{"id":244,"date":"2014-06-17T22:44:01","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T22:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/?post_type=chapter&p=244"},"modified":"2019-07-04T22:26:11","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T22:26:11","slug":"a-christmas-carol-stave-2","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/chapter\/a-christmas-carol-stave-2\/","title":{"raw":"A Christmas Carol: Stave 2","rendered":"A Christmas Carol: Stave 2"},"content":{"raw":"

The First of the Three Spirits<\/h1>\r\nWhen 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.\r\n\r\nTo 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!\r\n\r\nHe touched the spring of his repeater[footnote]Watch.[\/footnote], to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.\r\n\r\n\u2018Why, it isn\u2019t possible,\u2019 said Scrooge, \u2018that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn\u2019t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!\u2019\r\n\r\nThe 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 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[footnote]In 1837, many individual states had to default on loans from English lenders.[\/footnote]\u00a0if there were no days to count by.\r\n\r\nScrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.\r\n\r\nMarley\u2019s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, \u2018Was it a dream or not?'\r\n\r\nScrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power.\r\n\r\nThe quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.\r\n\r\n\u2018Ding, dong!\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018A quarter past,\u2019 said Scrooge, counting.\r\n\r\n\u2018Ding, dong!\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Half-past!\u2019 said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n\u2018Ding, dong!\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018A quarter to it,\u2019 said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n\u2018Ding, dong!\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018The hour itself,\u2019 said Scrooge triumphantly, \u2018and nothing else!\u2019\r\n\r\nHe spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.\r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\nIt 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\u2019s 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[footnote]Candle snuffer.[\/footnote]\u00a0for a cap, which it now held under its arm.\r\n\r\nEven 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?\u2019 asked Scrooge.\r\n\r\n\u2018I am.\u2019\r\n\r\nThe voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.\r\n\r\n\u2018Who, and what are you?\u2019 Scrooge demanded.\r\n\r\n\u2018I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Long Past?\u2019 inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.\r\n\r\n\u2018No. Your past.\u2019\r\n\r\nPerhaps, 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018What!\u2019 exclaimed the Ghost, \u2018would 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?\u2019\r\n\r\nScrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully bonneted[footnote]To crush down a person\u2019s hat over his or her\u00a0eyes.[\/footnote]\u00a0the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.\r\n\r\n\u2018Your welfare!\u2019 said the Ghost.\r\n\r\nScrooge 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:\r\n\r\n\u2018Your reclamation, then. Take heed!\u2019\r\n\r\nIt put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.\r\n\r\n\u2018Rise! and walk with me!\u2019\r\n\r\nIt 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\u2019s hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.\r\n\r\n\u2018I am mortal,\u2019 Scrooge remonstrated, \u2018and liable to fall.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Bear but a touch of my hand there,\u2019 said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, \u2018and you shall be upheld in more than this!\u2019\r\n\r\nAs 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018Good Heaven!\u2019 said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. \u2018I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!\u2019\r\n\r\nThe Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man\u2019s 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018Your lip is trembling,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018And what is that upon your cheek?\u2019\r\n\r\nScrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.\r\n\r\n\u2018You recollect the way?\u2019 inquired the Spirit.\r\n\r\n\u2018Remember it!\u2019 cried Scrooge with fervour; \u2018 I could walk it blindfold.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!\u2019 observed the Ghost. \u2018Let us go on.\u2019\r\n\r\nThey 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018These are but shadows of the things that have been,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018They have no consciousness of us.\u2019\r\n\r\nThe 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?\r\n\r\n\u2018The school is not quite deserted,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.\u2019\r\n\r\nScrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.\r\n\r\nThey 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.\r\n\r\nThey 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.\r\n\r\nNot 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.\r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018Why, it\u2019s Ali Baba[footnote]Hero of a story in the Arabian Nights<\/em>.[\/footnote]!\u2019 Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. \u2018It\u2019s 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,\u2019 said Scrooge, \u2018and his wild brother, Orson[footnote]Valentine and Orson were the main characters in an old French romance.[\/footnote]; there they go! And what\u2019s his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don\u2019t you see him? And the Sultan\u2019s Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him right! I\u2019m glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess?[footnote]Further characters from Arabian Nights<\/em> (\u201cNoureddin Ali of Cairo and His Son Bedreddin Hassan\u201d).[\/footnote]\u2019\r\n\r\nTo 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018There\u2019s the Parrot!\u2019 cried Scrooge. \u2018Green 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. \u2018Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?\u2019 The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn\u2019t. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Hallo!\u2019\r\n\r\nThen, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, \u2018Poor boy!\u2019 and cried again.\r\n\r\n\u2018I wish,\u2019 Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: \u2018but it\u2019s too late now.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018What is the matter?\u2019 asked the Spirit.\r\n\r\n\u2018Nothing,\u2019 said Scrooge. \u2018Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that\u2019s all.\u2019\r\n\r\nThe Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, \u2018Let us see another Christmas!\u2019\r\n\r\nScrooge\u2019s 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.\r\n\r\nHe 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.\r\n\r\nIt 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 \u2018Dear, dear brother.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018I have come to bring you home, dear brother!\u2019 said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. \u2018To bring you home, home, home!\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Home, little Fan?\u2019 returned the boy.\r\n\r\n\u2018Yes!\u2019 said the child, brimful of glee. \u2018Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home\u2019s 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\u2019re to be a man!\u2019 said the child, opening her eyes, 'and are never to come back here; but first, we\u2019re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018You are quite a woman, little Fan!\u2019 exclaimed the boy.\r\n\r\nShe 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.\r\n\r\nA terrible voice in the hall cried. \u2018Bring down Master Scrooge\u2019s box, there!\u2019 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\u2019s 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[footnote]A carriage driveway through a garden.[\/footnote]: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.\r\n\r\n\u2018Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018But she had a large heart.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018So she had,\u2019 cried Scrooge. \u2018You\u2019re right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018She died a woman,\u2019 said the Ghost, \u2018and had, as I think, children.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018One child,\u2019 Scrooge returned.\r\n\r\n\u2018True,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018Your nephew.\u2019\r\n\r\nScrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, \u2018Yes.\u2019\r\n\r\nAlthough 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.\r\n\r\nThe Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.\r\n\r\n\u2018Know it!\u2019 said Scrooge. \u2018Was I apprenticed here?\u2019\r\n\r\nThey went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig[footnote]A close-fitting woollen cap.[\/footnote], 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:\r\n\r\n\u2018Why, it\u2019s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it\u2019s Fezziwig alive again!\u2019\r\n\r\nOld Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence[footnote]Top of the head, according to phrenology, a pseudo-science that purported to be able to determine one\u2019s character based on the shape of the skull.[\/footnote]; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:\r\n\r\n\u2018Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!\u2019\r\n\r\nScrooge\u2019s former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-prentice.\r\n\r\n\u2018Dick Wilkins, to be sure.\u2019 said Scrooge to the Ghost. \u2018Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick. Dear, dear.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Yo ho, my boys!\u2019 said Fezziwig. \u2018No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let\u2019s have the shutters up,\u2019 cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, \u2018before a man can say Jack Robinson!\u2019\r\n\r\nYou wouldn\u2019t 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 'em--seven, eight, nine--and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.\r\n\r\n\u2018Hilli-ho!\u2019 cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. \u2018Clear away, my lads, and let\u2019s have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!\u2019\r\n\r\nClear away! There was nothing they wouldn\u2019t have cleared away, or couldn\u2019t 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\u2019s night.\r\n\r\nIn 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\u2019s 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, \u2018Well done,\u2019 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.\r\n\r\nThere were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus[footnote]A punch made of sweetened wine, hot water, spices, and lemon.[\/footnote], 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 \u2018Sir Roger de Coverley.[footnote]The name of an English country dance.[\/footnote]\u2019 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<\/em> dance, and had no notion of walking.\r\n\r\nBut 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<\/em>, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that\u2019s not high praise, tell me higher, and I\u2019ll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig\u2019s calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn\u2019t 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 \u2018cut\u2019[footnote]A leap in the air while wiggling the legs back and forth before descending.[\/footnote]\u2014cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.\r\n\r\nWhen 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.\r\n\r\nDuring 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018A small matter,\u2019 said the Ghost, \u2018to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Small!\u2019 echoed Scrooge.\r\n\r\nThe 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,\r\n\r\n\u2018Why! 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?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018It isn\u2019t that,\u2019 said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. \u2018It isn\u2019t 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.\u2019\r\n\r\nHe felt the Spirit\u2019s glance, and stopped.\r\n\r\n\u2018What is the matter?\u2019 asked the Ghost.\r\n\r\n\u2018Nothing in particular,\u2019 said Scrooge.\r\n\r\n\u2018Something, I think?\u2019 the Ghost insisted.\r\n\r\n\u2018No,\u2019 said Scrooge, \u2018No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That\u2019s all.\u2019\r\n\r\nHis 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018My time grows short,\u2019 observed the Spirit. \u2018Quick!\u2019\r\n\r\nThis 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.\r\n\r\nHe 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018It matters little,\u2019 she said, softly. \u2018To 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.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018What Idol has displaced you?\u2019 he rejoined.\r\n\r\n\u2018A golden one.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018This is the even-handed dealing of the world.\u2019 he said. \u2018There 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!\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018You fear the world too much,\u2019 she answered, gently. \u2018All 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?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018What then?\u2019 he retorted. \u2018Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you.\u2019\r\n\r\nShe shook her head.\r\n\r\n\u2018Am I?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Our 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.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018I was a boy,\u2019 he said impatiently.\r\n\r\n\u2018Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,\u2019 she returned. \u2018I 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<\/em> thought of it, and can release you.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Have I ever sought release?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018In words. No. Never.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018In what, then?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018In 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,\u2019 said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; \u2018tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now. Ah, no!\u2019\r\n\r\nHe seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, \u2018You think not.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018I would gladly think otherwise if I could,\u2019 she answered, \u2018Heaven 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.\u2019\r\n\r\nHe was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.\r\n\r\n\u2018You 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!\u2019\r\n\r\nShe left him, and they parted.\r\n\r\n\u2018Spirit!\u2019 said Scrooge, \u2018show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018One shadow more!\u2019 exclaimed the Ghost.\r\n\r\n\u2018No more!\u2019 cried Scrooge. \u2018No more, I don\u2019t wish to see it. Show me no more!\u2019\r\n\r\nBut the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.\r\n\r\nThey 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<\/em>, 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[footnote]An allusion to the first stanza of Wordsworth\u2019s poem \u201cWritten in March\u201d: \u201cThe cattle are grazing,\/Their heads never raising;\/There are forty feeding like one!\u201d[\/footnote], 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\u2019t for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.\r\n\r\nBut 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\u2019s 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.\r\n\r\nAnd 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018Belle,\u2019 said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, \u2018I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Who was it?\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Guess!\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018How can I? Tut, don\u2019t I know?\u2019 she added in the same breath, laughing as he he laughed. \u2018Mr Scrooge.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Mr 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.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Spirit!\u2019 said Scrooge in a broken voice, \u2018remove me from this place.\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018That they are what they are, do not blame me!\u2019\r\n\r\n\u2018Remove me!\u2019 Scrooge exclaimed, \u2018I cannot bear it!\u2019\r\n\r\nHe 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.\r\n\r\n\u2018Leave me! Take me back! Haunt me no longer!\u2019\r\n\r\nIn 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.\r\n\r\nThe 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.\r\n\r\nHe 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.\r\n
\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"

The First of the Three Spirits<\/h1>\n

When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.<\/p>\n

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!<\/p>\n

He touched the spring of his repeater[1]<\/sup><\/a>, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.<\/p>\n

\u2018Why, it isn\u2019t possible,\u2019 said Scrooge, \u2018that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn\u2019t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!\u2019<\/p>\n

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 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[2]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0if there were no days to count by.<\/p>\n

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and, the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.<\/p>\n

Marley\u2019s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, \u2018Was it a dream or not?’<\/p>\n

Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power.<\/p>\n

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ding, dong!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018A quarter past,\u2019 said Scrooge, counting.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ding, dong!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Half-past!\u2019 said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ding, dong!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018A quarter to it,\u2019 said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ding, dong!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The hour itself,\u2019 said Scrooge triumphantly, \u2018and nothing else!\u2019<\/p>\n

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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[3]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0for a cap, which it now held under its arm.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u2018Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?\u2019 asked Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u2018I am.\u2019<\/p>\n

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.<\/p>\n

\u2018Who, and what are you?\u2019 Scrooge demanded.<\/p>\n

\u2018I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Long Past?\u2019 inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.<\/p>\n

\u2018No. Your past.\u2019<\/p>\n

Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.<\/p>\n

\u2018What!\u2019 exclaimed the Ghost, \u2018would 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?\u2019<\/p>\n

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully bonneted[4]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.<\/p>\n

\u2018Your welfare!\u2019 said the Ghost.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

\u2018Your reclamation, then. Take heed!\u2019<\/p>\n

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.<\/p>\n

\u2018Rise! and walk with me!\u2019<\/p>\n

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\u2019s hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.<\/p>\n

\u2018I am mortal,\u2019 Scrooge remonstrated, \u2018and liable to fall.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Bear but a touch of my hand there,\u2019 said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, \u2018and you shall be upheld in more than this!\u2019<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u2018Good Heaven!\u2019 said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. \u2018I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!\u2019<\/p>\n

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man\u2019s sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten.<\/p>\n

\u2018Your lip is trembling,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018And what is that upon your cheek?\u2019<\/p>\n

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.<\/p>\n

\u2018You recollect the way?\u2019 inquired the Spirit.<\/p>\n

\u2018Remember it!\u2019 cried Scrooge with fervour; \u2018 I could walk it blindfold.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!\u2019 observed the Ghost. \u2018Let us go on.\u2019<\/p>\n

They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it.<\/p>\n

\u2018These are but shadows of the things that have been,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018They have no consciousness of us.\u2019<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

\u2018The school is not quite deserted,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.\u2019<\/p>\n

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u2018Why, it\u2019s Ali Baba[5]<\/sup><\/a>!\u2019 Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. \u2018It\u2019s 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,\u2019 said Scrooge, \u2018and his wild brother, Orson[6]<\/sup><\/a>; there they go! And what\u2019s his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don\u2019t you see him? And the Sultan\u2019s Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him right! I\u2019m glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess?[7]<\/sup><\/a>\u2019<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s the Parrot!\u2019 cried Scrooge. \u2018Green 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. \u2018Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?\u2019 The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn\u2019t. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Hallo!\u2019<\/p>\n

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, \u2018Poor boy!\u2019 and cried again.<\/p>\n

\u2018I wish,\u2019 Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: \u2018but it\u2019s too late now.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What is the matter?\u2019 asked the Spirit.<\/p>\n

\u2018Nothing,\u2019 said Scrooge. \u2018Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that\u2019s all.\u2019<\/p>\n

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, \u2018Let us see another Christmas!\u2019<\/p>\n

Scrooge\u2019s former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.<\/p>\n

He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018Dear, dear brother.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I have come to bring you home, dear brother!\u2019 said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. \u2018To bring you home, home, home!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Home, little Fan?\u2019 returned the boy.<\/p>\n

\u2018Yes!\u2019 said the child, brimful of glee. \u2018Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home\u2019s 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\u2019re to be a man!\u2019 said the child, opening her eyes, ‘and are never to come back here; but first, we\u2019re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018You are quite a woman, little Fan!\u2019 exclaimed the boy.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

A terrible voice in the hall cried. \u2018Bring down Master Scrooge\u2019s box, there!\u2019 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\u2019s 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[8]<\/sup><\/a>: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.<\/p>\n

\u2018Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018But she had a large heart.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018So she had,\u2019 cried Scrooge. \u2018You\u2019re right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018She died a woman,\u2019 said the Ghost, \u2018and had, as I think, children.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018One child,\u2019 Scrooge returned.<\/p>\n

\u2018True,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018Your nephew.\u2019<\/p>\n

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, \u2018Yes.\u2019<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.<\/p>\n

\u2018Know it!\u2019 said Scrooge. \u2018Was I apprenticed here?\u2019<\/p>\n

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig[9]<\/sup><\/a>, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:<\/p>\n

\u2018Why, it\u2019s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it\u2019s Fezziwig alive again!\u2019<\/p>\n

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence[10]<\/sup><\/a>; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:<\/p>\n

\u2018Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!\u2019<\/p>\n

Scrooge\u2019s former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-prentice.<\/p>\n

\u2018Dick Wilkins, to be sure.\u2019 said Scrooge to the Ghost. \u2018Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick. Dear, dear.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yo ho, my boys!\u2019 said Fezziwig. \u2018No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let\u2019s have the shutters up,\u2019 cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, \u2018before a man can say Jack Robinson!\u2019<\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t 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 ’em–seven, eight, nine–and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hilli-ho!\u2019 cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. \u2018Clear away, my lads, and let\u2019s have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!\u2019<\/p>\n

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn\u2019t have cleared away, or couldn\u2019t 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\u2019s night.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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, \u2018Well done,\u2019 and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.<\/p>\n

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus[11]<\/sup><\/a>, 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 \u2018Sir Roger de Coverley.[12]<\/sup><\/a>\u2019 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<\/em> dance, and had no notion of walking.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that\u2019s not high praise, tell me higher, and I\u2019ll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig\u2019s calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn\u2019t 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 \u2018cut\u2019[13]<\/sup><\/a>\u2014cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.<\/p>\n

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr and Mrs Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u2018A small matter,\u2019 said the Ghost, \u2018to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Small!\u2019 echoed Scrooge.<\/p>\n

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,<\/p>\n

\u2018Why! 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?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018It isn\u2019t that,\u2019 said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. \u2018It isn\u2019t 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.\u2019<\/p>\n

He felt the Spirit\u2019s glance, and stopped.<\/p>\n

\u2018What is the matter?\u2019 asked the Ghost.<\/p>\n

\u2018Nothing in particular,\u2019 said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u2018Something, I think?\u2019 the Ghost insisted.<\/p>\n

\u2018No,\u2019 said Scrooge, \u2018No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That\u2019s all.\u2019<\/p>\n

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.<\/p>\n

\u2018My time grows short,\u2019 observed the Spirit. \u2018Quick!\u2019<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.<\/p>\n

\u2018It matters little,\u2019 she said, softly. \u2018To 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.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What Idol has displaced you?\u2019 he rejoined.<\/p>\n

\u2018A golden one.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018This is the even-handed dealing of the world.\u2019 he said. \u2018There 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!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018You fear the world too much,\u2019 she answered, gently. \u2018All 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?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What then?\u2019 he retorted. \u2018Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you.\u2019<\/p>\n

She shook her head.<\/p>\n

\u2018Am I?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Our 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.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I was a boy,\u2019 he said impatiently.<\/p>\n

\u2018Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,\u2019 she returned. \u2018I 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<\/em> thought of it, and can release you.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Have I ever sought release?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018In words. No. Never.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018In what, then?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018In 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,\u2019 said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; \u2018tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now. Ah, no!\u2019<\/p>\n

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, \u2018You think not.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I would gladly think otherwise if I could,\u2019 she answered, \u2018Heaven 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.\u2019<\/p>\n

He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.<\/p>\n

\u2018You 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!\u2019<\/p>\n

She left him, and they parted.<\/p>\n

\u2018Spirit!\u2019 said Scrooge, \u2018show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018One shadow more!\u2019 exclaimed the Ghost.<\/p>\n

\u2018No more!\u2019 cried Scrooge. \u2018No more, I don\u2019t wish to see it. Show me no more!\u2019<\/p>\n

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>, 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[14]<\/sup><\/a>, 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\u2019t for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.<\/p>\n

\u2018Belle,\u2019 said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, \u2018I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Who was it?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Guess!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018How can I? Tut, don\u2019t I know?\u2019 she added in the same breath, laughing as he he laughed. \u2018Mr Scrooge.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Mr 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.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Spirit!\u2019 said Scrooge in a broken voice, \u2018remove me from this place.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,\u2019 said the Ghost. \u2018That they are what they are, do not blame me!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Remove me!\u2019 Scrooge exclaimed, \u2018I cannot bear it!\u2019<\/p>\n

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.<\/p>\n

\u2018Leave me! Take me back! Haunt me no longer!\u2019<\/p>\n

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

  1. Watch. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  2. In 1837, many individual states had to default on loans from English lenders. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  3. Candle snuffer. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  4. To crush down a person\u2019s hat over his or her\u00a0eyes. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  5. Hero of a story in the Arabian Nights<\/em>. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  6. Valentine and Orson were the main characters in an old French romance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  7. Further characters from Arabian Nights<\/em> (\u201cNoureddin Ali of Cairo and His Son Bedreddin Hassan\u201d). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  8. A carriage driveway through a garden. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  9. A close-fitting woollen cap. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  10. Top of the head, according to phrenology, a pseudo-science that purported to be able to determine one\u2019s character based on the shape of the skull. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  11. A punch made of sweetened wine, hot water, spices, and lemon. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  12. The name of an English country dance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  13. A leap in the air while wiggling the legs back and forth before descending. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  14. An allusion to the first stanza of Wordsworth\u2019s poem \u201cWritten in March\u201d: \u201cThe cattle are grazing,\/Their heads never raising;\/There are forty feeding like one!\u201d ↵<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["charles-dickens"],"pb_section_license":"public-domain"},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[59],"license":[78],"class_list":["post-244","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","contributor-charles-dickens","license-public-domain"],"part":239,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2498,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/244\/revisions\/2498"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/239"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/244\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}