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<infoTitulo>
<titulo tipo="main">A Christmas Carol</titulo>
<titulo tipo="sub">A machine-readable transcription</titulo>
<autor>Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870</autor>
</infoTitulo>
<infoEdicion>
<edicion>Public Domain TEI edition prepared at the Oxford Text Archive</edicion>
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<infoPublicacion>
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<nombre clave="oucs" tipo="organisation">Oxford University Computing Services</nombre>
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<direcCompleta>13 Banbury Road</direcCompleta>
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<nombre tipo="place">Oxford</nombre>
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<direcCompleta>OX2 6NN</direcCompleta>
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<disponibilidad estado="free">
<p>Freely available for non-commercial
use provided that this header is included in its
entirety with any copy distributed</p>
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<fecha>1992-11-01</fecha>
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<infoNotas>
<nota>This is a prototype header</nota>
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<descFuente>
<p>Transcribed from the 1893 reprint of the first edition by Lou Burnard.</p>
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<cambio>
<fecha>1992-10</fecha>
<infoResp>
<nombre>Burnard, Lou</nombre>
<resp>pfr (Proofreader)</resp>
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<elem>check text</elem>
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<fecha>1994-12</fecha>
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<fecha>1997-08-07</fecha>
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<elem>Added the eight plates from the source document</elem>
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<texto>
<preliminares>
<div tipo="half title note">
<encabezado>(half title note)</encabezado>
<p>The Original Edition of A CHRISTMAS CAROL has been out of print
for many years, and this Edition is a reprint from the stereotype
plates of that Edition.</p>
</div>
<portada>
<tituloDoc>
<parteTitulo>A Christmas carol. in prose. </parteTitulo>
<parteTitulo>being
<resaltado formato="gothic">A Ghost Story of Christmas</resaltado>
</parteTitulo>
</tituloDoc>
<mencionResp>by
<autorDoc>Charles Dickens.</autorDoc>
</mencionResp>
<mencionResp>With illustrations by John Leech</mencionResp>
<impresionDoc>London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 1893.</impresionDoc>
</portada>
<div tipo="preface">
<encabezado>PREFACE
</encabezado>
<p>I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the
Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour
with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me.
May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay
it. </p>
<firmado> Their faithful Friend and Servant, C.D. <fecha>December, 1843.</fecha>
</firmado>
</div>
<div tipo="toc">
<lista>
<encabezado>Contents.</encabezado>
<rotulo>Stave I</rotulo>
<elem>Marley's ghost <ref objetivo="S1">1</ref>
</elem>
<rotulo>Stave II</rotulo>
<elem>The first of
the three spirits <ref objetivo="S2">39</ref>
</elem>
<rotulo>Stave
III </rotulo>
<elem>The second of the three spirits <ref objetivo="S3">74</ref>
</elem>
<rotulo>Stave IV </rotulo>
<elem>The last of
the spirits <ref objetivo="S4">121</ref>
</elem>
<rotulo>Stave V</rotulo>
<elem>The end of it <ref objetivo="S5">152</ref>
</elem>
</lista>
</div>
</preliminares>
<cuerpo>
<encabezado>A CHRISTMAS CAROL.</encabezado>
<div0 id="S1" tipo="stave">
<encabezado>MARLEY'S GHOST</encabezado>
<finPag n="1"/>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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 <finPag n="2"/> 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.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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 <finPag n="3"/> 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.
</p>
<p>Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood,
years afterwards, above the ware-house 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.
</p>
<p>Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a
squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old
sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck
out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an
oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed
nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his
thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty
rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He <finPag n="4"/>
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.
</p>
<p>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
<denominado>came down</denominado> handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
</p>
<p>Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks,
<cita>My dear Scrooge, how are you. When will you come to see me.</cita> 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 blindmen's dogs
appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their
owners into doorways <finPag n="5"/> and up courts; and then would wag their
tails as though they said, <cita>No eye at all is better than an evil eye,
dark master! </cita>
</p>
<p>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
<denominado>nuts</denominado> to Scrooge.
</p>
<p>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 <finPag n="6"/> 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.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!</cita> 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. <finPag n=" 7"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Bah!</cita> said Scrooge, <cita>Humbug!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Christmas a humbug, uncle!</cita> said Scrooge's nephew.
<cita>You don't mean that, I am sure.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I do,</cita> said Scrooge. <cita>Merry Christmas! What right
have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry? You're
poor enough.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Come, then,</cita> returned the nephew gaily. <cita>What right
have you to be dismal? what reason have you to be morose?
You're rich enough.</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the
moment, said, <cita>Bah!</cita> again; and followed it up with
<cita>Humbug.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Don't be cross, uncle,</cita> said the nephew.
</p>
<p>
<cita>What else can I be,</cita> returned the uncle, <cita>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 <finPag n="8"/>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,</cita> said Scrooge indignantly, <cita>every idiot who
goes about with <cita>Merry Christmas</cita> on his lips, should be
boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly
through his heart. He should!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Uncle!</cita> pleaded the nephew.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Nephew!</cita> returned the uncle, sternly, <cita>keep
Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Keep it!</cita> repeated Scrooge's nephew. <cita>But you don't
keep it.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Let me leave it alone, then,</cita> said Scrooge. <cita>Much
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>There are many things from which I might have derived
good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,</cita> returned
the nephew: <cita>Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have
always thought of Christmas<finPag n=" 9"/> 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 <enfasis>has</enfasis> done me good, and
<enfasis>will</enfasis> do me good; and I say, God bless it!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Let me hear another sound from <enfasis>you</enfasis>,</cita> said
Scrooge,
<cita> and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation.
You're quite a powerful speaker, sir,</cita> he added, turning to
his nephew. <cita>I wonder you don't go into Parliament.</cita>
<finPag n="10"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us
to-morrow.</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>But why?</cita> cried Scrooge's nephew. <cita>Why?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Why did you get married?</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Because I fell in love.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Because you fell in love!</cita> growled Scrooge, as if that
were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a
merry Christmas.
<cita>Good afternoon!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that
happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Good afternoon,</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot
we be friends?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Good afternoon,</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute.
We have never had any quarrel, to which<finPag n="11"/> 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!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Good afternoon!</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>And A Happy New Year!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Good afternoon!</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>His nephew left the room without an angry word,
notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the
greeting of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was
warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.
</p>
<p>
<cita>There's another fellow,</cita> muttered Scrooge; who
overheard him: <cita>my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and
a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll
retire to Bedlam.</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,</cita> said one of the <finPag n="12"/>gentlemen, referring to his list. <cita>Have I the
pleasure of addressing Mr Scrooge, or Mr Marley?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Mr Marley has been dead these seven years,</cita> Scrooge
replied. <cita>He died seven years ago, this very night.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by
his surviving partner,</cita> said the gentleman, presenting his
credentials.
</p>
<p>It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At
the ominous word <cita>liberality</cita>, Scrooge frowned, and shook
his head, and handed the credentials back.
</p>
<p>
<cita>At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,</cita> said
the gentleman, taking up a pen, <cita>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.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Are there no prisons?</cita> asked Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Plenty of prisons,</cita> said the gentleman, laying down
the pen again. <finPag n="13"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>And the Union workhouses?</cita> demanded Scrooge. <cita>Are
they still in operation?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>They are. Still,</cita> returned the gentleman, <cita> I wish
I could say they were not.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour,
then?</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Both very busy, sir.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that
something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,</cita>
said Scrooge. <cita>I'm very glad to hear it.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian
cheer of mind or body to the multitude,</cita> returned the
gentleman, <cita>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?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Nothing!</cita> Scrooge replied.
</p>
<p>
<cita>You wish to be anonymous?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I wish to be left alone,</cita> said Scrooge. <cita>Since <finPag n="14"/>
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.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Many can't go there; and many would rather die.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>If they would rather die,</cita> said Scrooge, <cita>they had
better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides
--- excuse me --- I don't know that.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>But you might know it,</cita> observed the gentleman.
</p>
<p>
<cita>It's not my business,</cita> Scrooge returned. <cita>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!</cita>
</p>
<p>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. <finPag n="15"/>
</p>
<p>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 <finPag n="16"/>believe that
such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do.
The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the might 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
tomorrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the
baby sallied out to buy the beef.
</p>
<p>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 <cita tipo="verse">
<verso>God bless you, merry gentleman! </verso>
<verso>May nothing you dismay! </verso>
</cita> Scrooge seized the ruler
with such energy of action<finPag n="17"/> that the singer fled in
terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial
frost.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?</cita> said
Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>If quite convenient, Sir.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>It's not convenient,</cita> said Scrooge, <cita>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?</cita>
</p>
<p>The clerk smiled faintly.
</p>
<p>
<cita>And yet,</cita> said Scrooge, <cita>you don't think
<enfasis>me</enfasis> ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no
work.</cita>
</p>
<p>The clerk observed that it was only once a year.
</p>
<p>
<cita>A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every
twenty-fifth of December!</cita> said Scrooge, buttoning his
great-coat to the chin. <cita>But I suppose you must have the
whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning!</cita>
<finPag n="18"/>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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 have forgotten the way out again. It was old enough
now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the
other rooms being<finPag n="19"/> 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.
</p>
<p>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-year's 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. <finPag n="20"/>
</p>
<p>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 upon 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.
</p>
<p>As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a
knocker again.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>He <enfasis>did</enfasis> pause, with a moment's irresolution,
before he shut the door; and he <enfasis>did</enfasis> look
cautiously behind<finPag n="21"/> 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
<cita>Pooh, pooh!</cita> and closed it with a bang.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="22"/> the street wouldn't
have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was
pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>Sitting-room, bed-room, 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 has 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.
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="23"/> off his cravat;
put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his night-cap; and
sat down before the fire to take his gruel.
</p>
<p>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. <finPag n="24"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Humbug!</cita> said Scrooge; and walked across the room.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound,<finPag n="25"/>
and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below;
then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his
door.
</p>
<p>
<cita>It's humbug still!</cita> said Scrooge. <cita>I won't believe
it.</cita>
</p>
<p>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, <cita>I know him! Marley's Ghost!</cita> and fell again.
</p>
<p>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. <finPag n="25"/>
</p>
<p>Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels,
but he had never believed it until now.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>How now!</cita> said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.
<cita>What do you want with me?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Much!</cita> --- Marley's voice, no doubt about it.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Who are you?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Ask me who I <enfasis>was</enfasis>.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Who <enfasis>were</enfasis> you then.</cita> said Scrooge, raising
his voice.
<cita>You're particular, for a shade.</cita> He was going to say <cita>
<enfasis>to</enfasis>
a shade,</cita> but substituted this, as more appropriate.
</p>
<p>
<cita>In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Can you --- can you sit down?</cita> asked Scrooge,
looking doubtfully at him. <finPag n="27"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I can.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Do it, then.</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>You don't believe in me,</cita> observed the Ghost.
</p>
<p>
<cita>I don't,</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of
your senses?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I don't know,</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Why do you doubt your senses?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Because,</cita> said Scrooge, <cita>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!</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking<finPag n="28"/>
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.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>You see this toothpick?</cita> 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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>I do,</cita> replied the Ghost.
</p>
<p>
<cita>You are not looking at it,</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>But I see it,</cita> said the Ghost, <cita>notwithstanding.</cita>
<finPag n="29"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Well!</cita> returned Scrooge, <cita>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!</cita>
</p>
<p>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
in-doors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!
</p>
<p>Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before
his face.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Mercy!</cita> he said. <cita>Dreadful apparition, why do you
trouble me?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Man of the worldly mind!</cita> replied the Ghost, <cita>do you
believe in me or not?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I do,</cita> said Scrooge. <cita>I must. But why do spirits
walk the earth, and why do they come to me?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>It is required of every man,</cita> the Ghost returned,
<cita>that the spirit within him should walk abroad<finPag n="30"/>
among his fellow-men, 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!</cita>
</p>
<p>Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain, and
wrung its shadowy hands.
</p>
<p>
<cita>You are fettered,</cita> said Scrooge, trembling. <cita>Tell
me why?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I wear the chain I forged in life,</cita> replied the Ghost.
<cita>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 <enfasis>you</enfasis>?</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge trembled more and more.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Or would you know,</cita> pursued the Ghost, <cita>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!</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation
of finding himself surrounded by some<finPag n="31"/> fifty or sixty
fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Jacob,</cita> he said, imploringly. <cita>Old Jacob Marley,
tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I have none to give,</cita> the Ghost replied. <cita>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!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,</cita> Scrooge
observed, in a business-like manner, though with humility and
deference. <finPag n="32"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Slow!</cita> the Ghost repeated.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Seven years dead,</cita> mused Scrooge. <cita>And travelling
all the time?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>The whole time,</cita> said the Ghost. <cita>No rest, no
peace. Incessant torture of remorse.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>You travel fast?</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>On the wings of the wind,</cita> replied the Ghost.
</p>
<p>
<cita>You might have got over a great quantity of ground in
seven years,</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,</cita> cried the
phantom, <cita>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<finPag n="22"/>
opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,</cita>
faultered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Business!</cita> cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.
<cita>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!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>At this time of the rolling year,</cita> the spectre said,
<cita>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
<enfasis>me!</enfasis>
</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on
at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly. <finPag n="34"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Hear me!</cita> cried the Ghost. <cita>My time is nearly
gone.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I will,</cita> said Scrooge. <cita>But don't be hard upon me!
Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>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.</cita>
</p>
<p>It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped
the perspiration from his brow.
</p>
<p>
<cita>That is no light part of my penance,</cita> pursued the
Ghost.
<cita>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.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>You were always a good friend to me,</cita> said Scrooge.
<cita>Thank'ee!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>You will be haunted,</cita> resumed the Ghost, <cita>by Three
Spirits.</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had
done.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?</cita> he
demanded, in a faltering voice.
</p>
<p>
<cita>It is.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I --- I think I'd rather not,</cita> said Scrooge. <finPag n="35"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Without their visits,</cita> said the Ghost, <cita>you cannot
hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow,
when the bell tolls One.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over,
Jacob?</cita> hinted Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>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.</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. <finPag n="36"/>
When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost
held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge
stopped.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity.
He looked out.
</p>
<p>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 <finPag n="37"/> 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.
<finPag n="38"/>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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 <cita>Humbug!</cita> 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. </p>
</div0>
<finPag n="39"/>
<div0 id="S2" tipo="stave">
<encabezado>THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS</encabezado>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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!
</p>
<p>He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct<finPag n="40"/>
this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat
twelve: and stopped.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Why, it isn't possible,</cita> said Scrooge, <cita>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!</cita>
</p>
<p>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 <cita>three days after
sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or
his order,</cita> and so forth, would have become a mere
United States' security if there were no days to count by.
</p>
<p>Scrooge went to be again, and thought, and <finPag n="p4"/>1
thought, and thought it over and over, and could make nothing
of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the
more he 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, like a strong spring released, to its first
position, and presented the same problem to be worked all
through, <cita>Was it a dream or not?</cita>
</p>
<p>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 past; and, considering
that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was
perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.
</p>
<p>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.<finPag n="42"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Ding, dong!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>A quarter past,</cita> said Scrooge, counting.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Ding, dong!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Half past!</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Ding, dong!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>A quarter to it,</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Ding, dong!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>The hour itself,</cita> said Scrooge, triumphantly, <cita>and
nothing else!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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. <finPag n="43"/>
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="44"/> moments, a
great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.
</p>
<p>Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing
steadiness, was <enfasis>not</enfasis> 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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to
me?</cita> asked Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>I am!</cita>
</p>
<p>The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if
instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Who, and what are you?</cita> Scrooge demanded. <finPag n="45"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Long past?</cita> inquired Scrooge: observant of its
dwarfish stature.
</p>
<p>
<cita>No. Your past.</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>What!</cita> exclaimed the Ghost, <cita>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!</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any
knowledge of having wilfully <denominado>bonneted</denominado> the
Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire
what business brought him there.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Your welfare!</cita> said the Ghost.
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="46"/> Spirit must have heard
him thinking, for it said immediately:
</p>
<p>
<cita>Your reclamation, then. Take heed!</cita>
</p>
<p>It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him
gently by the arm.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Rise! and walk with me!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>I am mortal,</cita> Scrooge remonstrated, <cita>and liable to
fall.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Bear but a touch of my hand <enfasis>there</enfasis>,</cita> said
the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, <cita>and you shall be
upheld in more than this!</cita>
</p>
<p>As the words were spoken, they passed through<finPag n="47"/> 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.
<cita>Good Heaven!</cita> said Scrooge, clasping his hands together,
as he looked about him. <cita>I was bred in this place. I was
a boy here!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Your lip is trembling,</cita> said the Ghost. <cita>And what
is that upon your cheek?</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice,
that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he
would.
</p>
<p>
<cita>You recollect the way?</cita> inquired the Spirit. <finPag n="48"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Remember it!</cita> cried Scrooge with fervour; <cita>I could
walk it blindfold.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!</cita>
observed the Ghost. <cita>Let us go on.</cita>
</p>
<p>They walked along the road; Scrooge recognising every gate,
and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the
distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some
shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys
upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and
carts, driven by 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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>These are but shadows of the things that have been,</cita>
said the Ghost. <cita>They have no consciousness of us.</cita>
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="49"/> 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?
</p>
<p>
<cita>The school is not quite deserted,</cita> said the Ghost.
<cita>A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there
still.</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.
</p>
<p>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.<finPag n="50"/> 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.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle
from the mice behind the panneling, 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.
</p>
<p>The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his
younger self, intent upon his reading.<finPag n="51"/> 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 an ass laden with wood by the bridle.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Why, it's Ali Baba! </cita> Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy.
<cita>It's dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One
Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all
alone, he <enfasis>did</enfasis> come, for the first time, just like
that. Poor boy! And Valentine,</cita> said Scrooge, <cita>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 <enfasis>he</enfasis> to be married to
the Princess!</cita>
</p>
<p>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. <finPag n="52"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>There's the Parrot!</cita> cried Scrooge. <cita>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.
<cita>Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?</cita>
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!</cita>
</p>
<p>Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his
usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, <cita>Poor
boy!</cita> and cried again.
</p>
<p>
<cita>I wish,</cita> Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his
cuff: <cita>but it's too late now.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>What is the matter?</cita> asked the Spirit.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Nothing,</cita> said Scrooge. <cita>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.</cita>
</p>
<p>The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its<finPag n="53"/>
hand: saying as it did so, <cita>Let us see another Christmas!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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 <cita>Dear, dear brother.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I have come to bring you home, dear brother!</cita> said the
child, clapping her tiny hands, and<finPag n="54"/> bending down to
laugh.
<cita>To bring you home, home, home!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Home, little Fan?</cita> returned the boy.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Yes!</cita> said the child, brimful of glee. <cita>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!</cita> said the child, opening her eyes,
<cita>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.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>You are quite a woman, little Fan!</cita> exclaimed the boy.
</p>
<p>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. <finPag n="55"/>
</p>
<p>A terrible voice in the hall cried. <cita>Bring down Master
Scrooge's box, there! </cita> 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
<denominado>something</denominado> 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<finPag n="56"/> and snow from off the
dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have
withered,</cita> said the Ghost. <cita>But she had a large
heart!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>So she had,</cita> cried Scrooge. <cita>You're right, I will
not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>She died a woman,</cita> said the Ghost, <cita>and had, as I
think, children.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>One child,</cita> Scrooge returned.
</p>
<p>
<cita>True,</cita> said the Ghost. <cita>Your nephew!</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly,
<cita>Yes.</cita>
</p>
<p>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 battle 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. <finPag n="57"/>
</p>
<p>The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked
Scrooge if he knew it.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Know it!</cita> said Scrooge. <cita>Was I apprenticed
here!</cita>
</p>
<p>They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welch 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:
</p>
<p>
<cita>Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig
alive again!</cita>
</p>
<p>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 shows to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a
comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:
</p>
<p>
<cita>Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly
in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Dick Wilkins, to be sure!</cita> said Scrooge to the Ghost.
<cita>Bless me, yes. There he is. He<finPag n="58"/> was very much attached
to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Yo ho, my boys!</cita> said Fezziwig. <cita>No more work
to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's
have the shutters up,</cita> cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap
of his hands, <cita>before a man can say, Jack Robinson!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Hilli-ho!</cita> cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the
high desk, with wonderful agility. <cita>Clear away, my lads, and
let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup,
Ebenezer!</cita>
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="59"/> 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.
</p>
<p>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
nother; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some
awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all<finPag n="60"/>
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, <cita>Well
done!</cita> 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.
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="61"/> 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 <cita>Sir Roger de Coverley.</cita>
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 <enfasis>would</enfasis> dance, and
had no notion of walking.
</p>
<p>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 <enfasis>her</enfasis>, she was worthy to be his
partner in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise,
tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to
issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the
dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given
time, what would become of 'em next. And when old Fezziwig and
Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and
retire, hold hands with your partner, bow and curtsey;<finPag n="62"/> corkscrew; thread-the-needle, and back again to your
place; Fezziwig <denominado>cut</denominado> --- cut so deftly,
that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet
again without a stagger.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="63"/> him, while the light upon its head burnt very
clear.
</p>
<p>
<cita>A small matter,</cita> said the Ghost, <cita>to make these
silly folks so full of gratitude.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Small!</cita> echoed Scrooge.
</p>
<p>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,
</p>
<p>
<cita>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?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>It isn't that,</cita> said Scrooge, heated by the remark,
and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter,
self.
<cita>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.</cita>
<finPag n="64"/>
</p>
<p>He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.
</p>
<p>
<cita>What is the matter?</cita> asked the Ghost.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Nothing particular,</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Something, I think?</cita> the Ghost insisted.
</p>
<p>
<cita>No,</cita> said Scrooge, <cita>No. I should like to be able to
say a word or two to my clerk just now! That's all.</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>My time grows short,</cita> observed the Spirit.
<cita>Quick!</cita>
</p>
<p>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. <finPag n="65"/>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>It matters little,</cita> she said, softly. <cita>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.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>What Idol has displaced you?</cita> he rejoined.
</p>
<p>
<cita>A golden one.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>This is the even-handed dealing of the world!</cita> he
said.
<cita>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!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>You fear the world too much,</cita> she answered, gently.
<cita>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?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>What then?</cita> he retorted. <cita>Even if I have grown so
much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you.</cita>
<finPag n="66"/>
</p>
<p>She shook her head.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Am I?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>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
<enfasis>are</enfasis> changed. When it was made, you were another
man.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I was a boy,</cita> he said impatiently.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you
are,</cita> she returned. <cita>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 <enfasis>have</enfasis> thought of
it, and can release you.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Have I ever sought release?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>In words. No. Never.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>In what, then?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>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,</cita> said the girl,
looking mildly, but<finPag n="67"/> with steadiness, upon him;
<cita>tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah,
no!</cita>
</p>
<p>He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in
spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, <cita>You think
not.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I would gladly think otherwise if I could,</cita> she
answered,
<cita>Heaven knows! When <enfasis>I</enfasis> 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.</cita>
</p>
<p>He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him,
she resumed.
</p>
<p>
<cita>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<finPag n="67"/> which it happened well
that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have
chosen!</cita>
</p>
<p>She left him, and they parted.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Spirit!</cita> said Scrooge, <cita>show me no more! Conduct me
home.
Why do you delight to torture me?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>One shadow more!</cita> exclaimed the Ghost.
</p>
<p>
<cita>No more!</cita> cried Scrooge. <cita>No more. I don't wish to
see it. Show me no more!</cita>
</p>
<p>But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and
forced him to observe what happened next.
</p>
<p>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 <enfasis>her</enfasis>, 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<finPag n="69"/> 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 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. <finPag n="70"/>
</p>
<p>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
the 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<finPag n="71"/> the top of the house; where they went to bed, and
so subsided.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Belle,</cita> said the husband, turning to his wife with a
smile, <cita>I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Who was it?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Guess!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>How can I? Tut, don't I know.</cita> she added in the same
breath, laughing as he laughed. <cita>Mr Scrooge.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>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.</cita>
<finPag n="72"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Spirit!</cita> said Scrooge in a broken voice, <cita>remove me
from this place.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I told you these were shadows of the things that have
been,</cita> said the Ghost. <cita>That they are what they are, do
not blame me!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Remove me!</cita> Scrooge exclaimed, <cita>I cannot bear
it!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="73"/> the light, which
streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
</div0>
<div0 id="S3" tipo="stave">
<encabezado>THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS</encabezado>
<finPag n="74"/>
<p>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<finPag n="75"/> of its appearance, and did
not wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any
means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell
struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent
fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quater of an
hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his
bed, the very core and centre of<finPag n="76"/> 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.
</p>
<p>The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice
called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.
</p>
<p>It was his own room. There was no doubt about<finPag n="77"/>
that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The
walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it
looked a perfect grove; from every part of which, bright
gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly,
mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many
little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty
blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification
of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or
for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the
floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game,
poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long
wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of
oysters, red-hot chesnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy
oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething
bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious
steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant,
glorious to see: who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike
Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on
Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door. <finPag n="78"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Come in!</cita> exclaimed the Ghost. <cita>Come in. and know
me better, man!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,</cita> said the Spirit.
<cita>Look upon me!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
<finPag n="79"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>You have never seen the like of me before!</cita> exclaimed
the Spirit.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Never,</cita> Scrooge made answer to it.
</p>
<p>
<cita>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?</cita> pursued the Phantom.
</p>
<p>
<cita>I don't think I have,</cita> said Scrooge. <cita>I am afraid I
have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>More than eighteen hundred,</cita> said the Ghost.
</p>
<p>
<cita>A tremendous family to provide for!</cita> muttered Scrooge.
</p>
<p>The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Spirit,</cita> said Scrooge submissively, <cita>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.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Touch my robe!</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.
</p>
<p>Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese,<finPag n="80"/> 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.
</p>
<p>The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows
blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon
the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which
last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy
wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and recrossed
each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched
off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick
yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the
shortest<finPag n="81"/> streets were choked up with a dingy mist,
half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in
shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain
had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to
their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful in
the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of
cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest
summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.
</p>
<p>For the people who were shovelling away on the housetops
were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from
the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball
--- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest
--- laughing heartily if it went right and not less
heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still
half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory.
There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chesnuts,
shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at
the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic
opulence. There<finPag n="82"/> were ruddy, brown-faced,
broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their
growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in
wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced
demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and
apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches
of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence to dangle from
conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as
they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown,
recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods,
and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves;
there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the
yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness
of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to
be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very
gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a
bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race,
appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a
fish, went gasping round and round<finPag n="83"/> their little
world in slow and passionless excitement.
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="84"/> 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.
</p>
<p>But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and
chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in
their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the
same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and
nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners
to the baker' shops. The sight of these poor revellers
appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with
Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the
covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their
dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of
torch, for once or twice when there were angry<finPag n="85"/> 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!
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from
your torch?</cita> asked Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>There is. My own.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?</cita>
asked Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>To any kindly given. To a poor one most.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Why to a poor one most?</cita> asked Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Because it needs it most.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Spirit,</cita> said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, <cita>I
wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds<finPag n="86"/>
about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities
of innocent enjoyment.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I!</cita> cried the Spirit.
</p>
<p>
<cita>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,</cita> said Scrooge. <cita>Wouldn't you?</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I!</cita> cried the Spirit.
</p>
<p>
<cita>You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?</cita>
said Scrooge. <cita>And it comes to the same thing.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>
<enfasis>I</enfasis> seek!</cita> exclaimed the Spirit.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name,
or at least in that of your family,</cita> said Scrooge.
</p>
<p>
<cita>There are some upon this earth of yours,</cita> returned the
Spirit, <cita>who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of
passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and
selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out
kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and
charge their doings on themselves, not us.</cita>
<finPag n="87"/>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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 <denominado>bob</denominado>
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! <finPag n="86"/>
</p>
<p>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. <finPag n="89"/>
</p>
<p>
<cita>What has ever got your precious father then.</cita> said Mrs
Cratchit. <cita>And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn't as
late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Here's Martha, mother!</cita> said a girl, appearing as she
spoke.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Here's Martha, mother!</cita> cried the two young Cratchits.
<cita>Hurrah! There's <enfasis>such</enfasis> a goose, Martha!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you
are!</cita> said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and
taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.
</p>
<p>
<cita>We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,</cita> replied
the girl, <cita>and had to clear away this morning, mother!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>Well! Never mind so long as you are come,</cita> said Mrs
Cratchit. <cita>Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a
warm, Lord bless ye!</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>No, no! There's father coming,</cita> cried the two young
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. <cita>Hide, Martha,
hide!</cita>
</p>
<p>So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the<finPag n="90"/> 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!
</p>
<p>
<cita>Why, where's our Martha?</cita> cried Bob Cratchit, looking
round.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Not coming,</cita> said Mrs Cratchit.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Not coming!</cita> 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. <cita>Not coming upon
Christmas Day!</cita>
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>
<cita>And how did little Tim behave?</cita> asked Mrs Cratchit,
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity<finPag n="91"/> and Bob
had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.
</p>
<p>
<cita>As good as gold,</cita> said Bob, <cita>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.</cita>
</p>
<p>Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and
hearty.
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="92"/> to fetch the
goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="93"/> 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!
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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<finPag n="94"/> became livid!
All sorts of horrors were supposed.
</p>
<p>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.
</p>
<p>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. <finPag n="95"/>
</p>
<p>At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the
hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug
being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were
put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chesnuts on the fire.
Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob
Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob
Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass; two
tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.
</p>
<p>These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as
golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with
beaming looks, while the chesnuts on the fire sputtered and
cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:
</p>
<p>
<cita>A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!</cita>
</p>
<p>Which all the family re-echoed.
</p>
<p>
<cita>God bless us every one!</cita> said Tiny Tim, the last of
all.
</p>
<p>He sat very close to his father's side upon his little
stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his,<finPag n="96"/> as
if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and
dreaded that he might be taken from him.
</p>
<p>
<cita>Spirit,</cita> said Scrooge, with an interest he had never
felt before, <cita>tell me if Tiny Tim will live.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>I see a vacant seat,</cita> replied the Ghost, <cita>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.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>No, no,</cita> said Scrooge. <cita>Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he
will be spared.</cita>
</p>
<p>
<cita>If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none
other of my race,</cita> returned the Ghost, <cita>will find him
here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it,
and decrease the surplus population.</cita>
</p>
<p>Scrooge hung his h