WORKS OF OHAkLES DICKENS. — ♦- Itibrar^ f-bxtiott VOL. XXil. OEHISTxMAS BOOKB. nf ^// Jo//-. CHRISTMAS BOOKS. BY CHARLES DICKENS. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. BOSTON: FIELDS, OSGOOD & CO. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1869. ^j~s-o q6 6({ c I PREFACE. The narrow space within which it was necessary to confine tl.ese Christmas Stories when tliey were originally published, rendered their construction a matter of some difficult^', and almost necessitated whah is peculiar in their machinery. I never attempted great elaboration of detail in the working ont of character within such limits, beKeviug that it could not succeed. My purpose was, in a whimsical kind of masque which the good humour of the season justified, to awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season in a ChFiatian land. \ 3 ^' ^ CONTENTS. PAOR A CHRISTMAS CAROL .,..,. » 1 THE CHIMES « - T9 THE CRICKET ON THh HEAKTH , . . . .161 THE BATTLE OF LIFi ... .... 245 THE HAUNTED MAN ... -,,.-, 325 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. THE BATTLE OF LIFE. PAQK Mr. Birtlks carves John Leech . . 258 The Sisters D. Maclise, U.A. . 323 THE HAUXTED MAN. Haunted J. Tenniel . , . 327 A Wild Night off the Lighthouse . . C. Stanfield, R.A. . 330 Moloch and his Victims .... Frank Stone . . 399 "Lord keep thy Mk^ouv GtReen " . . . C. Staspield, R.A. . 412 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. IN PROSE. HEING A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS. f / h A CHRISTMAS CAROL STAVE ONE. maklet's ghost. Marlet was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial >vas 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 know- ledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, mys elf, to regard a coflBn-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,l^is 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 wonder- ful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before tho B 2 6 A CHRISTIIAS CAROL. play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in hcis taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his or 'i ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged g - tleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot— | ' Saint Paul's Church-yard for instance — literally to astonisti 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. I Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge ! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutch- ing, 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 no^e, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait ; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue ; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him ; he iced his office in the dog-days ; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often *' came down " handsomely, and Scrooge never did. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with glad- some 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 blindmen's dogs appeared to know him ; and when they saw him coming on, would tug tlieir owners into doorways and up courts ; and then would wag their tails as though they said, ^' no eye at aU is bettor tnan an evil eye, dark master ! " to Scrooge. _ , A CHRISTMAS CAROL mj^i But wliat did Scrooge care ! It was the very thing he liked. W JTo edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all P jnuman sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing lones call " nuts Once upon a time- days isr^e yeaa?, on Christmas Eve — old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: fo ggy 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. - Tho oit}r, c locks had ^^nly jnst gone three, but it-wa;S- quite dart^ready— — ^=it-^a4-f io t been li g h t ni l c\n j . — an d candl o o wore fla ring in ^the window* of the-neighbouring offices, pke rnddy^ smears" /l^^ap on the palpable b i own air; The fe^cRmPi pouring in-at , .every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that \ a lthough the court was of the narrowest, the houses oppeeit^- • : jvere mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping dxxwn,— obsc uring everyth ing, one might have thought th^t 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. ^^Scroo^e^^had a verysmaU firfi^uithgclerk^fli;e wasgQvery much s maJlCT that iQoa^ilik^'tine coat^ But te'coiddn^treplemsK'^t, for >croogekept the coal-15oxTn 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 efibrt, not being a man of strong imagina- tion, he failed. *' A merry Christmas, uncle ! God save you ! " cried a cheerful voice. Itr- wao th o voio o-of Scro oge' s n e ph e^^H(|io i ciame upon him Sb quickly thati this\was ^CLfirsit iotin^^tion. he- had of his-apploach> ' Bah ! " said^Scre^ige, " Humbug ! " V He had so heatM. himself witk rapid walki^ in thettbg and , frW, thik nephew Vf Scrooge's, that he was VU in a\ glow; / hisXface w^s ruddy Wd handsom^ his eyes sparkled, aijd. hisf V breach smoked againV *' Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. " You don't mean that, I am sure ? " **I do," ^aitr~"Screege. '' Merry Christmas ! What right 6 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. have you to be merry ? What reason have you to be merry ? You're poor enough." '' Come then," r^ urn o d the n ephew gaily. '' What right have you to be dismal ? What reason have you to be morose ? You're rich enough." ^eroog-e having- no bettei^ariswer readyoTnlhe'spuFof the moment, said, ''Bah!" aguiert— andr-^9llewed-it--«p— with " Humbug ! " [t Don't be cross, uncle ! " said the nephew. '' What else can I be," returned-the -^uaele, " when I live in such a world of fools as this ? Merry Christmas ! Out Llipon merry Christmas ! What 's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money ; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen bf months presented dead against you Sft>|If I could work my will," saAd-Scrooge ind%nan%, ''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 ! " pl eade d th e n ephew. " Nephew ! " *e*tt3*nedHthG-usd%-Bte¥aly, " keep Christmas in yojir 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 1^ 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," ajfitumedrthe liephew, " Christmasjcmonff-the^rest. But I am sure I have always thought ofT^ristmas timepw£mIit::lias-come romid — a part from the veneration due ta its sacred name-aad-^OKgin, if anything belnngiTig tn it rnn ha Rpart 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 thinJi 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 ! " A CHRISTMAS CARC'L. 7 Thb^^rk in the tank 4^olimtarilj appla«4*sd. Becoming L immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, L ajttd extinguished the last frail spark- for ever, ^1.^-. y ^TLet me hear another sound from j/om," saidr-Scrooge, ?_ ^ Llland you '11 keep your Christmas by losing your situation ; J You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he-added, turning to his- nephew. ''I wonder you don^t go into Parliament." ** Don't be angry, uncle. Come ! Dine with us to-morrow." /^ Screoge-saidr^fcat^e- ^ uu ld see "him — ^yes, indeed he did. ) He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he S would see him in that extremity firsts _ ^ " But why ? " cried-SeroogeVe^feew. " Whj ? " Why did you get married ? " s^idrScreege. " Because I fell in love." " Because you fell in love ! ": gtowled 'Scrooge,{as if ttat rwere-4he-anly (Hie tTntig in. the~worlsJ more^diculaas thair 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," saidrScrooge. " I want nothing from you ; I ask nothing of you ; why cannot we be friends ? " '' Good afternoon," saidr-ScroCTge. " 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 '11 keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christ - mas, uncle]^ *' Goo^Taftemoon ! " saidrScrooge. _________ - " And A Happy New Year ! " ^^ ' \llGood afternoon ! " saJd^Scrooge. ___,/ 'His nephew leiTthe room without an angry word, notwith- standing. 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 over- heard him): " my clerk, with fifteen shillings a- week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I '11 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 hata off, in Scrooge's office 8 A CHRISTMAS CAJiOL. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him. " Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentle- men, referring to his list. " Have I the pleasure of address ing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley ? " "Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," (Scrooge replied J '' 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 credentialsf \ It certainly was ; for they had been two kindred spirits^ ; \ f^'p At the ominous word " liberality," Scrooge frowned, and ! shook his head, and handed the credentials back, f " At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge, "I said the gentleman, taking up a pei^ "it is more than usually desir- able 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 stni in operation ? " "They are. fctill," 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 some- thing had occurred to stop them in their useful course, "y'said Scrooge/ " I am very glad to hear it." " Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," (returned the gentle- man j)'' a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor same 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 r " " I wish to be left alone, "/"said Scroogey ** Since you ask \ A CHRISTMAS CAROJ^^>^ 0^ rilp/ me what I -svish, gentlemen, that is my As"5fif • I d(miM!asj&[ merry myself at Christmas, and I can't ^^^iilfi*% niake idle people merry. I help to support the estaDS;3im«i^a(^I-&ave mentioned — they cost enough : and those who ltf€h1&adiy--ofl 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,"yobserved the gentleman./ *' It 's not my business, "/Scrooge returned/ '' It 's .enough \ for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere^J with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good ^ afternoon, gentlemen ! " (Seemg clearly that it would be use l ess to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. ' Scrooge resumed his labours with an j^j ^unproved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper j '. than was usual with hin^. , — ,ssr=*- ^ Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people fran 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 beU 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. Thei water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings suddenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness j ^ of the shops where hoUy 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 impos- 1 sible 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 iO A CHRISTMAS CAKOL. shillings on tlie previous Monday for being drunk and blood tliii-sty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pudding in hig 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 St. Dunstan had but nipped the EvU Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusly 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 key-hole to regale him with a Christmas carol j 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 key-hole 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 '11 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 iU- used, I '11 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 honor of its being Christmas-eve, and then ran home to A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 11 Camden Town as hard as lie 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 ^pil0"Of Building up a yard, where it had so little business ^^ to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and- -seek with other houses,, and have forgotten the way out again^^.;,.^ It was old enough now, and dreary enough ; for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being 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. IM« also a fact j that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place ; also tfettt 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 under- going 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 fore- head. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot-air ; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible ; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression. /^: 12 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 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 pig- tail 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 tairs ; slowly too : trimming his candle as he went. /Tou 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 i^utton- for that. Harkhess Is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. — ^^©ut^ 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, bed-room, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate ; spoon and basin ready ; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge 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 1. A CHKiSTMAS CAROL. 18 suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker. Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in ; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus iecured against surprise, he took off his cravat ; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his night-cap ; and sat dowu ibre the fire to take his grueL It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter ight. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, lefore he could extract the least sensation of warmth from iuch a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters. Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts ; and yet that face of Marley, seven i 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 beepi a. copy of old Marley's head on, every one. ?X .zr-jL *T[umbug ! " said Scrooge ; and walked acrossthe 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 communi- cated for some purpose -now forgotten with a chamber in the" highest story of the building. It was with great astonish- ment, and with a strange, inexplioabi© 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 14 - A CHRISTMAS CAROL. i^^ he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below ; th 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 pig- tail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots ; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pig-tail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about hi« 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 LS senses. Iow__ngw ! " said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. *' What do you wantjEith me? " ^-* Much ! " — ^larley'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 U450 a «ihade," but substituted this, as ^»ore ■appropriate*--' Z"''^'*"^ *' In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley." pT^/ % ^^ Uan y ou — Hecoa.'you mt domx2'i asked ^roo^, looking doubtfully at him. "Doit,..tlieij." Scrooge asked the question, because -he'dTdnTTknow whether a ghost so transparent might find himself -ift-arcondition to A CHRISTJIAS CAROL. 15 take a chair ; and felt that in the event of its being impos- iiible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of tW fireplace, as if he were quite used to it. *^ You don 't believe in me," observed the Ghost. • " I -don't/ ' said Scrooge. ^" Whatevidence w ould you have of my. xeality. beyond that of your own senses ? '^ ** I don 't know," said Scrooge. ** ^?Ey^ you doubt your senses ? " ''Becauso/' said Scrooge, *' a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomacIT makes them eheats. 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 ^avy than of grave about you, whatever you are ! " ) j Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor /did he feel in his heart, by any means waggish then. The I truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting ', , i 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 i provided with an infernal atmosphere of his own. Scrooge , ! could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case ; for \ _ ' though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, \ I I and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour firom an vl I oven. , — „ ^:., _ -^ " Yon s fift this t »f^fhpi>Tr ? " 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. ** Ldo," replied the Ghost. *' You_aTejQot looking at it,'' said Scrooge. ** But I see iL" said the Ghost. " notwithstandins:," " Wdl ! " returned Scrooge,/M[J^ve 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;j humbug I " \ At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook 'rtsrcTTain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. OV\^ ^i L 20 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. STAYE TWO. THE FIRST OP 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 endeavour- ing 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 stiU very foggy and ex- tremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because " Three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order," and so forth, would have become a mere United States' security if there were no days to count by. O 4e A CHRISTMAS CAROL. ** 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 \Vhere it is. WiU 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 'U give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast ! " "The Founder of the Feast indeed I " cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. " I wished 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, imfeeling 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 'U 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 '11 be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt ! " The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of eir proceedings which had no heartiness in it. 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 dai-k shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes. After it had passed awav, they were ten times merrier that f CHRISTAIAS CAEOL. 47 beiOre, from the me:re relief of Scrooge the Baleful hein^^ done with. Bch Cratchii told them how he had a situation in his eye for Mas\^r Pete]|r, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpef/3e weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at '^m idea of Peter's being a man of business j and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular invest- ments 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 a-bed 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 bye 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 waterproof ; 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. J/ By this time it was getting dark and snowing pretty heavily; '"'V^d as Scrooge and the Spii'it went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlors, 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. Thero, 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-blinds 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 48 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. neighbour's house ; where, wo upon the single man who eaw them enter — artful witches, well they loieW it — in b. glow ! But, if you had judged from the numbers oi people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted ! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach ! The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas ! And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial- place of giants ; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed ; or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner ; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night. " What place is this ? " asked Scrooge. "A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth," returned the Spirit. " But they know me. See ! " A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their chil- dren 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 tho wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmiis 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 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 49 robe, and passing on above the moor, sped wbifcber ? 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 — bom 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 helms- man 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 by-gone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belong- ing to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for one 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 I to recognise it as his own nephew's, and to find himself in a 60 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 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, aU I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I 'U 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, indig- nantly. 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, too. Oh, perfectly 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 teU 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, A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 51 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 inte 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 T\dth the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight. " Well ! I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, " because I haven't any great faith in these young house- keepers. 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 out- cast, 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 I 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 cham- bers. 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 h2 A 62 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle, JQifously. (y..-^ >