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For Future Learn Erlang course assignment 2.20
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-module(assignment). | |
-export([checkFile/1, indexFile/1, tokeniseLine/1]). | |
-export([addToWordTuple/2, wordInWordTupleList/2]). | |
-export([rangifyList/1]). | |
% NOTE you'll need to compile index.erl in the Erlang shell first! | |
% then compile this and run assignment:indexFile("gettysburg-address.txt"). or what-have-you | |
% Indexing a file | |
% The aim of this exercise is to index a text file, by line number. | |
% We can think of the input being a list of text strings, | |
% and below we’ve provided an outline Erlang module that reads text files into this format, | |
% as well as a couple of example files to process. | |
% | |
% The output of the main function should be a list of entries consisting | |
% of a word and a list of the ranges of lines on which it occurs. | |
% | |
% For example, the entry | |
% | |
% { "foo" , [{3,5},{7,7},{11,13}] } | |
% | |
% means that the word "foo" occurs on lines 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 12 and 13 in the file. | |
% | |
% To take the problem further, | |
% you might like to think about these ways of refining the solution. | |
% | |
% Removing all short words (e.g. words of length less than 3) or | |
% all common words (you‘ll have to think about how to define these). | |
% | |
% Sorting the output so that the words occur in lexicographic order. | |
% | |
% Normalising the words so that capitalised ("Foo") and | |
% non capitalised versions ("foo") of a word are identified. | |
% | |
% Normalising so that common endings, plurals etc. identified. | |
% | |
% (Harder) Thinking how you could make the data representation more efficient | |
% than the one you first chose. | |
% This might be efficient for lookup only, or for both creation and lookup. | |
% | |
% Can you think of other ways that you might extend your solution? | |
% debugger | |
checkFile(File) -> | |
index:show_file_contents(index:get_file_contents(File)). | |
% ==== the main event ================ | |
indexFile(File) -> | |
tokeniseLines(index:get_file_contents(File)). | |
% ==================================== | |
%tokeniseLines([]) -> []; | |
%tokeniseLines([L|Ls]) -> | |
% [tokeniseLine(L) | tokeniseLines(Ls)]. | |
% tail version to accumulate the line number | |
tokeniseLines([]) -> []; | |
tokeniseLines([L|Ls]) -> | |
tokeniseLines([L|Ls], [], 1). | |
tokeniseLines([], LineTokensAcc, _LineAcc) -> | |
lists:reverse(LineTokensAcc); | |
tokeniseLines([L|Ls], LineTokensAcc, LineAcc) -> | |
tokeniseLines(Ls, addToWordTupleList(LineAcc, tokeniseLine(L)) ++ LineTokensAcc, LineAcc + 1). | |
% a map / transform type o' function | |
addToWordTupleList(_X, []) -> []; | |
addToWordTupleList(X, [Y|Ys]) -> | |
[addToWordTuple(X, Y) | addToWordTupleList(X, Ys)]. | |
% WORKING | |
addToWordTuple(X, {Y}) -> | |
{Y, [X]}; | |
addToWordTuple(X, {Y, []}) -> | |
{Y, [X]}; | |
addToWordTuple(X, {Y, [Z|Zs]}) -> | |
{Y, [X|[Z|Zs]]}. | |
%tokeniseLine(L) -> | |
% % true. | |
% {wordTuple, []}. | |
% split on " " (space) | |
% NOTE multiple whitespace support is a TODO | |
tokeniseLine([]) -> []; | |
tokeniseLine([X|Xs]) -> | |
%io:format("in interface ~p~n", [[X|Xs]]), | |
tokeniseLine([X|Xs], [], []). | |
% StreamAcc is "non-whitespace so far" | |
% TokensAcc is ultimate result | |
% TODO support unifying of duplicated words on same line | |
tokeniseLine([], StreamAcc, TokensAcc) when length(TokensAcc) > 1 -> % don't know why the interface jumps straight to here (ie. the when clause is needed) | |
%io:format("1~n"), | |
%lists:reverse(TokensAcc); %nope, this misses off the last stream accumuation! | |
lists:reverse([{lists:reverse(StreamAcc)} | TokensAcc]); | |
tokeniseLine([X|Xs], StreamAcc, TokensAcc) -> | |
%io:format("2~n"), | |
case X == 32 of % space character | |
%case [X] of | |
true -> | |
%[" "] -> | |
%io:format("true~n"), | |
tokeniseLine(Xs, [], [{lists:reverse(StreamAcc)} | TokensAcc]); % put stream on final result but reset stream too | |
_ -> | |
%io:format("false~n"), | |
tokeniseLine(Xs, [X|StreamAcc], TokensAcc) | |
end. | |
% WORKING | |
% parms: WordToFind, WordTupleList | |
%wordInWordTupleList() -> false; | |
wordInWordTupleList([_X|_Xs], []) -> | |
false; | |
wordInWordTupleList([X|Xs], [Y|Ys]) -> | |
% breakdown the first tuple | |
{Word, _NumberList} = Y, | |
case Word of | |
[X|Xs] -> | |
true; | |
_ -> | |
wordInWordTupleList([X|Xs], Ys) | |
end. | |
% WORKING | |
% | |
% run-length encode a list of (sorted, with no dublies) integers such that: | |
% [3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 12, 13] | |
% becomes: | |
% [{3,5},{7,7},{11,13}] | |
% (NOTE that even a single occurrence is still a range) | |
rangifyList([]) -> []; | |
rangifyList([X|Xs]) -> | |
rangifyList([X|Xs], [X], []). %seeding StreamAcc with [X] here actually | |
% introduces a duff initial element to the result | |
% list which we have to chop off | |
% StreamAcc is "sequence so far" | |
% this function needed a lot of trial and error | |
rangifyList([], StreamAcc, ResultAcc) -> | |
%ResultAcc; %nope, misses out the last StreamAcc | |
[StreamCurrent|_StreamRest] = StreamAcc, | |
StreamStarter = lists:nth(1, lists:reverse(StreamAcc)), | |
WithDuffInitial = ResultAcc ++ [{StreamStarter, StreamCurrent}], | |
[_Duff|Want] = WithDuffInitial, | |
Want; | |
rangifyList([X|Xs], StreamAcc, ResultAcc) -> | |
[StreamCurrent|_StreamRest] = StreamAcc, | |
%io:format("StreamAcc: ~p~n", [StreamAcc]), | |
%io:format("Current: ~p, Rest: ~p~n", [StreamCurrent, StreamRest]), | |
%io:format("X: ~p~n", [X]), | |
case (X == StreamCurrent + 1) of | |
% is our current input number equal to last input number + 1? | |
true -> | |
%io:format("building~n"), | |
rangifyList(Xs, [X|StreamAcc], ResultAcc); % actually need to add backwards to make line 142 simpler | |
_ -> | |
%io:format("adding~n"), | |
StreamStarter = lists:nth(1, lists:reverse(StreamAcc)), | |
rangifyList(Xs, [X], ResultAcc ++ [{StreamStarter, StreamCurrent}]) | |
end. |
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[pg/etext92/carol10.txt] | |
A CHRISTMAS CAROL | |
by Charles Dickens | |
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. | |
Their faithful Friend and Servant, | |
C. D. | |
December, 1843. | |
Stave 1: Marley's Ghost | |
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt | |
whatever about that. The register of his burial was | |
signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, | |
and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And | |
Scrooge's name was good upon `Change, for anything he | |
chose to put his hand to. | |
Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. | |
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my | |
own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about | |
a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to | |
regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery | |
in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors | |
is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands | |
shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You | |
will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that | |
Marley was as dead as a door-nail. | |
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. | |
How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were | |
partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge | |
was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole | |
assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and | |
sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully | |
cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent | |
man of business on the very day of the funeral, | |
and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain | |
The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to | |
the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley | |
was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or | |
nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going | |
to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that | |
Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there | |
would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a | |
stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, | |
than there would be in any other middle-aged | |
gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy | |
spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- | |
literally to astonish his son's weak mind. | |
Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. | |
There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse | |
door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as | |
Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the | |
business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, | |
but he answered to both names. It was all the | |
same to him. | |
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- | |
stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, | |
scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and | |
sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out | |
generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary | |
as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, | |
nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, | |
stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue | |
and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty | |
rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his | |
wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always | |
about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and | |
didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. | |
External heat and cold had little influence on | |
Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather | |
chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, | |
no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no | |
pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't | |
know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and | |
snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage | |
over him in only one respect. They often `came down' | |
handsomely, and Scrooge never did. | |
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with | |
gladsome looks, `My dear Scrooge, how are you? | |
When will you come to see me?' No beggars implored | |
him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him | |
what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all | |
his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of | |
Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to | |
know him; and when they saw him coming on, would | |
tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and | |
then would wag their tails as though they said, `No | |
eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!' | |
But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing | |
he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths | |
of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, | |
was what the knowing ones call `nuts' to Scrooge. | |
Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, | |
on Christmas Eve -- old Scrooge sat busy in his | |
counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy | |
withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, | |
go wheezing up and down, beating their hands | |
upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the | |
pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had | |
only just gone three, but it was quite dark already -- | |
it had not been light all day -- and candles were flaring | |
in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like | |
ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog | |
came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was | |
so dense without, that although the court was of the | |
narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. | |
To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring | |
everything, one might have thought that Nature | |
lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale. | |
The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open | |
that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a | |
dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying | |
letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's | |
fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one | |
coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept | |
the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the | |
clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted | |
that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore | |
the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to | |
warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being | |
a man of a strong imagination, he failed. | |
`A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!' cried | |
a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's | |
nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was | |
the first intimation he had of his approach. | |
`Bah!' said Scrooge, `Humbug!' | |
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the | |
fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was | |
all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his | |
eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. | |
`Christmas a humbug, uncle!' said Scrooge's | |
nephew. `You don't mean that, I am sure?' | |
`I do,' said Scrooge. `Merry Christmas! What | |
right have you to be merry? What reason have you | |
to be merry? You're poor enough.' | |
`Come, then,' returned the nephew gaily. `What | |
right have you to be dismal? What reason have you | |
to be morose? You're rich enough.' | |
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur | |
of the moment, said `Bah!' again; and followed it up | |
with `Humbug.' | |
`Don't be cross, uncle!' said the nephew. | |
`What else can I be,' returned the uncle, `when I | |
live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! | |
Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas | |
time to you but a time for paying bills without | |
money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but | |
not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books | |
and having every item in `em through a round dozen | |
of months presented dead against you? If I could | |
work my will,' said Scrooge indignantly, `every idiot | |
who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips, | |
should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried | |
with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!' | |
`Uncle!' pleaded the nephew. | |
`Nephew!' returned the uncle sternly, `keep Christmas | |
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.' | |
`Keep it!' repeated Scrooge's nephew. `But you | |
don't keep it.' | |
`Let me leave it alone, then,' said Scrooge. `Much | |
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done | |
you!' | |
`There are many things from which I might have | |
derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare | |
say,' returned the nephew. `Christmas among the | |
rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas | |
time, when it has come round -- apart from the | |
veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything | |
belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a | |
good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant | |
time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar | |
of the year, when men and women seem by one consent | |
to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think | |
of people below them as if they really were | |
fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race | |
of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, | |
uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or | |
silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me | |
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!' | |
The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded. | |
Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, | |
he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark | |
for ever. | |
`Let me hear another sound from you,' said | |
Scrooge, `and you'll keep your Christmas by losing | |
your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker, | |
sir,' he added, turning to his nephew. `I wonder you | |
don't go into Parliament.' | |
`Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow.' | |
Scrooge said that he would see him -- yes, indeed he | |
did. He went the whole length of the expression, | |
and said that he would see him in that extremity first. | |
`But why?' cried Scrooge's nephew. `Why?' | |
`Why did you get married?' said Scrooge. | |
`Because I fell in love.' | |
`Because you fell in love!' growled Scrooge, as if | |
that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous | |
than a merry Christmas. `Good afternoon!' | |
`Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before | |
that happened. Why give it as a reason for not | |
coming now?' | |
`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. | |
`I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; | |
why cannot we be friends?' | |
`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. | |
`I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so | |
resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I | |
have been a party. But I have made the trial in | |
homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas | |
humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!' | |
`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. | |
`And A Happy New Year!' | |
`Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. | |
His nephew left the room without an angry word, | |
notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to | |
bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who | |
cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned | |
them cordially. | |
`There's another fellow,' muttered Scrooge; who | |
overheard him: `my clerk, with fifteen shillings a | |
week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry | |
Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.' | |
This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had | |
let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, | |
pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, | |
in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in | |
their hands, and bowed to him. | |
`Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,' said one of the | |
gentlemen, referring to his list. `Have I the pleasure | |
of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?' | |
`Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,' | |
Scrooge replied. `He died seven years ago, this very | |
night.' | |
`We have no doubt his liberality is well represented | |
by his surviving partner,' said the gentleman, presenting | |
his credentials. | |
It certainly was; for they had been two kindred | |
spirits. At the ominous word `liberality,' Scrooge | |
frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials | |
back. | |
`At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,' | |
said the gentleman, taking up a pen, `it is more than | |
usually desirable that we should make some slight | |
provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer | |
greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in | |
want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands | |
are in want of common comforts, sir.' | |
`Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge. | |
`Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down | |
the pen again | |
`And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge. | |
`Are they still in operation?' | |
`They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, `I wish | |
I could say they were not.' | |
`The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, | |
then?' said Scrooge. | |
`Both very busy, sir.' | |
`Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, | |
that something had occurred to stop them in their | |
useful course,' said Scrooge. `I'm very glad to | |
hear it.' | |
`Under the impression that they scarcely furnish | |
Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,' | |
returned the gentleman, `a few of us are endeavouring | |
to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink. | |
and means of warmth. We choose this time, because | |
it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, | |
and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down | |
for?' | |
`Nothing!' Scrooge replied. | |
`You wish to be anonymous?' | |
`I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. `Since you | |
ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. | |
I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't | |
afford to make idle people merry. I help to support | |
the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost | |
enough; and those who are badly off must go there.' | |
`Many can't go there; and many would rather die.' | |
`If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, `they had | |
better do it, and decrease the surplus population. | |
Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that.' | |
`But you might know it,' observed the gentleman. | |
`It's not my business,' Scrooge returned. `It's | |
enough for a man to understand his own business, and | |
not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies | |
me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!' | |
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue | |
their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge returned | |
his labours with an improved opinion of himself, | |
and in a more facetious temper than was usual | |
with him. | |
Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that | |
people ran about with flaring links, proffering their | |
services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct | |
them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, | |
whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down | |
at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became | |
invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the | |
clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if | |
its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. | |
The cold became intense. In the main street at the | |
corner of the court, some labourers were repairing | |
the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, | |
round which a party of ragged men and boys were | |
gathered: warming their hands and winking their | |
eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug | |
being left in solitude, its overflowing sullenly congealed, | |
and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness | |
of the shops where holly sprigs and berries | |
crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale | |
faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' | |
trades became a splendid joke; a glorious pageant, | |
with which it was next to impossible to believe that | |
such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything | |
to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the | |
mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks | |
and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's | |
household should; and even the little tailor, whom he | |
had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for | |
being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up | |
to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean | |
wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef. | |
Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting | |
cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped | |
the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather | |
as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then | |
indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The | |
owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled | |
by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, | |
stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with | |
a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of | |
`God bless you, merry gentleman! | |
May nothing you dismay!' | |
Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, | |
that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to | |
the fog and even more congenial frost. | |
At length the hour of shutting up the counting- | |
house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted | |
from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the | |
expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed | |
his candle out, and put on his hat. | |
`You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?' said | |
Scrooge. | |
`If quite convenient, sir.' | |
`It's not convenient,' said Scrooge, `and it's not | |
fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think | |
yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?' | |
The clerk smiled faintly. | |
`And yet,' said Scrooge, `you don't think me ill-used, | |
when I pay a day's wages for no work.' | |
The clerk observed that it was only once a year. | |
`A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every | |
twenty-fifth of December!' said Scrooge, buttoning | |
his great-coat to the chin. `But I suppose you must | |
have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next | |
morning.' | |
The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge | |
walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a | |
twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his | |
white comforter dangling below his waist (for he | |
boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, | |
at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in | |
honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home | |
to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play | |
at blindman's-buff. | |
Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual | |
melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and | |
beguiled the rest of the evening with his | |
banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in | |
chambers which had once belonged to his deceased | |
partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a | |
lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so | |
little business to be, that one could scarcely help | |
fancying it must have run there when it was a young | |
house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, | |
and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough | |
now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but | |
Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. | |
The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew | |
its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. | |
The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway | |
of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of | |
the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the | |
threshold. | |
Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all | |
particular about the knocker on the door, except that it | |
was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had | |
seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence | |
in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what | |
is called fancy about him as any man in the city of | |
London, even including -- which is a bold word -- the | |
corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be | |
borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one | |
thought on Marley, since his last mention of his | |
seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then | |
let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened | |
that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, | |
saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate | |
process of change -- not a knocker, but Marley's face. | |
Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow | |
as the other objects in the yard were, but had a | |
dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark | |
cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked | |
at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly | |
spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The | |
hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; | |
and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly | |
motionless. That, and its livid colour, made | |
it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the | |
face and beyond its control, rather than a part or | |
its own expression. | |
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it | |
was a knocker again. | |
To say that he was not startled, or that his blood | |
was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it | |
had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. | |
But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, | |
turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle. | |
He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before | |
he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind | |
it first, as if he half-expected to be terrified with the | |
sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. | |
But there was nothing on the back of the door, except | |
the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he | |
said `Pooh, pooh!' and closed it with a bang. | |
The sound resounded through the house like thunder. | |
Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's | |
cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal | |
of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to | |
be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and | |
walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too: | |
trimming his candle as he went. | |
You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six | |
up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad | |
young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you | |
might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken | |
it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall | |
and the door towards the balustrades: and done it | |
easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room | |
to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge | |
thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before | |
him in the gloom. Half a dozen gas-lamps out of | |
the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, | |
so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with | |
Scrooge's dip. | |
Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. | |
Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before | |
he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms | |
to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection | |
of the face to desire to do that. | |
Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they | |
should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under | |
the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin | |
ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had | |
a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the | |
bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, | |
which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude | |
against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guards, | |
old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three | |
legs, and a poker. | |
Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked | |
himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his | |
custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off | |
his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and | |
his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take | |
his gruel. | |
It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a | |
bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and | |
brood over it, before he could extract the least | |
sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. | |
The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch | |
merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint | |
Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. | |
There were Cains and Abels, Pharaohs' daughters; | |
Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending | |
through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, | |
Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, | |
hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts -- | |
and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came | |
like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the | |
whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, | |
with power to shape some picture on its surface from | |
the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would | |
have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one. | |
`Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the | |
room. | |
After several turns, he sat down again. As he | |
threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened | |
to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the | |
room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten | |
with a chamber in the highest story of the | |
building. It was with great astonishment, and with | |
a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he | |
saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in | |
the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it | |
rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house. | |
This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, | |
but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had | |
begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking | |
noise, deep down below; as if some person were | |
dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine | |
merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have | |
heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described | |
as dragging chains. | |
The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, | |
and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors | |
below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight | |
towards his door. | |
`It's humbug still!' said Scrooge. `I won't believe it.' | |
His colour changed though, when, without a pause, | |
it came on through the heavy door, and passed into | |
the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the | |
dying flame leaped up, as though it cried `I know | |
him; Marley's Ghost!' and fell again. | |
The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, | |
usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on | |
the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, | |
and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was | |
clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound | |
about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge | |
observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, | |
ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. | |
His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, | |
and looking through his waistcoat, could see | |
the two buttons on his coat behind. | |
Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no | |
bowels, but he had never believed it until now. | |
No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he | |
looked the phantom through and through, and saw | |
it standing before him; though he felt the chilling | |
influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very | |
texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head | |
and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before; | |
he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses. | |
`How now!' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. | |
`What do you want with me?' | |
`Much!' -- Marley's voice, no doubt about it. | |
`Who are you?' | |
`Ask me who I was.' | |
`Who were you then?' said Scrooge, raising his | |
voice. `You're particular, for a shade.' He was going | |
to say `to a shade,' but substituted this, as more | |
appropriate. | |
`In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.' | |
`Can you -- can you sit down?' asked Scrooge, looking | |
doubtfully at him. | |
`I can.' | |
`Do it, then.' | |
Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know | |
whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in | |
a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event | |
of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity | |
of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat | |
down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he | |
were quite used to it. | |
`You don't believe in me,' observed the Ghost. | |
`I don't.' said Scrooge. | |
`What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of | |
your senses?' | |
`I don't know,' said Scrooge. | |
`Why do you doubt your senses?' | |
`Because,' said Scrooge, `a little thing affects them. | |
A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may | |
be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of | |
cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of | |
gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!' | |
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking | |
jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means | |
waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be | |
smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, | |
and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice | |
disturbed the very marrow in his bones. | |
To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence | |
for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very | |
deuce with him. There was something very awful, | |
too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal | |
atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it | |
himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the | |
Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, | |
and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour | |
from an oven. | |
`You see this toothpick?' said Scrooge, returning | |
quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; | |
and wishing, though it were only for a second, to | |
divert the vision's stony gaze from himself. | |
`I do,' replied the Ghost. | |
`You are not looking at it,' said Scrooge. | |
`But I see it,' said the Ghost, `notwithstanding.' | |
`Well!' returned Scrooge, `I have but to swallow | |
this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a | |
legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, | |
I tell you! humbug!' | |
At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook | |
its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that | |
Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself | |
from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was | |
his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage | |
round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, | |
its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast! | |
Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands | |
before his face. | |
`Mercy!' he said. `Dreadful apparition, why do | |
you trouble me?' | |
`Man of the worldly mind!' replied the Ghost, `do | |
you believe in me or not?' | |
`I do,' said Scrooge. `I must. But why do spirits | |
walk the earth, and why do they come to me?' | |
`It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, | |
`that the spirit within him should walk abroad among | |
his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that | |
spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so | |
after death. It is doomed to wander through the | |
world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot | |
share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to | |
happiness!' | |
Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain | |
and wrung its shadowy hands. | |
`You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. `Tell | |
me why?' | |
`I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. | |
`I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded | |
it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I | |
wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?' | |
Scrooge trembled more and more. | |
`Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, `the | |
weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? | |
It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven | |
Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. | |
It is a ponderous chain!' | |
Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the | |
expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty | |
or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see | |
nothing. | |
`Jacob,' he said, imploringly. `Old Jacob Marley, | |
tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!' | |
`I have none to give,' the Ghost replied. `It comes | |
from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed | |
by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor | |
can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is | |
all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I | |
cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked | |
beyond our counting-house -- mark me! -- in life my | |
spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our | |
money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before | |
me!' | |
It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became | |
thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. | |
Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, | |
but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his | |
knees. | |
`You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,' | |
Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though | |
with humility and deference. | |
`Slow!' the Ghost repeated. | |
`Seven years dead,' mused Scrooge. `And travelling | |
all the time!' | |
`The whole time,' said the Ghost. `No rest, no | |
peace. Incessant torture of remorse.' | |
`You travel fast?' said Scrooge. | |
`On the wings of the wind,' replied the Ghost. | |
`You might have got over a great quantity of | |
ground in seven years,' said Scrooge. | |
The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and | |
clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of | |
the night, that the Ward would have been justified in | |
indicting it for a nuisance. | |
`Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,' cried the | |
phantom, `not to know, that ages of incessant labour, | |
by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into | |
eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is | |
all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit | |
working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may | |
be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast | |
means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of | |
regret can make amends for one life's opportunity | |
misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!' | |
`But you were always a good man of business, | |
Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this | |
to himself. | |
`Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands | |
again. `Mankind was my business. The common | |
welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, | |
and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings | |
of my trade were but a drop of water in the | |
comprehensive ocean of my business!' | |
It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were | |
the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it | |
heavily upon the ground again. | |
`At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said | |
`I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of | |
fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never | |
raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise | |
Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to | |
which its light would have conducted me!' | |
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the | |
spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake | |
exceedingly. | |
`Hear me!' cried the Ghost. `My time is nearly | |
gone.' | |
`I will,' said Scrooge. `But don't be hard upon | |
me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!' | |
`How it is that I appear before you in a shape that | |
you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible | |
beside you many and many a day.' | |
It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, | |
and wiped the perspiration from his brow. | |
`That is no light part of my penance,' pursued | |
the Ghost. `I am here to-night to warn you, that you | |
have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A | |
chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.' | |
`You were always a good friend to me,' said | |
Scrooge. `Thank `ee!' | |
`You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, `by | |
Three Spirits.' | |
Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the | |
Ghost's had done. | |
`Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, | |
Jacob?' he demanded, in a faltering voice. | |
`It is.' | |
`I -- I think I'd rather not,' said Scrooge. | |
`Without their visits,' said the Ghost, `you cannot | |
hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, | |
when the bell tolls One.' | |
`Couldn't I take `em all at once, and have it over, | |
Jacob?' hinted Scrooge. | |
`Expect the second on the next night at the same | |
hour. The third upon the next night when the last | |
stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see | |
me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you | |
remember what has passed between us!' | |
When it had said these words, the spectre took its | |
wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, | |
as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its | |
teeth made, when the jaws were brought together | |
by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, | |
and found his supernatural visitor confronting him | |
in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and | |
about its arm. | |
The apparition walked backward from him; and at | |
every step it took, the window raised itself a little, | |
so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open | |
It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. | |
When they were within two paces of each other, | |
Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to | |
come no nearer. Scrooge stopped. | |
Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: | |
for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible | |
of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of | |
lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and | |
self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, | |
joined in the mournful dirge; | |
and floated out upon the bleak, dark night. | |
Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his | |
curiosity. He looked out. | |
The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither | |
and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they | |
went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's | |
Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) | |
were linked together; none were free. Many had | |
been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He | |
had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white | |
waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to | |
its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist | |
a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, | |
upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, | |
clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in | |
human matters, and had lost the power for ever. | |
Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mis | |
enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and | |
their spirit voices faded together; and the night became | |
as it had been when he walked home. | |
Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door | |
by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, | |
as he had locked it with his own hands, and | |
the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say `Humbug!' | |
but stopped at the first syllable. And being, | |
from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues | |
of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or | |
the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of | |
the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to | |
bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the | |
instant. | |
Stave 2: The First of the Three Spirits | |
When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, | |
he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from | |
the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to | |
pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a | |
neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened | |
for the hour. | |
To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from | |
six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to | |
twelve; then stopped. Twelve. It was past two when he | |
went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have | |
got into the works. Twelve. | |
He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most | |
preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and | |
stopped. | |
`Why, it isn't possible,' said Scrooge, `that I can have | |
slept through a whole day and far into another night. It | |
isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and | |
this is twelve at noon.' | |
The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, | |
and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub | |
the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he | |
could see anything; and could see very little then. All he | |
could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely | |
cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and | |
with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up | |
in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed | |
were drawn. | |
The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a | |
hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his | |
back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains | |
of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a | |
half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the | |
unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now | |
to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow. | |
It was a strange figure -- like a child: yet not so like a | |
child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural | |
medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded | |
from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. | |
Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was | |
white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in | |
it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were | |
very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold | |
were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately | |
formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic | |
of the purest white, and round its waist was bound | |
a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held | |
a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular | |
contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed | |
with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, | |
that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear | |
jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was | |
doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a | |
great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm. | |
Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing | |
steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt | |
sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, | |
and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so | |
the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a | |
thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, | |
now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a | |
body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible | |
in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the | |
very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and | |
clear as ever. | |
`Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to | |
me.' asked Scrooge. | |
`I am.' | |
The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if | |
instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance. | |
`Who, and what are you.' Scrooge demanded. | |
`I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.' | |
`Long Past.' inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish | |
stature. | |
`No. Your past.' | |
Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if | |
anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire | |
to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered. | |
`What.' exclaimed the Ghost,' would you so soon put | |
out, with worldly hands, the light I give. Is it not enough | |
that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and | |
force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon | |
my brow.' | |
Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend | |
or any knowledge of having wilfully bonneted the Spirit at | |
any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what | |
business brought him there. | |
`Your welfare.' said the Ghost. | |
Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not | |
help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been | |
more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard | |
him thinking, for it said immediately: | |
`Your reclamation, then. Take heed.' | |
It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him | |
gently by the arm. | |
`Rise. and walk with me.' | |
It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the | |
weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; | |
that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below | |
freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, | |
dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at | |
that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, | |
was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit | |
made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication. | |
`I am mortal,' Scrooge remonstrated, `and liable to fall.' | |
`Bear but a touch of my hand there,' said the Spirit, | |
laying it upon his heart,' and you shall be upheld in more | |
than this.' | |
As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, | |
and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either | |
hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it | |
was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished | |
with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon | |
the ground. | |
`Good Heaven!' said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, | |
as he looked about him. `I was bred in this place. I was | |
a boy here.' | |
The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, | |
though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still | |
present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious | |
of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected | |
with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares | |
long, long, forgotten. | |
`Your lip is trembling,' said the Ghost. `And what is | |
that upon your cheek.' | |
Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, | |
that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him | |
where he would. | |
`You recollect the way.' inquired the Spirit. | |
`Remember it.' cried Scrooge with fervour; `I could | |
walk it blindfold.' | |
`Strange to have forgotten it for so many years.' observed | |
the Ghost. `Let us go on.' | |
They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every | |
gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared | |
in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. | |
Some 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. | |
`These are but shadows of the things that have been,' said | |
the Ghost. `They have no consciousness of us.' | |
The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge | |
knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond | |
all bounds to see them. Why did his cold eye glisten, and | |
his heart leap up as they went past. Why was he filled | |
with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry | |
Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for | |
their several homes. What was merry Christmas to Scrooge. | |
Out upon merry Christmas. What good had it ever done | |
to him. | |
`The school is not quite deserted,' said the Ghost. `A | |
solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.' | |
Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. | |
They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and | |
soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little | |
weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell | |
hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken | |
fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls | |
were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their | |
gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; | |
and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass. | |
Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for | |
entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open | |
doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, | |
cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a | |
chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow | |
with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too | |
much to eat. | |
They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a | |
door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and | |
disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by | |
lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely | |
boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down | |
upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he | |
used to be. | |
Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle | |
from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the | |
half-thawed | |
water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among | |
the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle | |
swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in | |
the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening | |
influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears. | |
The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his | |
younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in | |
foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: | |
stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and | |
leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood. | |
`Why, it's Ali Baba.' Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. `It's | |
dear old honest Ali Baba. Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas | |
time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, | |
he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy. And | |
Valentine,' said Scrooge,' and his wild brother, Orson; there | |
they go. And what's his name, who was put down in his | |
drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see him. | |
And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; | |
there he is upon his head. Serve him right. I'm glad of it. | |
What business had he to be married to the Princess.' | |
To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature | |
on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between | |
laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited | |
face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in | |
the city, indeed. | |
`There's the Parrot.' cried Scrooge. `Green body and | |
yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the | |
top of his head; there he is. Poor Robin Crusoe, he called | |
him, when he came home again after sailing round the | |
island. `Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin | |
Crusoe.' The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. | |
It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running | |
for his life to the little creek. Halloa. Hoop. Hallo.' | |
Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his | |
usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, `Poor | |
boy.' and cried again. | |
`I wish,' Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his | |
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his | |
cuff: `but it's too late now.' | |
`What is the matter.' asked the Spirit. | |
`Nothing,' said Scrooge. `Nothing. There was a boy | |
singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should | |
like to have given him something: that's all.' | |
The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: | |
saying as it did so, `Let us see another Christmas.' | |
Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the | |
room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, | |
the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the | |
ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how | |
all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you | |
do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything | |
had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all | |
the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. | |
He was not reading now, but walking up and down | |
despairingly. | |
Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful | |
shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. | |
It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, | |
came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and | |
often kissing him, addressed him as her `Dear, dear | |
brother.' | |
`I have come to bring you home, dear brother.' said the | |
child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. | |
`To bring you home, home, home.' | |
`Home, little Fan.' returned the boy. | |
`Yes.' said the child, brimful of glee. `Home, for good | |
and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder | |
than he used to be, that home's like Heaven. He spoke so | |
gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that | |
I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come | |
home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach | |
to bring you. And you're to be a man.' said the child, | |
opening her eyes,' and are never to come back here; but | |
first, we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have | |
the merriest time in all the world.' | |
`You are quite a woman, little Fan.' exclaimed the boy. | |
She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his | |
head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on | |
tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her | |
childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to | |
go, accompanied her. | |
A terrible voice in the hall cried.' Bring down Master | |
Scrooge's box, there.' and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster | |
himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious | |
condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind | |
by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his | |
sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that | |
ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial | |
and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. | |
Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a | |
block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments | |
of those dainties to the young people: at the same time, | |
sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of something | |
to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, | |
but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had | |
rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied | |
on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster | |
good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove | |
gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the | |
hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens | |
like spray. | |
`Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have | |
withered,' said the Ghost. `But she had a large heart.' | |
`So she had,' cried Scrooge. `You're right. I will not | |
gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid.' | |
`She died a woman,' said the Ghost,' and had, as I think, | |
children.' | |
`One child,' Scrooge returned. | |
`True,' said the Ghost. `Your nephew.' | |
Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, | |
`Yes.' | |
Although they had but that moment left the school behind | |
them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, | |
where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy | |
carts and coaches 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. | |
The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked | |
Scrooge if he knew it. | |
`Know it.' said Scrooge. `Was I apprenticed here.' | |
They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh | |
wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two | |
inches taller he must have knocked his head against the | |
ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement: | |
`Why, it's old Fezziwig. Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig | |
alive again.' | |
Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the | |
clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his | |
hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over | |
himself, from his shows to his organ of benevolence; and | |
called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice: | |
`Yo ho, there. Ebenezer. Dick.' | |
Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly | |
in, accompanied by his fellow-prentice. | |
`Dick Wilkins, to be sure.' said Scrooge to the Ghost. | |
`Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached | |
to me, was Dick. Poor Dick. Dear, dear.' | |
`Yo ho, my boys.' said Fezziwig. `No more work to-night. | |
Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer. Let's | |
have the shutters up,' cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap | |
of his hands,' before a man can say Jack Robinson.' | |
You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it. | |
They charged into the street with the shutters -- one, two, | |
three -- had them up in their places -- four, five, six -- barred | |
them and pinned then -- seven, eight, nine -- and came back | |
before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses. | |
`Hilli-ho!' cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the | |
high desk, with wonderful agility. `Clear away, my lads, | |
and let's have lots of room here. Hilli-ho, Dick. Chirrup, | |
Ebenezer.' | |
Clear away. There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared | |
away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking | |
on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if | |
it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was | |
swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon | |
the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and | |
bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter's | |
night. | |
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the | |
lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty | |
stomach-aches. In came Mrs Fezziwig, one vast substantial | |
smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and | |
lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they | |
broke. In came all the young men and women employed in | |
the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the | |
baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, | |
the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was | |
suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying | |
to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who | |
was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. | |
In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, | |
some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; | |
in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, | |
twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again | |
the other way; down the middle and up again; round | |
and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old | |
top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top | |
couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top | |
couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When | |
this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his | |
hands to stop the dance, cried out,' Well done.' and the | |
fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially | |
provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his | |
reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no | |
dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, | |
exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man | |
resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish. | |
There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more | |
dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there | |
was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece | |
of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. | |
But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast | |
and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind. The sort | |
of man who knew his business better than you or I could | |
have told it him.) struck up Sir Roger de Coverley.' Then | |
old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs Fezziwig. Top | |
couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; | |
three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were | |
not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no | |
notion of walking. | |
But if they had been twice as many -- ah, four times -- | |
old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would | |
Mrs Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner | |
in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me | |
higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue | |
from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the | |
dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given | |
time, what would have become of them next. And when old | |
Fezziwig and Mrs Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; | |
advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and | |
curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to | |
your place; Fezziwig cut -- cut so deftly, that he appeared | |
to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without | |
a stagger. | |
When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. | |
Mr and Mrs Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side | |
of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually | |
as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. | |
When everybody had retired but the two prentices, they did | |
the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, | |
and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a | |
counter in the back-shop. | |
During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a | |
man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, | |
and with his former self. He corroborated everything, | |
remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent | |
the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the | |
bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from | |
them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious | |
that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its | |
head burnt very clear. | |
`A small matter,' said the Ghost,' to make these silly | |
folks so full of gratitude.' | |
`Small.' echoed Scrooge. | |
The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, | |
who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: | |
and when he had done so, said, | |
`Why. Is it not. He has spent but a few pounds of | |
your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so | |
much that he deserves this praise.' | |
`It isn't that,' said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and | |
speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. | |
`It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy | |
or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a | |
pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and | |
looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is | |
impossible | |
to add and count them up: what then. The happiness | |
he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.' | |
He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped. | |
`What is the matter.' asked the Ghost. | |
`Nothing in particular,' said Scrooge. | |
`Something, I think.' the Ghost insisted. | |
`No,' said Scrooge,' No. I should like to be able to say | |
a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all.' | |
His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance | |
to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by | |
side in the open air. | |
`My time grows short,' observed the Spirit. `Quick.' | |
This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he | |
could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again | |
Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime | |
of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later | |
years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. | |
There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which | |
showed the passion that had taken root, and where the | |
shadow of the growing tree would fall. | |
He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young | |
girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, | |
which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of | |
Christmas Past. | |
`It matters little,' she said, softly. `To you, very little. | |
Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort | |
you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have | |
no just cause to grieve.' | |
`What Idol has displaced you.' he rejoined. | |
`A golden one.' | |
`This is the even-handed dealing of the world.' he said. | |
`There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and | |
there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity | |
as the pursuit of wealth.' | |
`You fear the world too much,' she answered, gently. | |
`All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being | |
beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your | |
nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, | |
Gain, engrosses you. Have I not.' | |
`What then.' he retorted. `Even if I have grown so | |
much wiser, what then. I am not changed towards you.' | |
She shook her head. | |
`Am I.' | |
`Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were | |
both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could | |
improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You | |
are changed. When it was made, you were another man.' | |
`I was a boy,' he said impatiently. | |
`Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you | |
are,' she returned. `I am. That which promised happiness | |
when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that | |
we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of | |
this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, | |
and can release you.' | |
`Have I ever sought release.' | |
`In words. No. Never.' | |
`In what, then.' | |
`In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another | |
atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In | |
everything that made my love of any worth or value in your | |
sight. If this had never been between us,' said the girl, | |
looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him;' tell me, | |
would you seek me out and try to win me now. Ah, no.' | |
He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in | |
spite of himself. But he said with a struggle,' You think | |
not.' | |
`I would gladly think otherwise if I could,' she answered, | |
`Heaven knows. When I have learned a Truth like this, | |
I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you | |
were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe | |
that you would choose a dowerless girl -- you who, in your | |
very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, | |
choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your | |
one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your | |
repentance and regret would surely follow. I do; and I | |
release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you | |
once were.' | |
He was about to speak; but with her head turned from | |
him, she resumed. | |
`You may -- the memory of what is past half makes me | |
hope you will -- have pain in this. A very, very brief time, | |
and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an | |
unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you | |
awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen.' | |
She left him, and they parted. | |
`Spirit.' said Scrooge,' show me no more. Conduct | |
me home. Why do you delight to torture me.' | |
`One shadow more.' exclaimed the Ghost. | |
`No more.' cried Scrooge. `No more, I don't wish to | |
see it. Show me no more.' | |
But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, | |
and forced him to observe what happened next. | |
They were in another scene and place; a room, not very | |
large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter | |
fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge | |
believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely | |
matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this | |
room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children | |
there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; | |
and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not | |
forty children conducting themselves like one, but every | |
child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences | |
were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; | |
on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, | |
and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to | |
mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands | |
most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to one of | |
them. Though I never could have been so rude, no, no. I | |
wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that | |
braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little | |
shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul. to | |
save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they | |
did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should | |
have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, | |
and never come straight again. And yet I should | |
have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have | |
questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have | |
looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never | |
raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of | |
which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should | |
have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence | |
of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its | |
value. | |
But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a | |
rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and | |
plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed | |
and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who | |
came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys | |
and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and | |
the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter. | |
The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his | |
pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight | |
by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back, | |
and kick his legs in irrepressible affection. The shouts of | |
wonder and delight with which the development of every | |
package was received. The terrible announcement that the | |
baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan | |
into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having | |
swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter. | |
The immense relief of finding this a false alarm. The joy, | |
and gratitude, and ecstasy. They are all indescribable alike. | |
It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions | |
got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the | |
top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided. | |
And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, | |
when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning | |
fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his | |
own fireside; and when he thought that such another | |
creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might | |
have called him father, and been a spring-time in the | |
haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed. | |
`Belle,' said the husband, turning to his wife with a | |
smile,' I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.' | |
`Who was it.' | |
`Guess.' | |
`How can I. Tut, don't I know.' she added in the | |
same breath, laughing as he laughed. `Mr Scrooge.' | |
`Mr Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as | |
it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could | |
scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point | |
of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in | |
the world, I do believe.' | |
`Spirit.' said Scrooge in a broken voice,' remove me | |
from this place.' | |
`I told you these were shadows of the things that have | |
been,' said the Ghost. `That they are what they are, do | |
not blame me.' | |
`Remove me.' Scrooge exclaimed,' I cannot bear it.' | |
He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon | |
him with a face, in which in some strange way there were | |
fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it. | |
`Leave me. Take me back. Haunt me no longer.' | |
In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which | |
the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was | |
undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed | |
that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly | |
connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the | |
extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down | |
upon its head. | |
The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher | |
covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down | |
with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed | |
from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground. | |
He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an | |
irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own | |
bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand | |
relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank | |
into a heavy sleep. | |
Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits | |
Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and | |
sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had | |
no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the | |
stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness | |
in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding | |
a conference with the second messenger despatched to him | |
through Jacob Marley's intervention. But, finding that he | |
turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which | |
of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put | |
them every one aside with his own hands, and lying down | |
again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For, | |
he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its | |
appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and | |
made nervous. | |
Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves | |
on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually | |
equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their | |
capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for | |
anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which | |
opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and | |
comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for | |
Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you | |
to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of | |
strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and | |
rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. | |
Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by | |
any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the | |
Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a | |
violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter | |
of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay | |
upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy | |
light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the | |
hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than | |
a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it | |
meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive | |
that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of | |
spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of | |
knowing it. At last, however, he began to think -- as you or | |
I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not | |
in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done | |
in it, and would unquestionably have done it too -- at last, I | |
say, he began to think that the source and secret of this | |
ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, | |
on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking | |
full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in | |
his slippers to the door. | |
The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange | |
voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He | |
obeyed. | |
It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. | |
But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls | |
and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a | |
perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming | |
berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and | |
ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had | |
been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring | |
up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had | |
never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and | |
many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form | |
a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, | |
great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, | |
mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, | |
cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, | |
immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that | |
made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy | |
state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to | |
see:, who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's | |
horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, | |
as he came peeping round the door. | |
`Come in.' exclaimed the Ghost. `Come in. and know | |
me better, man.' | |
Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this | |
Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and | |
though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like | |
to meet them. | |
`I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,' said the Spirit. | |
`Look upon me.' | |
Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple | |
green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment | |
hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was | |
bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any | |
artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the | |
garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other | |
covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining | |
icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its | |
genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, | |
its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded | |
round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword | |
was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust. | |
`You have never seen the like of me before.' exclaimed | |
the Spirit. | |
`Never,' Scrooge made answer to it. | |
`Have never walked forth with the younger members of | |
my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers | |
born in these later years.' pursued the Phantom. | |
`I don't think I have,' said Scrooge. `I am afraid I have | |
not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit.' | |
`More than eighteen hundred,' said the Ghost. | |
`A tremendous family to provide for.' muttered Scrooge. | |
The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. | |
`Spirit,' said Scrooge submissively,' conduct me where | |
you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt | |
a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught | |
to teach me, let me profit by it.' | |
`Touch my robe.' | |
Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. | |
Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, | |
poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, | |
fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, | |
the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood | |
in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the | |
weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and | |
not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the | |
pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of | |
their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see | |
it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting | |
into artificial little snow-storms. | |
The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows | |
blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow | |
upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; | |
which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by | |
the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed | |
and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great | |
streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace | |
in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, | |
and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, | |
half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended | |
in shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great | |
Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away | |
to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful | |
in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of | |
cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest | |
summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. | |
For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops | |
were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another | |
from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious | |
snowball -- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest -- | |
laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it | |
went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and | |
the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, | |
round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the | |
waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling | |
out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were | |
ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Friars, and winking | |
from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went | |
by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were | |
pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there | |
were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence | |
to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might | |
water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy | |
and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among | |
the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered | |
leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting | |
off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great | |
compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and | |
beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after | |
dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among | |
these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and | |
stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was | |
something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and | |
round their little world in slow and passionless excitement. | |
The Grocers'. oh the Grocers'. nearly closed, with perhaps | |
two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such | |
glimpses. It was not alone that the scales descending on the | |
counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller | |
parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled | |
up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended | |
scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even | |
that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so | |
extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, | |
the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and | |
spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on | |
feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs | |
were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in | |
modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that | |
everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but | |
the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful | |
promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other | |
at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left | |
their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to | |
fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in | |
the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people | |
were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which | |
they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, | |
worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws | |
to peck at if they chose. | |
But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and | |
chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in | |
their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the | |
same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and | |
nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners | |
to the baker' shops. The sight of these poor revellers | |
appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with | |
Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the | |
covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their | |
dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind | |
of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words | |
between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he | |
shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good | |
humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame | |
to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love | |
it, so it was. | |
In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and | |
yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners | |
and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of | |
wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as | |
if its stones were cooking too. | |
`Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from | |
your torch.' asked Scrooge. | |
`There is. My own.' | |
`Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day.' | |
asked Scrooge. | |
`To any kindly given. To a poor one most.' | |
`Why to a poor one most.' asked Scrooge. | |
`Because it needs it most.' | |
`Spirit,' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought,' I wonder | |
you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should | |
desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent | |
enjoyment.' | |
`I.' cried the Spirit. | |
`You would deprive them of their means of dining every | |
seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said | |
to dine at all,' said Scrooge. `Wouldn't you.' | |
`I.' cried the Spirit. | |
`You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day.' said | |
Scrooge. `And it comes to the same thing.' | |
`I seek.' exclaimed the Spirit. | |
`Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your | |
name, or at least in that of your family,' said Scrooge. | |
`There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the | |
Spirit,' who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds | |
of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and | |
selfishness | |
in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and | |
kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge | |
their doings on themselves, not us.' | |
Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, | |
invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the | |
town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which | |
Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding | |
his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place | |
with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as | |
gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible | |
he could have done in any lofty hall. | |
And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in | |
showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, | |
generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor | |
men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he | |
went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and | |
on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped | |
to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his | |
torch. Think of that. Bob had but fifteen bob a-week | |
himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his | |
Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present | |
blessed his four-roomed house. | |
Then up rose Mrs Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out | |
but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, | |
which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and | |
she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of | |
her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter | |
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and | |
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private | |
property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the | |
day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly | |
attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. | |
And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing | |
in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the | |
e the baker's they had smelt the | |
goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious | |
thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced | |
about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the | |
skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked | |
him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, | |
knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and | |
peeled. | |
`What has ever got your precious father then.' said Mrs | |
Cratchit. `And your brother, Tiny Tim. And Martha | |
warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour.' | |
`Here's Martha, mother.' said a girl, appearing as she | |
spoke. | |
`Here's Martha, mother.' cried the two young Cratchits. | |
`Hurrah. There's such a goose, Martha.' | |
`Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are.' | |
said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off | |
her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. | |
`We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,' replied the | |
girl,' and had to clear away this morning, mother.' | |
`Well. Never mind so long as you are come,' said Mrs | |
Cratchit. `Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have | |
a warm, Lord bless ye.' | |
`No, no. There's father coming,' cried the two young | |
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. `Hide, Martha, | |
hide.' | |
So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, | |
with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, | |
hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned | |
up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his | |
shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and | |
had his limbs supported by an iron frame. | |
`Why, where's our Martha.' cried Bob Cratchit, looking | |
round. | |
`Not coming,' said Mrs Cratchit. | |
`Not coming.' said Bob, with a sudden declension in his | |
high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way | |
from church, and had come home rampant. `Not coming | |
upon Christmas Day.' | |
Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only | |
in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet | |
door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits | |
hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, | |
that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. | |
`And how did little Tim behave. asked Mrs Cratchit, | |
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had | |
hugged his daughter to his heart's content. | |
`As good as gold,' said Bob,' and better. Somehow he | |
gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the | |
strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, | |
that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he | |
was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember | |
upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind | |
men see.' | |
Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and | |
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing | |
strong and hearty. | |
His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back | |
came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by | |
his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while | |
Bob, turning up his cuffs -- as if, poor fellow, they were | |
capable of being made more shabby -- compounded some hot | |
mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round | |
and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter, | |
and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the | |
goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. | |
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose | |
the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a | |
black swan was a matter of course -- and in truth it was | |
something very like it in that house. Mrs Cratchit made | |
the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; | |
Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; | |
Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted | |
the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny | |
corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for | |
everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard | |
upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest | |
they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be | |
helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was | |
said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs | |
Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared | |
to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the | |
long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of | |
delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, | |
excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with | |
the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah. | |
There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe | |
there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and | |
flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal | |
admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, | |
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as | |
Mrs Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small | |
atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at | |
last. Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest | |
Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to | |
the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Miss | |
Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone -- too nervous to | |
bear witnesses -- to take the pudding up and bring it in. | |
Suppose it should not be done enough. Suppose it should | |
break in turning out. Suppose somebody should have got | |
over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they | |
were merry with the goose -- a supposition at which the two | |
young Cratchits became livid. All sorts of horrors were | |
supposed. | |
Hallo. A great deal of steam. The pudding was out of | |
the copper. A smell like a washing-day. That was the | |
cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next | |
door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. | |
That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit | |
entered -- flushed, but smiling proudly -- with the pudding, | |
like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half | |
of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with | |
Christmas holly stuck into the top. | |
Oh, a wonderful pudding. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly | |
too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by | |
Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that | |
now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had | |
had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had | |
something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it | |
was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have | |
been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed | |
to hint at such a thing. | |
At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the | |
hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the | |
jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges | |
were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the | |
fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in | |
what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and | |
at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. | |
Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle. | |
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as | |
golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with | |
beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and | |
cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed: | |
`A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us.' | |
Which all the family re-echoed. | |
`God bless us every one.' said Tiny Tim, the last of all. | |
He sat very close to his father's side upon his little | |
stool. | |
Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the | |
child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that | |
he might be taken from him. | |
`Spirit,' said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt | |
before, `tell me if Tiny Tim will live.' | |
`I see a vacant seat,' replied the Ghost, `in the poor | |
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully | |
preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, | |
the child will die.' | |
`No, no,' said Scrooge. `Oh, no, kind Spirit. say he | |
will be spared.' | |
`If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none | |
other of my race,' returned the Ghost, `will find him here. | |
What then. If he be like to die, he had better do it, and | |
decrease the surplus population.' | |
Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by | |
the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief | |
`Man,' said the Ghost, `if man you be in heart, not | |
adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered | |
What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what | |
men shall live, what men shall die. It may be, that in the | |
sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live | |
than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God. to hear | |
the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life | |
among his hungry brothers in the dust.' | |
Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast | |
his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on | |
hearing his own name. | |
`Mr Scrooge.' said Bob; `I'll give you Mr Scrooge, the | |
Founder of the Feast.' | |
`The Founder of the Feast indeed.' cried Mrs Cratchit, | |
reddening. `I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece | |
of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good | |
appetite for it.' | |
`My dear,' said Bob, `the children. Christmas Day.' | |
`It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,' said she, `on | |
which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, | |
unfeeling man as Mr Scrooge. You know he is, Robert. | |
Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow.' | |
`My dear,' was Bob's mild answer, `Christmas Day.' | |
`I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,' said | |
Mrs Cratchit, `not for his. Long life to him. A merry | |
Christmas and a happy new year. He'll be very merry and | |
very happy, I have no doubt.' | |
The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of | |
their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank | |
it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge | |
was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast | |
a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full | |
five minutes. | |
After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than | |
before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done | |
with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his | |
eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full | |
five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed | |
tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; | |
and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from | |
between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular | |
investments he should favour when he came into the receipt | |
of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor | |
apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work | |
she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, | |
and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a | |
good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at | |
home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some | |
days before, and how the lord was much about as tall as | |
Peter;' at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you | |
couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this | |
time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and | |
by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in | |
the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, | |
and sang it very well indeed. | |
There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not | |
a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes | |
were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; | |
and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside | |
of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased | |
with one another, and contented with the time; and when | |
they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings | |
of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon | |
them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last. | |
By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty | |
heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, | |
the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and | |
all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of | |
the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot | |
plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep | |
red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. | |
There all the children of the house were running out | |
into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, | |
uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, | |
were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and | |
there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, | |
and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near | |
neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw | |
them enter -- artful witches, well they knew it -- in a glow. | |
But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on | |
their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought | |
that no one was at home to give them welcome when they | |
got there, instead of every house expecting company, and | |
piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how | |
the Ghost exulted. How it bared its breadth of breast, and | |
opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with | |
a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything | |
within its reach. The very lamplighter, who ran on before, | |
dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was | |
dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly | |
as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter | |
that he had any company but Christmas. | |
And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they | |
stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses | |
of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place | |
of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, | |
or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; | |
and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass. | |
Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery | |
red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a | |
sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in | |
the thick gloom of darkest night. | |
`What place is this.' asked Scrooge. | |
`A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of | |
the earth,' returned the Spirit. `But they know me. See.' | |
Alight shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they | |
advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and | |
stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a | |
glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their | |
children and their children's children, and another generation | |
beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. | |
The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling | |
of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a | |
Christmas song -- it had been a very old song when he was a | |
boy -- and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. | |
So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite | |
blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour | |
sank again. | |
The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his | |
robe, and passing on above the moor, sped -- whither. Not | |
to sea. To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw | |
the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; | |
and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it | |
rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it | |
had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. | |
Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league | |
or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, | |
the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. | |
Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds | |
-- born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the | |
water -- rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed. | |
But even here, two men who watched the light had made | |
a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed | |
out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their | |
horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they | |
wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and | |
one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and | |
scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship | |
might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in | |
itself. | |
Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea | |
-- on, on -- until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any | |
shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman | |
at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who | |
had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; | |
but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or | |
had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his | |
companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward | |
hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or | |
sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another | |
on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared | |
to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those | |
he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted | |
to remember him. | |
It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the | |
moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it | |
was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown | |
abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it | |
was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear | |
a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge | |
to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a | |
bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling | |
by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving | |
affability. | |
`Ha, ha.' laughed Scrooge's nephew. `Ha, ha, ha.' | |
If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a | |
man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can | |
say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, | |
and I'll cultivate his acquaintance. | |
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that | |
while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing | |
in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and | |
good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way: holding | |
his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the | |
most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage, | |
laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being | |
not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily. | |
`Ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha.' | |
`He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live.' cried | |
Scrooge's nephew. `He believed it too.' | |
`More shame for him, Fred.' said Scrooge's niece, | |
indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by | |
halves. They are always in earnest. | |
She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, | |
surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that | |
seemed made to be kissed -- as no doubt it was; all kinds of | |
good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another | |
when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever | |
saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what | |
you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, | |
`He's a comical old fellow,' said Scrooge's nephew,' that's | |
the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However, | |
his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing | |
to say against him.' | |
`I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,' hinted Scrooge's niece. | |
`At least you always tell me so.' | |
`What of that, my dear.' said Scrooge's nephew. `His | |
wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. | |
He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the | |
satisfaction of thinking -- ha, ha, ha. -- that he is ever going | |
to benefit us with it.' | |
`I have no patience with him,' observed Scrooge's niece. | |
Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed | |
the same opinion. | |
`Oh, I have.' said Scrooge's nephew. `I am sorry for | |
him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers | |
by his ill whims. Himself, always. Here, he takes it into | |
his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. | |
What's the consequence. He don't lose much of a dinner.' | |
`Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,' interrupted | |
Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they | |
must be allowed to have been competent judges, because | |
they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the | |
table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight. | |
`Well. I'm very glad to hear it,' said Scrooge's nephew, | |
`because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers. | |
What do you say, Topper.' | |
Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's | |
sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, | |
who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. | |
Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister -- the plump one with the lace | |
tucker: not the one with the roses -- blushed. | |
`Do go on, Fred,' said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. | |
`He never finishes what he begins to say. He is such a | |
ridiculous fellow.' | |
Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was | |
impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister | |
tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was | |
unanimously followed. | |
`I was only going to say,' said Scrooge's nephew,' that | |
the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making | |
merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant | |
moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses | |
pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, | |
either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I | |
mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he | |
likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas | |
till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it -- I defy | |
him -- if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after | |
year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you. If it only | |
puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, | |
that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday.' | |
It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking | |
Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much | |
caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any | |
rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the | |
bottle joyously. | |
After tea. they had some music. For they were a musical | |
family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a | |
Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who | |
could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never | |
swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face | |
over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and | |
played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: | |
you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had | |
been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the | |
boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of | |
Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the | |
things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he | |
softened more and more; and thought that if he could have | |
listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the | |
kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, | |
without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob | |
Marley. | |
But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After | |
a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children | |
sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its | |
mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop. There was first | |
a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I | |
no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he | |
had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done | |
thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the | |
Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after | |
that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the | |
credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, | |
tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, | |
smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went, | |
there went he. He always knew where the plump sister was. | |
He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up | |
against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would | |
have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would | |
have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly | |
have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. | |
She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. | |
But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her | |
silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got | |
her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his | |
conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to | |
know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her | |
head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by | |
pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain | |
about her neck; was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told | |
him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in | |
office, they were so very confidential together, behind the | |
curtains. | |
Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party, | |
but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, | |
in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close | |
behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her | |
love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. | |
Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was | |
very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat | |
her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as | |
could have told you. There might have been twenty people there, | |
young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge, for, | |
wholly forgetting the interest he had in what was going on, that | |
his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with | |
his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; | |
for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut | |
in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in | |
his head to be. | |
The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, | |
and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like | |
a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But | |
this the Spirit said could not be done. | |
`Here is a new game,' said Scrooge. `One half hour, | |
Spirit, only one.' | |
It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew | |
had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; | |
he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case | |
was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, | |
elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live | |
animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an | |
animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, | |
and lived in London, and walked about the streets, | |
and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and | |
didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, | |
and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a | |
tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh | |
question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a | |
fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that | |
he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last | |
the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out: | |
`I have found it out. I know what it is, Fred. I know | |
what it is.' | |
`What is it.' cried Fred. | |
`It's your Uncle Scrooge.' | |
Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal | |
sentiment, though some objected that the reply to `Is it a | |
bear.' ought to have been `Yes;' inasmuch as an answer | |
in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts | |
from Mr Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency | |
that way. | |
`He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,' said | |
Fred,' and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. | |
Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the | |
moment; and I say, "Uncle Scrooge."' | |
`Well. Uncle Scrooge.' they cried. | |
`A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old | |
man, whatever he is.' said Scrooge's nephew. `He wouldn't | |
take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle | |
Scrooge.' | |
Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light | |
of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious | |
company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, | |
if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene | |
passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his | |
nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels. | |
Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they | |
visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood | |
beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, | |
and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they | |
were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was | |
rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every | |
refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not | |
made fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he left his | |
blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts. | |
It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge | |
had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared | |
to be condensed into the space of time they passed | |
together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained | |
unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly | |
older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of | |
it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night party, when, | |
looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, | |
he noticed that its hair was grey. | |
`Are spirits' lives so short.' asked Scrooge. | |
`My life upon this globe, is very brief,' replied the Ghost. | |
`It ends to-night.' | |
`To-night.' cried Scrooge. | |
`To-night at midnight. Hark. The time is drawing | |
near.' | |
The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at | |
that moment. | |
`Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said | |
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe,' but I see | |
something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding | |
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw.' | |
`It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was | |
the Spirit's sorrowful reply. `Look here.' | |
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; | |
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt | |
down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. | |
`Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed | |
the Ghost. | |
They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, | |
scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where | |
graceful youth should have filled their features out, and | |
touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled | |
hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and | |
pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat | |
enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No | |
change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any | |
grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has | |
monsters half so horrible and dread. | |
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to | |
him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but | |
the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie | |
of such enormous magnitude. | |
`Spirit. are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more. | |
`They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon | |
them. `And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. | |
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, | |
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for | |
on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the | |
writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out | |
its hand towards the city. `Slander those who tell it ye. | |
Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. | |
And abide the end.' | |
`Have they no refuge or resource.' cried Scrooge. | |
`Are there no prisons.' said the Spirit, turning on him | |
for the last time with his own words. `Are there no workhouses.' | |
The bell struck twelve. | |
Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it | |
not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the | |
prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting | |
up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and | |
hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards | |
him. | |
Stave 4: The Last of the Spirits | |
The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When | |
it came, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in | |
the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to | |
scatter gloom and mystery. | |
It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed | |
its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible | |
save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been | |
difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it | |
from the darkness by which it was surrounded. | |
He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside | |
him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a | |
solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither | |
spoke nor moved. | |
`I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To | |
Come.' said Scrooge. | |
The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its | |
hand. | |
`You are about to show me shadows of the things that | |
have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,' | |
Scrooge pursued. `Is that so, Spirit.' | |
The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an | |
instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. | |
That was the only answer he received. | |
Although well used to ghostly company by this time, | |
Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled | |
beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when | |
he prepared to follow it. The Spirit pauses a moment, as | |
observing his condition, and giving him time to recover. | |
But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him | |
with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the | |
dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon | |
him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, | |
could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap | |
of black. | |
`Ghost of the Future.' he exclaimed,' I fear you more | |
than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose | |
is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another | |
man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, | |
and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak | |
to me.' | |
It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight | |
before them. | |
`Lead on.' said Scrooge. `Lead on. The night is | |
waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead | |
on, Spirit.' | |
The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. | |
Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him | |
up, he thought, and carried him along. | |
They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather | |
seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its | |
own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on | |
Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, | |
and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in | |
groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully | |
with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had | |
seen them often. | |
The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. | |
Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge | |
advanced to listen to their talk. | |
`No,' said a great fat man with a monstrous chin,' I | |
don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's | |
dead.' | |
`When did he die.' inquired another. | |
`Last night, I believe.' | |
`Why, what was the matter with him.' asked a third, | |
taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. | |
`I thought he'd never die.' | |
`God knows,' said the first, with a yawn. | |
`What has he done with his money.' asked a red-faced | |
gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his | |
nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock. | |
`I haven't heard,' said the man with the large chin, | |
yawning again. `Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't | |
left it to me. That's all I know.' | |
This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. | |
`It's likely to be a very cheap funeral,' said the same | |
speaker;' for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go | |
to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer.' | |
`I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,' observed the | |
gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. `But I must | |
be fed, if I make one.' | |
Another laugh. | |
`Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,' | |
said the first speaker,' for I never wear black gloves, and I | |
never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. | |
When I come to think of it, I <m not at all sure that I wasn't | |
his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak | |
whenever we met. Bye, bye.' | |
Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with | |
other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the | |
Spirit for an explanation. | |
The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed | |
to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking | |
that the explanation might lie here. | |
He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of aye | |
business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made | |
a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business | |
point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view. | |
`How are you.' said one. | |
`How are you.' returned the other. | |
`Well.' said the first. `Old Scratch has got his own at | |
last, hey.' | |
`So I am told,' returned the second. `Cold, isn't it.' | |
`Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I | |
suppose.' | |
`No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning.' | |
Not another word. That was their meeting, their | |
conversation, and their parting. | |
Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the | |
Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so | |
trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden | |
purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. | |
They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the | |
death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this | |
Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any | |
one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could | |
apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever | |
they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement, | |
he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, | |
and everything he saw; and especially to observe the | |
shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation | |
that the conduct of his future self would give him | |
the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these | |
riddles easy. | |
He looked about in that very place for his own image; but | |
another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the | |
clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he | |
saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured | |
in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however; | |
for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and | |
thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried | |
out in this. | |
Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its | |
outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his | |
thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and | |
its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes | |
were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel | |
very cold. | |
They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part | |
of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, | |
although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The | |
ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; | |
the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and | |
archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of | |
smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the | |
whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery. | |
Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, | |
beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, | |
bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor | |
within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, | |
files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets | |
that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in | |
mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and | |
sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a | |
charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, | |
nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the | |
cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous | |
tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury | |
of calm retirement. | |
Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this | |
man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the | |
shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, | |
similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by | |
a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight | |
of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each | |
other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which | |
the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three | |
burst into a laugh. | |
`Let the charwoman alone to be the first.' cried she who | |
had entered first. `Let the laundress alone to be the second; | |
and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look | |
here, old Joe, here's a chance. If we haven't all three met | |
here without meaning it.' | |
`You couldn't have met in a better place,' said old Joe, | |
removing his pipe from his mouth. `Come into the parlour. | |
You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other | |
two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. | |
Ah. How it skreeks. There an't such a rusty bit of metal | |
in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's | |
no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha. We're all suitable | |
to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the | |
parlour. Come into the parlour.' | |
The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The | |
old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and | |
having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the | |
stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again. | |
While he did this, the woman who had already spoken | |
threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting | |
manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and | |
looking with a bold defiance at the other two. | |
`What odds then. What odds, Mrs Dilber.' said the | |
woman. `Every person has a right to take care of themselves. | |
He always did.' | |
`That's true, indeed.' said the laundress. `No man | |
more so.' | |
`Why then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, | |
woman; who's the wiser. We're not going to pick holes in | |
each other's coats, I suppose.' | |
`No, indeed.' said Mrs Dilber and the man together. | |
`We should hope not.' | |
`Very well, then.' cried the woman. `That's enough. | |
Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these. | |
Not a dead man, I suppose.' | |
`No, indeed,' said Mrs Dilber, laughing. | |
`If he wanted to keep them after he was dead, a wicked old | |
screw,' pursued the woman,' why wasn't he natural in his | |
lifetime. If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look | |
after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying | |
gasping out his last there, alone by himself.' | |
`It's the truest word that ever was spoke,' said Mrs | |
Dilber. `It's a judgment on him.' | |
`I wish it was a little heavier judgment,' replied the | |
woman;' and it should have been, you may depend upon it, | |
if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that | |
bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out | |
plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to | |
see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, | |
before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, | |
Joe.' | |
But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; | |
and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, | |
produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, | |
a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no | |
great value, were all. They were severally examined and | |
appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed | |
to give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a | |
total when he found there was nothing more to come. | |
`That's your account,' said Joe,' and I wouldn't give | |
another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. | |
Who's next.' | |
Mrs Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing | |
apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of | |
sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall | |
in the same manner. | |
`I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, | |
and that's the way I ruin myself,' said old Joe. `That's | |
your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made | |
it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal and knock | |
off half-a-crown.' | |
`And now undo my bundle, Joe,' said the first woman. | |
Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience | |
of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots, | |
dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff. | |
`What do you call this.' said Joe. `Bed-curtains.' | |
`Ah.' returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward | |
on her crossed arms. `Bed-curtains.' | |
`You don't mean to say you took them down, rings and | |
all, with him lying there.' said Joe. | |
`Yes I do,' replied the woman. `Why not.' | |
`You were born to make your fortune,' said Joe,' and | |
you'll certainly do it.' | |
`I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything | |
in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he | |
was, I promise you, Joe,' returned the woman coolly. `Don't | |
drop that oil upon the blankets, now.' | |
`His blankets.' asked Joe. | |
`Whose else's do you think.' replied the woman. `He | |
isn't likely to take cold without them, I dare say.' | |
`I hope he didn't die of any thing catching. Eh.' said | |
old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up. | |
`Don't you be afraid of that,' returned the woman. `I | |
an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for | |
such things, if he did. Ah. you may look through that | |
shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor | |
a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. | |
They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me.' | |
`What do you call wasting of it.' asked old Joe. | |
`Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,' replied | |
the woman with a laugh. `Somebody was fool enough to | |
do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for | |
such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite | |
as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did | |
in that one.' | |
Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat | |
grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by | |
the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and | |
disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they | |
demons, marketing the corpse itself. | |
`Ha, ha.' laughed the same woman, when old Joe, | |
producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their | |
several gains upon the ground. `This is the end of it, you | |
see. He frightened every one away from him when he was | |
alive, to profit us when he was dead. Ha, ha, ha.' | |
`Spirit.' said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. `I | |
see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. | |
My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is | |
this.' | |
He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now | |
he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, | |
beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, | |
which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful | |
language. | |
The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with | |
any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience | |
to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it | |
was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon | |
the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, | |
uncared for, was the body of this man. | |
Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand | |
was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted | |
that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon | |
Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought | |
of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; | |
but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss | |
the spectre at his side. | |
Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar | |
here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy | |
command: for this is thy dominion. But of the loved, | |
revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair | |
to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is | |
not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; | |
it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the | |
hand was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, | |
and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike. | |
And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow | |
the world with life immortal. | |
No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and | |
yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He | |
thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be | |
his foremost thoughts. Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares. | |
They have brought him to a rich end, truly. | |
He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a | |
woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this | |
or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be | |
kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was | |
a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What | |
they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so | |
restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think. | |
`Spirit.' he said,' this is a fearful place. In leaving it, | |
I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go.' | |
Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the | |
head. | |
`I understand you,' Scrooge returned,' and I would do | |
it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have | |
not the power.' | |
Again it seemed to look upon him. | |
`If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion | |
caused by this man's death,' said Scrooge quite agonised, | |
`show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you.' | |
The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a | |
moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room | |
by daylight, where a mother and her children were. | |
She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; | |
for she walked up and down the room; started at every | |
sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; | |
tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly | |
bear the voices of the children in their play. | |
At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried | |
to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was | |
careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was | |
a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight | |
of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress. | |
He sat down to the dinner that had been boarding for | |
him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news | |
(which was not until after a long silence), he appeared | |
embarrassed how to answer. | |
`Is it good.' she said, `or bad?' -- to help him. | |
`Bad,' he answered. | |
`We are quite ruined.' | |
`No. There is hope yet, Caroline.' | |
`If he relents,' she said, amazed, `there is. Nothing is | |
past hope, if such a miracle has happened.' | |
`He is past relenting,' said her husband. `He is dead.' | |
She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke | |
truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she | |
said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next | |
moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of | |
her heart. | |
`What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last | |
night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a | |
week's delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid | |
me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only | |
very ill, but dying, then.' | |
`To whom will our debt be transferred.' | |
`I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready | |
with the money; and even though we were not, it would be | |
a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his | |
successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline.' | |
Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. | |
The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what | |
they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier | |
house for this man's death. The only emotion that the | |
Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of | |
pleasure. | |
`Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,' said | |
Scrooge;' or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just | |
now, will be for ever present to me.' | |
The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar | |
to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and | |
there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They | |
entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; the dwelling he had | |
visited before; and found the mother and the children seated | |
round the fire. | |
Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as | |
still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, | |
who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters | |
were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet. | |
`And he took a child, and set him in the midst of | |
them.' | |
Where had Scrooge heard those words. He had not | |
dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he | |
and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not | |
go on. | |
The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her | |
hand up to her face. | |
`The colour hurts my eyes,' she said. | |
The colour. Ah, poor Tiny Tim. | |
`They're better now again,' said Cratchit's wife. `It | |
makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak | |
eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It | |
must be near his time.' | |
`Past it rather,' Peter answered, shutting up his book. | |
`But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, | |
these few last evenings, mother.' | |
They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a | |
steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once: | |
`I have known him walk with -- I have known him walk | |
with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed.' | |
`And so have I,' cried Peter. `Often.' | |
`And so have I,' exclaimed another. So had all. | |
`But he was very light to carry,' she resumed, intent upon | |
her work,' and his father loved him so, that it was no | |
trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door.' | |
She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter | |
-- he had need of it, poor fellow -- came in. His tea | |
was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should | |
help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got | |
upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against | |
his face, as if they said,' Don't mind it, father. Don't be | |
grieved.' | |
Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to | |
all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and | |
praised the industry and speed of Mrs Cratchit and the girls. | |
They would be done long before Sunday, he said. | |
`Sunday. You went to-day, then, Robert.' said his | |
wife. | |
`Yes, my dear,' returned Bob. `I wish you could have | |
gone. It would have done you good to see how green a | |
place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I | |
would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child.' | |
cried Bob. `My little child.' | |
He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he | |
could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther | |
apart perhaps than they were. | |
He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above, | |
which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. | |
There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were | |
signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat | |
down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed | |
himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what | |
had happened, and went down again quite happy. | |
They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother | |
working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness | |
of Mr Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but | |
once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing | |
that he looked a little -' just a little down you know,' said | |
Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. `On | |
which,' said Bob,' for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman | |
you ever heard, I told him. `I am heartily sorry for it, Mr | |
Cratchit,' he said,' and heartily sorry for your good wife.' | |
By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't know.' | |
`Knew what, my dear.' | |
`Why, that you were a good wife,' replied Bob. | |
`Everybody knows that.' said Peter. | |
`Very well observed, my boy.' cried Bob. `I hope they | |
do. `Heartily sorry,' he said,' for your good wife. If I | |
can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me | |
his card,' that's where I live. Pray come to me.' Now, it | |
wasn't,' cried Bob,' for the sake of anything he might be | |
able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was | |
quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our | |
Tiny Tim, and felt with us.' | |
`I'm sure he's a good soul.' said Mrs Cratchit. | |
`You would be surer of it, my dear,' returned Bob,' if | |
you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised | |
- mark what I say. -- if he got Peter a better situation.' | |
`Only hear that, Peter,' said Mrs Cratchit. | |
`And then,' cried one of the girls,' Peter will be keeping | |
company with some one, and setting up for himself.' | |
`Get along with you.' retorted Peter, grinning. | |
`It's just as likely as not,' said Bob,' one of these days; | |
though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But however | |
and when ever we part from one another, I am sure we | |
shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim -- shall we -- or this | |
first parting that there was among us.' | |
`Never, father.' cried they all. | |
`And I know,' said Bob,' I know, my dears, that when | |
we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he | |
was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among | |
ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.' | |
`No, never, father.' they all cried again. | |
`I am very happy,' said little Bob,' I am very happy.' | |
Mrs Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the | |
two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook | |
hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from | |
God. | |
`Spectre,' said Scrooge,' something informs me that our | |
parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not | |
how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead.' | |
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as | |
before -- though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there | |
seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were | |
in the Future -- into the resorts of business men, but showed | |
him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, | |
but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, | |
until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment. | |
`This courts,' said Scrooge,' through which we hurry now, | |
is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length | |
of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be, | |
in days to come.' | |
The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere. | |
`The house is yonder,' Scrooge exclaimed. `Why do you | |
point away.' | |
The inexorable finger underwent no change. | |
Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked | |
in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was | |
not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. | |
The Phantom pointed as before. | |
He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither | |
he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. | |
He paused to look round before entering. | |
A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name | |
he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a | |
worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and | |
weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up | |
with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A | |
worthy place. | |
The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to | |
One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was | |
exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new | |
meaning in its solemn shape. | |
`Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,' | |
said Scrooge, `answer me one question. Are these the | |
shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of | |
things that May be, only.' | |
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which | |
it stood. | |
`Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if | |
persevered in, they must lead,' said Scrooge. `But if the | |
courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is | |
thus with what you show me.' | |
The Spirit was immovable as ever. | |
Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and | |
following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected | |
grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge. | |
`Am I that man who lay upon the bed.' he cried, upon | |
his knees. | |
The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again. | |
`No, Spirit. Oh no, no.' | |
The finger still was there. | |
`Spirit.' he cried, tight clutching at its robe,' hear me. | |
I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must | |
have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I | |
am past all hope.' | |
For the first time the hand appeared to shake. | |
`Good Spirit,' he pursued, as down upon the ground he | |
fell before it:' Your nature intercedes for me, and pities | |
me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you | |
have shown me, by an altered life.' | |
The kind hand trembled. | |
`I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it | |
all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the | |
Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I | |
will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I | |
may sponge away the writing on this stone.' | |
In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to | |
free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. | |
The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. | |
Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate aye | |
reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. | |
It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost. | |
Stave 5: The End of It | |
Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, | |
the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time | |
before him was his own, to make amends in! | |
`I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.' | |
Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. `The Spirits | |
of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley. | |
Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this. I say | |
it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees.' | |
He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, | |
that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his | |
call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the | |
Spirit, and his face was wet with tears. | |
`They are not torn down.' cried Scrooge, folding one of | |
his bed-curtains in his arms,' they are not torn down, rings | |
and all. They are here -- I am here -- the shadows of the | |
things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will | |
be. I know they will.' | |
His hands were busy with his garments all this time; | |
turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, | |
tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every | |
kind of extravagance. | |
`I don't know what to do.' cried Scrooge, laughing and | |
crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of | |
himself with his stockings. `I am as light as a feather, I | |
am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I | |
am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to | |
everybody. A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo | |
here. Whoop. Hallo.' | |
He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing | |
there: perfectly winded. | |
`There's the saucepan that the gruel was in.' cried | |
Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace. | |
`There's the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley | |
entered. There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas | |
Present, sat. There's the window where I saw the wandering | |
Spirits. It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. | |
Ha ha ha.' | |
Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so | |
many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. | |
The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs. | |
`I don't know what day of the month it is.' said | |
Scrooge. `I don't know how long I've been among the | |
Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never | |
mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo. Whoop. | |
Hallo here.' | |
He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing | |
out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, | |
hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, | |
clash. Oh, glorious, glorious. | |
Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his | |
head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; | |
cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; | |
Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious. | |
Glorious. | |
`What's to-day.' cried Scrooge, calling downward to a | |
boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look | |
about him. | |
`Eh.' returned the boy, with all his might of wonder. | |
`What's to-day, my fine fellow.' said Scrooge. | |
`To-day.' replied the boy. `Why, Christmas Day.' | |
`It's Christmas Day.' said Scrooge to himself. `I | |
haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. | |
They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of | |
course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow.' | |
`Hallo.' returned the boy. | |
`Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one, | |
at the corner.' Scrooge inquired. | |
`I should hope I did,' replied the lad. | |
`An intelligent boy.' said Scrooge. `A remarkable boy. | |
Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that | |
was hanging up there -- Not the little prize Turkey: the | |
big one.' | |
`What, the one as big as me.' returned the boy. | |
`What a delightful boy.' said Scrooge. `It's a pleasure | |
to talk to him. Yes, my buck.' | |
`It's hanging there now,' replied the boy. | |
`Is it.' said Scrooge. `Go and buy it.' | |
`Walk-er.' exclaimed the boy. | |
`No, no,' said Scrooge, `I am in earnest. Go and buy | |
it, and tell them to bring it here, that I may give them the | |
direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and | |
I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than | |
five minutes and I'll give you half-a-crown.' | |
The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady | |
hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast. | |
`I'll send it to Bon Cratchit's.' whispered Scrooge, | |
rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. `He shan't | |
know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe | |
Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's | |
will be.' | |
The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady | |
one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to | |
open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's | |
man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker | |
caught his eye. | |
`I shall love it, as long as I live.' cried Scrooge, patting | |
it with his hand. `I scarcely ever looked at it before. | |
What an honest expression it has in its face. It's a | |
wonderful knocker. -- Here's the Turkey. Hallo. Whoop. | |
How are you. Merry Christmas.' | |
It was a Turkey. He never could have stood upon his | |
legs, that bird. He would have snapped them short off in a | |
minute, like sticks of sealing-wax. | |
`Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,' | |
said Scrooge. `You must have a cab.' | |
The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with | |
which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which | |
he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed | |
the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle | |
with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and | |
chuckled till he cried. | |
Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to | |
shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when | |
you don't dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the | |
end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of | |
sticking-plaister | |
over it, and been quite satisfied. | |
He dressed himself all in his best, and at last got out | |
into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, | |
as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; | |
and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded | |
every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly | |
pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows | |
said,' Good morning, sir. A merry Christmas to you.' | |
And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe | |
sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears. | |
He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he | |
beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his | |
counting-house the day before, and said,' Scrooge and Marley's, I | |
believe.' It sent a pang across his heart to think how this | |
old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he | |
knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it. | |
`My dear sir,' said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and | |
taking the old gentleman by both his hands. `How do you | |
do. I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of | |
you. A merry Christmas to you, sir.' | |
`Mr Scrooge.' | |
`Yes,' said Scrooge. `That is my name, and I fear it | |
may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. | |
And will you have the goodness' -- here Scrooge whispered in | |
his ear. | |
`Lord bless me.' cried the gentleman, as if his breath | |
were taken away. `My dear Mr Scrooge, are you serious.' | |
`If you please,' said Scrooge. `Not a farthing less. A | |
great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. | |
Will you do me that favour.' | |
`My dear sir,' said the other, shaking hands with him. | |
`I don't know what to say to such munificence.' | |
`Don't say anything please,' retorted Scrooge. `Come | |
and see me. Will you come and see me.' | |
`I will.' cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he | |
meant to do it. | |
`Thank you,' said Scrooge. `I am much obliged to you. | |
I thank you fifty times. Bless you.' | |
He went to church, and walked about the streets, and | |
watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children | |
on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into | |
the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found | |
that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never | |
dreamed that any walk -- that anything -- could give him so | |
much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps | |
towards his nephew's house. | |
He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the | |
courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and | |
did it: | |
`Is your master at home, my dear.' said Scrooge to the | |
girl. Nice girl. Very. | |
`Yes, sir.' | |
`Where is he, my love.' said Scrooge. | |
`He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll | |
show you up-stairs, if you please.' | |
`Thank you. He knows me,' said Scrooge, with his hand | |
already on the dining-room lock. `I'll go in here, my dear.' | |
He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. | |
They were looking at the table (which was spread out in | |
great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous | |
on such points, and like to see that everything is right. | |
`Fred.' said Scrooge. | |
Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started. | |
Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting | |
in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done | |
it, on any account. | |
`Why bless my soul.' cried Fred,' who's that.' | |
`It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. | |
Will you let me in, Fred.' | |
Let him in. It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. | |
He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. | |
His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he | |
came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did | |
every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful | |
games, wonderful unanimity, wonderful happiness. | |
But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was | |
early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob | |
Cratchit coming late. That was the thing he had set his | |
heart upon. | |
And he did it; yes, he did. The clock struck nine. No | |
Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen | |
minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his | |
door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank. | |
His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter | |
too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his | |
pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock. | |
`Hallo.' growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as | |
near as he could feign it. `What do you mean by coming | |
here at this time of day.' | |
`I am very sorry, sir,' said Bob. `I am behind my time.' | |
`You are.' repeated Scrooge. `Yes. I think you are. | |
Step this way, sir, if you please.' | |
`It's only once a year, sir,' pleaded Bob, appearing from | |
the Tank. `It shall not be repeated. I was making rather | |
merry yesterday, sir.' | |
`Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,' said Scrooge,' I | |
am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And | |
therefore,' he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving | |
Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into | |
the Tank again;' and therefore I am about to raise your | |
salary.' | |
Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He | |
had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, | |
holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help | |
and a strait-waistcoat. | |
`A merry Christmas, Bob,' said Scrooge, with an earnestness | |
that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the | |
back. `A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I | |
have given you for many a year. I'll raise your salary, and | |
endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss | |
your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of | |
smoking bishop, Bob. Make up the fires, and buy another | |
coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit.' | |
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and | |
infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was | |
a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a | |
master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or | |
any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old | |
world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, | |
but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was | |
wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this | |
globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill | |
of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these | |
would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they | |
should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in | |
less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was | |
quite enough for him. | |
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon | |
the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was | |
always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas | |
well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that | |
be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim | |
observed, God bless Us, Every One! | |
END. | |
. |
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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought | |
forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, | |
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. | |
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether | |
that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, | |
can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. | |
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final | |
resting place for those who here gave their lives that | |
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper | |
that we should do this. | |
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- | |
we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. | |
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have | |
\consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. | |
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, | |
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the | |
living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work | |
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. | |
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task | |
remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take | |
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the | |
last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly | |
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- | |
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth | |
of freedom -- and that government of the people, | |
by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. |
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-module(index). | |
-export([get_file_contents/1,show_file_contents/1]). | |
% Used to read a file into a list of lines. | |
% Example files available in: | |
% gettysburg-address.txt (short) | |
% dickens-christmas.txt (long) | |
% Get the contents of a text file into a list of lines. | |
% Each line has its trailing newline removed. | |
get_file_contents(Name) -> | |
{ok,File} = file:open(Name,[read]), | |
Rev = get_all_lines(File,[]), | |
lists:reverse(Rev). | |
% Auxiliary function for get_file_contents. | |
% Not exported. | |
get_all_lines(File,Partial) -> | |
case io:get_line(File,"") of | |
eof -> file:close(File), | |
Partial; | |
Line -> {Strip,_} = lists:split(length(Line)-1,Line), | |
get_all_lines(File,[Strip|Partial]) | |
end. | |
% Show the contents of a list of strings. | |
% Can be used to check the results of calling get_file_contents. | |
show_file_contents([L|Ls]) -> | |
io:format("~s~n",[L]), | |
show_file_contents(Ls); | |
show_file_contents([]) -> | |
ok. | |
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one two three four five, | |
one two three four five, | |
one two three four five, | |
one two three four five, | |
one two three four five, |
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