost. "Let us go on."

 They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every

 gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared

 in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river.

 Some ponies now were seen trotting towards them

 with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in

 country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys

 were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the

 broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air

 laughed to hear it!

 "These are but shadows of the things that have been," said

 the Ghost. "They have no consciousness of us."

 The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge

 knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond

 all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and

 his heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled

 with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry

 Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for

 their several homes! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge?

 Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done

 to him?

 "The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A

 solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still."

 Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

 They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and

 soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little

 weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell

 hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken

 fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls

 were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their

 gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables;

 and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass.

 Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for

 entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open

 doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished,

 cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a

 chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow

 with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too

 much to eat.

 They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a

 door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and

 disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by

 lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely

 boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down

 upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he

 used to be.

 Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle

 from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the

 half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among

 the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle

 swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in

 the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening

 influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

 The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his

 younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in

 foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at:

 stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and

 leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.

 "Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's

 dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas

 time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone,

 he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And

 Valentine," said Scrooge, "and his wild brother, Orson; there

 they go! And what's his name, who was put down in his

 drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see him!

 And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii;

 there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I'm glad of it.

 What business had he to be married to the Princess!"

 To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature

 on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between

 laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited

 face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in

 the city, indeed.

 "There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and

 yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the

 top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called

 him, when he came home again after sailing round the

 island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin

 Crusoe?'  The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't.

 It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running

 for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!"

 Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his

 usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, "Poor

 boy!" and cried again.

 "I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his

 pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his

 cuff: "but it's too late now."

 "What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.

 "Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a boy

 singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should

 like to have given him something: that's all."

 The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand:

 saying as it did so, "Let us see another Christmas!"

 Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the

 room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk,

 the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the

 ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how

 all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you

 do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything

 had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all

 the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

 He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly.

 Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of

 his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.

 It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy,

 came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and

 often kissing him, addressed him as her "Dear, dear

 brother."

 "I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the

 child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh.

 "To bring you home, home, home!"

 "Home, little Fan?" returned the boy.

 "Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home, for good

 and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder

 than he used to be, that home's like Heaven! He spoke so

 gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that

 I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come

 home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach

 to bring you. And you're to be a man!" said the child,

 opening her eyes, "and are never to come back here; but

 first, we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have

 the merriest time in all the world."

 "You are quite a woman, little Fan!" exclaimed the boy.

 She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his

 head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on

 tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her

 childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to

 go, accompanied her.

 A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master

 Scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster

 himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious

 condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind

 by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his

 sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that

 ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial

 and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold.

 Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a

 block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments

 of those dainties to the young people: at the same time,

 sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of "something"

 to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman,

 but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had

 rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied

 on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster

 good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove

 gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the

 hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens

 like spray.

 "Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have

 withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large heart!"

 "So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I will not

 gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!"

 "She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I think,

 children."

 "One child," Scrooge returned.

 "True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!"

 Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly,

 "Yes."

 Although they had but that moment left the school behind

 them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city,

 where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy

 carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and

 tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by

 the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas

 time again; but it was evening, and the streets were

 lighted up.

 The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked

 Scrooge if he knew it.

 "Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed here!"

 They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh

 wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two

 inches taller he must have knocked his head against the

 ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:

 "Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig

 alive again!"

 Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the

 clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his

 hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over

 himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and

 called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

 "Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"

 Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly

 in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.

 "Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost.

 "Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached

 to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!"

 "Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night.

 Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's

 have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap

 of his hands, "before a man can say Jack Robinson!"

 You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it!

 They charged into the street with the shutters--one, two,

 three--had 'em up in their places--four, five, six--barred

 'em and pinned 'em--seven, eight, nine--and came back

 before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.

 "Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the

 high desk, with wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads,

 and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup,

 Ebenezer!"

 Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared

 away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking

 on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if

 it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was

 swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon

 the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and

 bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter's

 night.

 In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the

 lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty

 stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial

 smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and

 lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they

 broke. In came all the young men and women employed in

 the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the

 baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend,

 the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was

 suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying

 to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who

 was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress.

 In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly,

 some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling;

 in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went,

 twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again

 the other way; down the middle and up again; round

 and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old

 top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top

 couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top

 couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When

 this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his

 hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the

 fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially

 provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his

 reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no

 dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home,

 exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man

 resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

 There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more

 dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there

 was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece

 of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.

 But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast

 and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort

 of man who knew his business better than you or I could

 have told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley."  Then

 old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top

 couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them;

 three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were

 not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no

 notion of walking.

 But if they had been twice as many--ah, four times--old

 Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would

 Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner

 in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me

 higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue

 from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the

 dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given

 time, what would have become of them next. And when old

 Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance;

 advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and

 curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to

 your place; Fezziwig "cut"--cut so deftly, that he appeared

 to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without

 a stagger.

 When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up.

 Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side

 of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually

 as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas.

 When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did

 the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away,

 and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a

 counter in the back-shop.

 During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a

 man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene,

 and with his former self. He corroborated everything,

 remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent

 the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the

 bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from

 them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious

 that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its

 head burnt very clear.

 "A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly

 folks so full of gratitude."

 "Small!" echoed Scrooge.

 The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices,

 who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig:

 and when he had done so, said,

 "Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of

 your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so

 much that he deserves this praise?"

 "It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and

 speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self.

 "It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy

 or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a

 pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and

 looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is

 impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness

 he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

 He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.

 "What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.

 "Nothing particular," said Scrooge.

 "Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted.

 "No," said Scrooge, "No. I should like to be able to say

 a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all."

 His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance

 to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by

 side in the open air.

 "My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"

 This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he

 could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again

 Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime

 of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later

 years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice.

 There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which

 showed the passion that had taken root, and where the

 shadow of the growing tree would fall.

 He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young

 girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears,

 which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of

 Christmas Past.

 "It matters little," she said, softly. "To you, very little.

 Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort

 you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have

 no just cause to grieve."

 "What Idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.

 "A golden one."

 "This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said.

 "There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and

 there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity

 as the pursuit of wealth!"

 "You fear the world too much," she answered, gently.

 "All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being

 beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your

 nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion,

 Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"

 "What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so

 much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you."

 She shook her head.

 "Am I?"

 "Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were

 both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could

 improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You

 are changed. When it was made, you were another man."

 "I was a boy," he said impatiently.

 "Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you

 are," she returned. "I am. That which promised happiness

 when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that

 we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of

 this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it,

 and can release you."

 "Have I ever sought release?"

 "In words. No. Never."

 "In what, then?"

 "In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another

 atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In

 everything that made my love of any worth or value in your

 sight. If this had never been between us," said the girl,

 looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; "tell me,

 would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"

 He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in

 spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, "You think

 not."

 "I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered,

 "Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this,

 I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you

 were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe

 that you would choose a dowerless girl--you who, in your

 very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or,

 choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your

 one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your

 repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I

 release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you

 once were."

 He was about to speak; but with her head turned from

 him, she resumed.

 "You may--the memory of what is past half makes me

 hope you will--have pain in this. A very, very brief time,

 and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an

 unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you

 awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!"

 She left him, and they parted.

 "Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Conduct

 me home. Why do you delight to torture me?"

 "One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.

 "No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don't wish to

 see it. Show me no more!"

 But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms,

 and forced him to observe what happened next.

 They were in another scene and place; a room, not very

 large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter

 fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge

 believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely

 matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this

 room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children

 there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count;

 and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not

 forty children conducting themselves like one, but every

 child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences

 were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care;

 on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily,

 and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to

 mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands

 most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of

 them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I

 wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that

 braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little

 shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to

 save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they

 did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should

 have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment,

 and never come straight again. And yet I should

 have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have

 questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have

 looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never

 raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of

 which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should

 have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence

 of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its

 value.

 But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a

 rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and

 plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed

 and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who

 came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys

 and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and

 the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter!

 The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his

 pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight

 by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back,

 and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of

 wonder and delight with which the development of every

 package was received! The terrible announcement that the

 baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan

 into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having

 swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter!

 The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy,

 and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike.

 It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions

 got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the

 top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.

 And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever,

 when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning

 fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his

 own fireside; and when he thought that such another

 creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might

 have called him father, and been a spring-time in the

 haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

 "Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a

 smile, "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon."

 "Who was it?"

 "Guess!"

 "How can I? Tut, don't I know?" she added in the

 same breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."

 "Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as

 it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could

 scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point

 of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in

 the world, I do believe."

 "Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me

 from this place."

 "I told you these were shadows of the things that have

 been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do

 not blame me!"

 "Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed, "I cannot bear it!"

 He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon

 him with a face, in which in some strange way there were

 fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

 "Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"

 In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which

 the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was

 undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed

 that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly

 connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the

 extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down

 upon its head.

 The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher

 covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down

 with all his force, he could not hide the light: which streamed

 from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

 He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an

 irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own

 bedroom.  He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand

 relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank

 into a heavy sleep.

 STAVE III:  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 re-crossed 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 a 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 Onions, shining in

 the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking

 from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went

 by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were

 pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there

 were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence

 to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might

 water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy

 and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among

 the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered

 leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squat 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 bakers' 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!

 "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!"

 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.