# A Christmas Carol (A2 edition)

*Charles Dickens*

## Stave One: Marley's Ghost

Marley was dead. We must begin with that. There is no doubt about it. The clergyman signed the register of his burial. The clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner signed it too. Scrooge signed it, and Scrooge's name was good on 'Change. The merchants there trusted his name on anything. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. He was completely dead.

Mind! I do not really know what is so dead about a door-nail. I might think a coffin-nail is deader. It might be the deadest piece of iron in the trade. But the saying comes from our wise ancestors. My unholy hands must not change it, or the Country is finished. So please let me say it again, and say it strongly. Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could he not know? Scrooge and Marley were partners for I do not know how many years. Scrooge was the only person who dealt with Marley's money after his death. He was the only person who got everything Marley left. He was his only friend and his only mourner. Even so, Scrooge was not very sad. He was still an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral. He marked that day with a good bargain.

The funeral brings me back to the point where I started. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. You must understand this clearly. If you do not, nothing wonderful can come of my story. Think of Hamlet's Father in the play. We are sure he died before the play began. If we were not sure, his walk would be nothing special. He walks at night, in an east wind, on the walls of his own castle. Any middle-aged gentleman could do the same. He could foolishly go out after dark to a windy place, say Saint Paul's Churchyard. There he could really surprise his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted over Old Marley's name. It was still there years later, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. People knew the firm as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge "Scrooge", and sometimes "Marley". He answered to both names. It was all the same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted man, Scrooge! He was a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! He was hard and sharp as flint. Steel can strike fire from flint. But no steel ever struck a generous fire from him. He was secret, closed and alone as an oyster. The cold inside him froze his old face. It nipped his pointed nose and shrivelled his cheek. It stiffened his walk. It made his eyes red and his thin lips blue. You could hear it in his rough voice. There was frost on his head, on his eyebrows and on his wiry chin. He carried his own cold with him everywhere. His office was icy in the hottest days of summer. It was not one degree warmer at Christmas.

Heat and cold from outside had little effect on Scrooge. No warm weather could warm him, and no winter weather could make him colder. No wind was more bitter than he was. No falling snow was more determined. No heavy rain listened less to people's begging. Bad weather did not know how to get at him. The heaviest rain, snow, hail and sleet were better than him in only one way. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did. In those days, "to come down" also meant to give money.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street with a glad face. Nobody said, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars asked him for a little money. No children asked him the time. No man or woman in all his life asked him the way to any place. Even the blind men's dogs seemed to know him. When they saw him coming, they pulled their owners into doorways and up little courts. Then they wagged their tails, as if to say this. "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

But what did Scrooge care! This was just what he liked. He pushed his way along the crowded roads of life. He warned all human kindness to keep away. To him, this was a great pleasure.

Once upon a time, old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. Of all the good days in the year, it was Christmas Eve. The weather was cold, bitter and biting, and it was foggy too. He could hear the people in the court outside. They went up and down, and they breathed badly. They beat their hands on their chests. They stamped their feet on the stones to warm them. It was only just after three by the city clocks, but it was already dark. It was not light at any time that day. Candles burned in the windows of the offices nearby. They looked like red marks on the thick brown air. You could almost touch that air. The fog poured in at every crack and keyhole. The court was very narrow. But the fog outside was so thick that the houses across it looked like phantoms. The dirty cloud came down and hid everything. You might think that Nature lived nearby and was brewing beer on a large scale.

The door of Scrooge's counting-house stood open, because he wanted to watch his clerk. The clerk sat in a dark little cell beyond it, a sort of tank. There he copied letters. Scrooge had a very small fire. The clerk's fire was so much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he could not add more, because Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room. Each time the clerk came in with the shovel, Scrooge gave a warning. He said they must soon part. He meant the clerk would lose his job. So the clerk put on his white comforter. He tried to warm himself at the candle. He failed, because he did not have a strong imagination.

"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew. He came in so quickly that this was the first sign of him.

"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!"

Scrooge's nephew was hot from fast walking in the fog and frost. He glowed all over. His face was red and handsome. His eyes shone, and his breath smoked.

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. "You do not mean that, I am sure?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You are poor enough."

"Come, then," said the nephew happily. "What right have you to be sad? What reason have you to be unhappy? You are rich enough."

Scrooge had no better answer ready. So he said, "Bah!" again, and then, "Humbug."

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

"What else can I be?" said the uncle. "I live in this world of fools. Merry Christmas! Away with merry Christmas! What is Christmas time to you? It is a time for paying bills without money. It is a time to find yourself a year older, but not an hour richer. It is a time to balance your books. You look at twelve months of items, and every item is against you. I will tell you what I want," said Scrooge angrily. "Every idiot with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding. Then we should bury him with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

"Uncle!" begged the nephew.

"Nephew!" said the uncle coldly. "Keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."

"Keep it!" said Scrooge's nephew. "But you do not keep it."

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "I hope it does you much good! It has never done you much good!"

"Perhaps many things could do me good, but did not," said the nephew. "Christmas is one of them. But I am sure I have always thought the same about Christmas time. Its name and its beginning are holy, and we must honour them. Perhaps nothing about Christmas can really be apart from that. But even without that, it is a good time. It is a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time. In the long year, I know no other time like it. Men and women all seem to agree to open their shut-up hearts freely. They think of poorer people as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave. They do not think of them as another kind of creature on another journey. So, uncle, Christmas never put a piece of gold or silver in my pocket. But I believe it *has* done me good, and it *will* do me good. And I say, God bless it!"

The clerk in the Tank clapped without thinking. He saw his mistake at once. He poked the fire, and he put out the last small spark for ever.

"Let me hear one more sound from *you*," said Scrooge. "Then you will keep your Christmas by losing your job!" He turned to his nephew. "You are quite a powerful speaker, sir. I wonder you do not go into Parliament."

"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Have dinner with us tomorrow."

Scrooge said that he would see him ... yes, he really did. He said the whole rude phrase to the end. He said he would see him in Hell first.

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

"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.

"Because I fell in love."

"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge. He spoke as if that was the only thing more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"

"No, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why is it a reason not to come now?"

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

"I want nothing from you. I ask nothing from you. Why cannot we be friends?"

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

"I am sorry, with all my heart, that you are so firm. We have never had any quarrel, not on my side. But I tried this for the sake of Christmas. I will keep my Christmas good humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

"And A Happy New Year!"

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.

His nephew left the room without one angry word. He stopped at the outer door and gave his Christmas wishes to the clerk. The clerk was cold, but he was warmer than Scrooge. We know this, because he gave the wishes back with a warm heart.

Scrooge heard them. "There is another one," he muttered. "My clerk has fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family. And he talks about a merry Christmas! I will retire to Bedlam."

To Scrooge, the clerk was a lunatic. This lunatic let Scrooge's nephew out. At the same time he let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to look at. They stood in Scrooge's office with their hats off. They had books and papers in their hands, and they bowed to him.

"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen. He looked at his list. "Do I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"

"Mr. Marley has been dead for seven years," Scrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very night."

"We are sure that his partner has the same liberality," said the gentleman. He held out his papers.

That was certainly true, because the two men were alike. Neither of them was generous. "Liberality" was a dangerous word to Scrooge. At this word he frowned and shook his head, and he gave the papers back.

The gentleman took up a pen. "This is a happy time of the year, Mr. Scrooge. More than ever, we should give the Poor a little help. They suffer greatly at this time. Many thousands do not have the things they need every day. Hundreds of thousands do not have simple comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, and he put down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" asked Scrooge. "Are they still working?"

"They are. Still," said the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are still strong, then?" said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, after your first words," said Scrooge. "I thought something stopped their useful work. I am very glad to hear this."

"We think these places do not give people much Christian cheer," said the gentleman. "They do not help the mind or the body. So a few of us are trying to raise a fund. We want to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and some warmth. We choose this time for a reason. People feel Want most at this time, and Abundance is most happy. How much shall I write down for you?"

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

"You want to be anonymous?"

"I want you to leave me alone," said Scrooge. "You ask me what I want, gentlemen, and that is my answer. I do not make merry at Christmas. I cannot pay for lazy people to make merry. I help to pay for the places I spoke about, and they cost enough. Poor people must go there."

"Many cannot go there, and many would rather die."

Scrooge said, "If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides, excuse me, I do not know that it is true."

"But you could know it," said the gentleman.

"It is not my business," Scrooge answered. "It is enough to understand your own business and leave other people's alone. Mine keeps me busy all the time. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

The gentlemen saw clearly that it was no use to go on. They left. Scrooge went back to his work. He thought better of himself now. He was in a more joking mood than usual.

Meanwhile, the fog and dark grew so thick that people ran about with burning torches. They offered to walk in front of carriage horses and lead them on their way. An old church tower stood nearby. Its rough old bell always peeped down secretly at Scrooge. It looked out of a Gothic window in the wall. Now the tower disappeared. The bell struck the hours and quarters up in the clouds. After each stroke it shook, as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head. The cold became very strong.

Some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes in the main street. They were at the corner of the court. They lit a great fire in a brazier. A group of ragged men and boys stood round it. They warmed their hands and blinked at the flames with great joy. Nobody stayed near the water-plug, and its water ran over. It froze slowly into sad, unfriendly ice. The shops were bright. Holly and berries crackled in the heat of the window lamps. Their light made pale faces red as people passed. The poulterers' and grocers' shops became a wonderful joke. They looked like a splendid show. You could hardly believe they had anything to do with dull buying and selling.

The Lord Mayor sat in the great, strong Mansion House. He told his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's house should. Even the little tailor got ready for Christmas. Last Monday the Lord Mayor fined him five shillings. This was for being drunk and violent in the streets. Now he stirred tomorrow's pudding in his attic. Meanwhile his thin wife and the baby went out to buy the beef.

Foggier still, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting cold. Think of the good Saint Dunstan. He took the Evil Spirit by the nose with his usual tools. If he used this weather instead, the Evil Spirit would really roar!

One boy had a small young nose. The hungry cold bit and chewed it, as dogs chew bones. The boy bent down at Scrooge's keyhole to sing him a Christmas carol. He began:

"God bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay!"

At the first sound, Scrooge took up the ruler with great force. So the singer ran away in terror. He left the keyhole to the fog and to the frost. The frost was a better friend to Scrooge.

At last it was time to shut the counting-house. Scrooge got down from his stool unwillingly. He said nothing. But he showed the clerk in the Tank that the day was over. The clerk was waiting for this. He put out his candle at once and put on his hat.

"You will want all day tomorrow, I suppose?" said Scrooge.

"If it is quite convenient, sir."

"It is not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it is not fair. Suppose I kept back half-a-crown from your pay. You would think I treated you badly, I am sure."

The clerk smiled weakly.

"And yet you do not think anyone treats *me* badly," said Scrooge. "I pay a day's wages for no work."

The clerk said it was only once a year.

"A poor excuse for stealing from a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!" said Scrooge. He buttoned 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. Scrooge walked out with a growl. The clerk closed the office in a moment. He had no great-coat. So the long ends of his white comforter hung below his waist. He went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a line of boys. He went down twenty times, because it was Christmas Eve. Then he ran home to Camden Town as fast as he could, to play blind-man's buff.

Scrooge ate his sad dinner in his usual sad tavern. He read all the newspapers. He spent the rest of the evening with his banker's-book. Then he went home to bed. He lived in chambers. These rooms once belonged to his dead partner. They were a gloomy set of rooms, in a dark, heavy building up a yard. The building had no reason to be there. You could almost think it ran there when it was a young house. Perhaps it played hide-and-seek with other houses and then forgot the way out. Now it was old. It was dreary too, because nobody lived in it but Scrooge. All the other rooms were offices. The yard was very dark. Scrooge knew every stone of it, but even he had to feel his way. The fog and frost hung round the black old gateway of the house. It seemed that the Genius of the Weather sat there on the doorstep. He looked sad and deep in thought.

Now, it is a fact that there was nothing special about the knocker on the door. It was only very large. It is also a fact that Scrooge saw it night and morning. He saw it all the years he lived there. And Scrooge had as little imagination as any man in the city of London. That even includes, and this is a bold word, the corporation, aldermen and livery. Remember too that Scrooge did not think about Marley at all after that afternoon. He spoke of his partner, seven years dead, and then he thought of him no more. Then let any man explain this to me, if he can. Scrooge had his key in the lock of the door. He looked at the knocker, and he saw no slow change in it. He saw not a knocker, but Marley's face.

Marley's face. It was not in deep shadow like the other things in the yard. It had a sad light round it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or fierce. It looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look. Ghostly spectacles sat pushed up on its ghostly forehead. The hair moved strangely, as if in breath or hot air. The eyes were wide open, but they did not move at all. That and its grey-blue colour made it horrible. But the horror did not seem part of the face. The face seemed to have no control over it.

Scrooge looked hard at this strange thing, and it was a knocker again.

Was he shocked? I cannot say he was not. His blood felt something terrible. He last felt this when he was a small child. But he put his hand back on the key and turned it firmly. He walked in and lit his candle.

He *did* stop for a moment before he shut the door. He *did* look behind it first, carefully. It was as if he half expected Marley's pigtail to stick out into the hall. That would be a terrible sight. But there was nothing on the back of the door. There were only the screws and nuts of the knocker. So he said "Pooh, pooh!" and closed the door with a bang.

The sound went through the house like thunder. Every room above seemed to have its own echoes. Every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below seemed to have its own echoes too. Scrooge was not a man to fear echoes. He fastened the door and walked across the hall. He went up the stairs, slowly too, and he trimmed his candle as he went.

You may talk about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs. You may talk about driving it through a bad young Act of Parliament. But I tell you this. You could take a hearse up that staircase, and you could take it sideways. Its front bar could go to the wall and its door to the rails. And you could do it easily. There was plenty of room for that, and room to spare. Perhaps this is why Scrooge thought he saw a hearse in the dark. It seemed to move ahead of him. Six gas-lamps from the street could not light that entry well. So you can imagine how dark it was with Scrooge's small candle.

Up Scrooge went. He did not care at all about the dark. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to check them. He remembered the face just enough to want to do that.

Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa. A small fire in the grate. Spoon and basin ready. The little saucepan of gruel on the hob, because Scrooge had a cold in his head. Nobody under the bed. Nobody in the closet. Nobody in his dressing-gown, which hung against the wall in a suspicious way. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets, a washing-stand on three legs and a poker.

Quite satisfied, he closed his door and locked himself in. He double-locked himself in, and this was not his custom. Now nothing could surprise him. He took off his cravat. He put on his dressing-gown, his slippers and his nightcap. Then he sat down before the fire to eat his gruel.

It was a very low fire, almost nothing on such a bitter night. He had to sit close to it and lean over it. Only then could he get a little warmth from so little coal. A Dutch merchant built the old fireplace long ago. He put strange old Dutch tiles all round it, with pictures from the Bible. There were Cains and Abels. There were Pharaoh's daughters and Queens of Sheba. Angels came down through the air on clouds like feather-beds. There were Abrahams and Belshazzars. There were Apostles going to sea in butter-boats. There were hundreds of figures to take his thoughts away. But Marley's face, seven years dead, came like the old Prophet's rod. It swallowed them all. Imagine that each smooth tile was empty at first. Imagine it could make a picture from the broken pieces of his thoughts. Then every tile would show old Marley's head.

"Humbug!" said Scrooge, and he walked across the room.

He walked up and down a few times and then sat down again. He threw his head back in the chair. His eyes happened to rest on a bell. It was a disused bell, and it hung in the room. It connected with a room at the top of the building, for some forgotten purpose. As he looked, the bell began to swing. He felt great surprise and a strange fear. He could not explain this fear. At first it swung so softly that it hardly made a sound. But soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This lasted perhaps half a minute or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells stopped together, as they began. Then there was a clanking noise, deep down below. Someone seemed to be dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar. Then Scrooge remembered something. He once heard that ghosts in haunted houses drag chains.

The cellar door flew open with a boom. He heard the noise much louder on the floors below. Then it came up the stairs. Then it came straight towards his door.

"It is humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I will not believe it."

But his colour changed when, without a pause, it came through the heavy door. It came into the room before his eyes. As it came in, the dying flame jumped up. It seemed to cry, "I know him; Marley's Ghost!" Then it fell again.

The same face, the very same. It was Marley with the pigtail and the usual waistcoat, tights and boots. The tassels on the boots stood up. So did the pigtail, the coat-skirts and the hair on its head. The chain went round its middle. It was long, and it wound about the Ghost like a tail. Scrooge looked at it closely. He saw cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds and heavy steel purses in it. The Ghost's body was transparent, so Scrooge could look through its waistcoat. He could see the two buttons on the back of its coat.

Scrooge often heard people say that Marley had no bowels. They meant that he had no pity. But Scrooge never believed it until now, because now he could see right through him.

No, he did not believe it even now. He looked right through the Ghost and saw it standing before him. He felt the cold of its death-cold eyes. He saw the folded cloth round its head and chin. He noticed this cloth now for the first time, and he saw even its threads. But he still did not believe, and he fought against his own senses.

"How now!" said Scrooge, as sharp and cold as ever. "What do you want with me?"

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

"Who are you?"

"Ask me who I *was*."

"Who *were* you then?" said Scrooge, and he raised his voice. "You are particular, for a shade." He nearly said "*to* a shade", but "for a shade" suited a ghost better.

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

"Can you ... can you sit down?" asked Scrooge. He looked at it with doubt.

"I can."

"Do it, then."

Scrooge asked the question for a reason. A transparent ghost perhaps could not sit in a chair. Then they might need an embarrassing explanation. But the Ghost sat down on the other side of the fireplace. It seemed quite used to this.

"You do not believe in me," said the Ghost.

"I do not," said Scrooge.

"What more proof do you want of my reality, beyond your senses?"

"I do not know," said Scrooge.

"Why do you doubt your senses?"

"Because a little thing affects them," said Scrooge. "A small problem with the stomach makes them cheat. You may be a piece of beef that I did not digest. You may be a spot of mustard or a crumb of cheese. You may be a bit of half-cooked potato. There is more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

Scrooge did not usually make jokes, and he did not feel at all funny now. In truth, he tried to be clever to take his mind off his fear. He wanted to keep down his terror, because the Ghost's voice shook his bones.

He felt he could not sit in silence, even for a moment. He could not stare at those fixed, glassy eyes. That was too terrible for him. There was something else awful too. The Ghost had its own air around it, an air from Hell. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but it was clearly there. The Ghost sat very still. But its hair, skirts and tassels still moved, as if in hot air from an oven.

"You see this toothpick?" said Scrooge. He attacked again quickly, for the same reason. He also wanted the Ghost's stony eyes off him, even for a second.

"I do," said the Ghost.

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

"But I see it," said the Ghost, "all the same."

"Well!" said Scrooge. "I only have to swallow this. Then an army of goblins will follow me for the rest of my life. My own mind will make them all. Humbug, I tell you! Humbug!"

At this the Ghost gave a frightful cry. It shook its chain so terribly that Scrooge held tight to his chair. He was afraid he would faint and fall. But then his horror grew much greater. The Ghost took off the bandage round its head. It seemed too warm to wear indoors. And the Ghost's lower jaw dropped down onto its chest!

Scrooge fell on his knees and held his hands before his face.

"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful Ghost, why do you trouble me?"

"Man who thinks only of this world!" said the Ghost. "Do you believe in me or not?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"

"Every man must do this," said the Ghost. "The spirit inside him must walk among other people. It must travel far and wide. If it does not do this in life, it must do it after death. It must wander through the world. Oh, woe is me! It must see what it cannot share. It could share these things on earth and turn them to happiness, but not now!"

Again the Ghost gave a cry. It shook its chain and twisted its shadowy hands.

"You are in chains," said Scrooge, and he shook with fear. "Tell me why?"

The Ghost answered, "I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard. I put it on of my own free will. Of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to *you*?"

Scrooge shook more and more.

"Or do you want to know about your own chain?" said the Ghost. "Do you know its weight and length? It was as heavy and as long as this one, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have worked on it since then. It is a very heavy chain!"

Scrooge looked at the floor around him. He expected to see fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable round him. But he could see nothing.

"Jacob," he begged. "Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!"

"I have none to give," said the Ghost. "Comfort comes from other places, Ebenezer Scrooge. Other messengers bring it to other kinds of men. And I cannot tell you all I want to tell. I may tell you only a very little more. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house. Listen to me! In life my spirit never went outside our money-changing hole. And now long, tiring journeys lie before me!"

Scrooge had a habit. When he became thoughtful, he always put his hands in his trouser pockets. He thought about the Ghost's words, and he did this now. But he did not look up, and he did not get off his knees.

"You must be very slow about it, Jacob," Scrooge said. He spoke like a man of business, but he was humble and respectful.

"Slow!" said the Ghost.

"Seven years dead," said Scrooge, thinking. "And travelling all the time!"

"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no peace. Never-ending torture of remorse."

"You travel fast?" said Scrooge.

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

"You could travel a great distance in seven years," said Scrooge.

When the Ghost heard this, it gave another cry. It clanked its chain horribly in the dead silence of the night. It was so loud that the officers of the Ward could take it to court.

"Oh! I am a prisoner, tied up and in double irons!" cried the Ghost. "I did not know this! Creatures who never die must work for ages and ages. Only then will this earth become as good as it can be. I did not know this about any Christian spirit. It may do kind work in a small place, but its life will be too short. It has so much good to do. And I did not know this. No sorrow can repair one lost chance in life. Yet I was such a man! Oh! I was such a man!"

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," said Scrooge weakly. He began to think of himself now.

"Business!" cried the Ghost. It twisted its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The good of all people was my business. Charity, mercy, patience and kindness were all my business. My trade was only a drop of water in the great ocean of my business!"

It held up its chain at arm's length. The chain seemed to be the cause of all its useless grief. Then it threw the chain heavily on the ground again.

"At this time of the rolling year," said the Ghost, "I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of people with my eyes turned down? Why did I never raise them to that blessed Star? It led the Wise Men to a poor home! Were there no poor homes for its light to lead *me* to?"

Scrooge was very upset to hear the Ghost talk like this. He began to shake badly.

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

"I will," said Scrooge. "But do not be hard on me! Do not use fine words, Jacob! Please!"

"How do I come before you in a shape you can see? I may not tell you. I sat invisible beside you on many, many days."

This was not a pleasant idea. Scrooge shivered and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"That is no small part of my penance," said the Ghost. "I am here tonight to warn you. You still have a chance and hope to escape my fate. I got you this chance and hope, Ebenezer."

"You were always a good friend to me," said Scrooge. "Thank you!"

"Three Spirits will haunt you," said the Ghost.

Scrooge's face fell almost as low as the Ghost's jaw did.

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?" he asked, and his voice shook.

"It is."

"I ... I think I would rather not," said Scrooge.

"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope to avoid the path I walk. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls One."

"Could I not take them all at once, and finish with it, Jacob?" said Scrooge.

"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. Expect the third on the next night, when the last stroke of Twelve ends. Look to see me no more. And for your own sake, remember what passed between us!"

After these words, the Ghost took its bandage from the table. It tied the bandage round its head as before. Scrooge knew this from the sharp sound of its teeth, when the jaws came together. He dared to raise his eyes again. His strange visitor stood facing him, tall and straight. Its chain was wound over its arm.

The Ghost walked backwards, away from him. At every step the window rose a little. When the Ghost reached it, it was wide open.

It signed to Scrooge to come nearer, and he did. When they were two paces apart, Marley's Ghost held up its hand. It warned him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.

He did not stop so much to obey. He stopped more in surprise and fear. That was because he heard confused noises in the air when the hand went up. There were broken sounds of sorrow and regret. There were cries, very sad and full of self-blame. The Ghost listened for a moment. Then it joined the sad song and floated out into the cold, dark night.

Scrooge went to the window. He desperately wanted to know more. He looked out.

The air was full of phantoms. They wandered here and there in restless haste, and they moaned as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost. A few were linked together. Perhaps they were guilty governments. None were free. Scrooge knew many of them when they were alive. He knew one old ghost very well. It wore a white waistcoat and had a huge iron safe on its ankle. It cried sadly because it could not help a poor woman with a baby. It saw her below, on a door-step. The misery of them all was clear. They wanted to do good in human matters, but they lost that power for ever.

He could not tell what happened next. Perhaps these creatures faded into mist, or perhaps the mist covered them. But they and their voices faded together. The night became as it was when he walked home.

Scrooge closed the window and checked the door the Ghost came through. It was double-locked, just as he left it. He locked it with his own hands. The bolts were still in their places. He tried to say "Humbug!" but he stopped at the first syllable. He needed rest. Perhaps this was because of his feelings, or the tiring day. Perhaps it was his look at the Invisible World, or the Ghost's dull talk, or the late hour. He went straight to bed without undressing, and he fell asleep at once.

### Glossary

- **clergyman**: a man who leads the services in a church.
- **burial**: putting a dead body in the ground.
- **undertaker**: a person whose job is to arrange funerals.
- **mourner**: a person at a funeral who is sad because someone died.
- **'Change**: the place in London where merchants met.
- **coffin**: the long box for a dead body.
- **covetous**: wanting very much to have what other people have.
- **flint**: a very hard stone. Steel makes sparks of fire when it hits flint.
- **oyster**: a sea animal in a hard, closed shell.
- **froze**: made something very cold and hard, like ice.
- **sleet**: a mix of rain and snow.
- **counting-house**: an old word for a business office.
- **biting**: so cold that it hurts your skin.
- **candle**: a stick of wax that burns and gives light.
- **fog**: a thick cloud near the ground. You cannot see far in it.
- **keyhole**: the small hole in a door for a key.
- **comforter**: a long woollen scarf.
- **merry**: happy and full of fun.
- **humbug**: nonsense; something false.
- **pudding**: a heavy, sweet, boiled cake that people eat at Christmas.
- **holly**: a green plant with sharp leaves and red berries, used at Christmas.
- **shillings**: old English coins. Twenty shillings made one pound.
- **Bedlam**: a famous London hospital for mad people. "I will retire to Bedlam" means "I will go to the madhouse."
- **lunatic**: a mad person.
- **portly**: fat (a polite word).
- **liberality**: being generous and giving money freely.
- **anonymous**: giving something without saying your name.
- **Union workhouses**: hard places where very poor people worked for food and a bed.
- **Treadmill and the Poor Law**: a prison machine that prisoners walked on all day, and the law on help for poor people.
- **surplus population**: the extra people, those the country does not need.
- **brazier**: a metal basket that holds a fire.
- **poulterers**: people who sell chickens, geese and other birds for food.
- **door-nail**: a large nail in an old door.
- **Hamlet's Father**: the ghost in Shakespeare's play "Hamlet".
- **butlers**: the head men-servants in a rich house.
- **Saint Dunstan**: a saint who, in an old story, took the Devil by the nose with hot tongs.
- **carol**: a Christmas song.
- **ruler**: a straight stick for drawing lines.
- **great-coat**: a long, heavy coat for winter.
- **blind-man's buff**: a children's game. One player cannot see and tries to catch the others.
- **tavern**: an old word for a place that sells food and drink.
- **lobster**: a large sea animal with a hard shell and two big claws.
- **fierce**: angry and ready to attack.
- **spectacles**: an old word for glasses.
- **forehead**: the top part of your face, above your eyes.
- **pigtail**: long hair tied at the back of the head.
- **pooh**: a sound people make to show they think something is silly.
- **knocker**: a metal piece on a door. You hit the door with it.
- **cask**: a large round wooden box for wine or beer.
- **hearse**: a carriage that carries a dead body.
- **lumber-room**: a room for storing old things.
- **gruel**: a thin, plain, hot food made from oats and water.
- **hob**: a metal shelf beside a fire. It keeps food hot.
- **dressing-gown**: a long, loose coat that you wear over night clothes.
- **cravat**: a piece of cloth worn round the neck by men.
- **fireplace**: the open place in the wall of a room for a fire.
- **tassels**: bunches of threads tied together, used to decorate clothes.
- **ledgers**: large books that show the money a business gets and pays.
- **no bowels**: an old saying: no pity. People once thought pity lived in the bowels.
- **shade**: a ghost. "To a shade" also meant "exactly".
- **goblins**: small, ugly, bad creatures in old stories.
- **forged**: made something from hot metal.
- **fathoms**: a fathom is about two metres (used for rope and the sea).
- **tiring**: making you feel very weak and ready for sleep.
- **remorse**: deep sadness about a wrong thing you did.
- **sorrow**: deep sadness.
- **penance**: pain you accept because you did wrong.
- **haunt**: to visit a person or place as a ghost.
- **mist**: a thin cloud near the ground.
- **faded**: slowly became less clear and then disappeared.
- **coach-and-six**: a large carriage pulled by six horses.
- **tiles**: thin, flat pieces of baked clay on a wall or floor.
- **butter-boats**: small dishes shaped like boats, for melted butter.
- **Prophet's rod**: in the Bible, the stick of Aaron. It swallowed the sticks of other men.
- **Ward**: a part of a city, with its own officers.

## Stave Two: The First of the Three Spirits

When Scrooge woke, he looked out of bed. It was so dark that he could hardly tell the window from the walls. He tried to see through the dark with his small sharp eyes. Then the bells of a nearby church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.

He was very surprised. The heavy bell went from six to seven, and from seven to eight. It went on up to twelve. Then it stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must be in the works. Twelve!

He pressed the spring of his repeater to correct this silly clock. Its quick little pulse beat twelve and stopped.

"Why, it is not possible," said Scrooge. "Surely I did not sleep through a whole day and far into another night. It is not possible that something happened to the sun. This cannot be twelve at noon!"

The idea frightened him. He climbed out of bed and felt his way to the window. He had to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown. Only then could he see anything, and even then he could see very little. It was still very foggy and very cold. There was no noise of people running about in great excitement. Suppose night beat bright day and took over the world. Then there would be such a noise. This was a great relief, because of Scrooge's bills of money. They said, "three days after sight of this First of Exchange". They went on, "pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order." With no days to count by, the bill would be only a "United States' security". That means a worthless piece of paper.

Scrooge went back to bed. He thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over. He could not understand it. The more he thought, the more puzzled he was. And the more he tried not to think, the more he thought.

Marley's Ghost troubled him very much. Many times he thought hard and decided it was all a dream. But each time his mind jumped back, like a strong spring. The same problem came up again: "Was it a dream or not?"

Scrooge lay like this until the bell rang three more quarters. Then he suddenly remembered the Ghost's warning. A visitor would come when the bell tolled one. He decided to lie awake until the hour passed. He could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven. So this was perhaps his wisest plan.

The quarter was very long. So more than once he felt sure that he fell asleep and missed the clock. At last he heard it.

"Ding, dong!"

"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting.

"Ding, dong!"

"Half-past!" said Scrooge.

"Ding, dong!"

"A quarter to it," said Scrooge.

"Ding, dong!"

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

He spoke before the hour bell sounded. Now it sounded, with a deep, dull, hollow, sad One. At once light flashed up in the room, and the curtains of his bed moved aside.

A hand drew them aside, I tell you. Not the curtains at his feet. Not the curtains at his back. It drew the curtains in front of his face. A hand drew them aside. Scrooge sat half up and found himself face to face with his strange visitor. He was as close to it as I am now to you. And I am standing in spirit at your elbow.

It was a strange figure. It was like a child, but it was more like an old man. It seemed an old man seen from far away, and made small like a child. Its hair hung round its neck and down its back. The hair was white, as if with age. But the face had no wrinkles, and the skin was soft and young. The arms were very long and strong, and so were the hands. They seemed to have great power to hold. Its legs and feet were finely made, and they were bare like the arms. It wore a tunic of the purest white. Round its waist was a shining belt, very beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand. But it had summer flowers on its dress. This was strange with the winter holly. The strangest thing was the top of its head. A bright clear jet of light came from it, and this light showed everything. No doubt this was why it sometimes wore a great extinguisher as a cap. It did this in its duller moments. Now it held this cap under its arm.

Scrooge looked at it more and more closely. Even this was *not* its strangest quality. Its belt sparkled now in one place and now in another. What was light at one moment was dark the next. The figure itself changed in the same way. It was now a thing with one arm, now with one leg. Now it had twenty legs. Now it was a pair of legs with no head. Now it was a head with no body. The parts melted into the thick dark, and you could not see them. And while Scrooge wondered at this, it was itself again, as clear as ever.

"Are you the Spirit, sir, that someone told me to expect?" asked Scrooge.

"I am!"

The voice was soft and gentle. It was strangely low. It seemed to come from far away, not from close beside him.

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

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"Long Past?" asked Scrooge, because it was so small.

"No. Your past."

Perhaps Scrooge could not tell anybody why, if anybody asked him. But he very much wanted to see the Spirit in its cap. He begged it to put the cap on.

"What!" cried the Ghost. "Will you put out the light I give so soon, with worldly hands? You are one of those people whose passions made this cap. You force me to wear it low on my head through long, long years. Is that not enough?"

Scrooge answered with respect. He did not mean to offend. He never knowingly "bonneted" the Spirit at any time in his life. He never pushed a hat down over its head. Then he bravely asked what business brought it there.

"Your welfare!" said the Ghost.

Scrooge thanked it. But he could not help thinking this. A whole night's sleep was better for his welfare. The Spirit seemed to hear him think, because it spoke at once.

"To save you, then. Be careful!"

It put out its strong hand as it spoke and took him gently by the arm.

"Rise, and walk with me!"

Scrooge could say many things, but it was no use. He could say the weather and the hour were bad for walking. The bed was warm. It was far below freezing. He wore only his slippers, dressing-gown and nightcap. And he had a cold at that time. The hand was as gentle as a woman's, but he could not resist it. He got up. But the Spirit went towards the window, so he held its robe and begged.

"I am a mortal," said Scrooge, "and I may fall."

"Let my hand touch you *there*," said the Spirit. It laid its hand on his heart. "Then I will hold you up in more than this!"

As it spoke, they passed through the wall. They stood on an open country road, with fields on each side. The city was gone. There was nothing left of it. The dark and the mist were gone too. It was a clear, cold winter day, with snow on the ground.

"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, and he held his hands together. He looked around him. "I grew up in this place. I was a boy here!"

The Spirit looked at him gently. Its touch was light and short, but Scrooge still seemed to feel it. He noticed a thousand smells in the air. Each smell brought back a thousand thoughts, hopes, joys and cares, long, long forgotten!

"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is that on your cheek?"

Scrooge muttered that it was a pimple. There was a strange break in his voice. He begged the Ghost to lead him where it wanted.

"You remember the way?" asked the Spirit.

"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with strong feeling. "I could walk it with my eyes shut."

"It is strange that you forgot it for so many years!" said the Ghost. "Let us go on."

They walked along the road, and Scrooge knew every gate, post and tree. Then they saw a little market-town far ahead. It had a bridge, a church and a winding river. Some shaggy ponies came trotting towards them, with boys on their backs. The boys called to other boys in country gigs and in farmers' carts. All these boys were very happy. They shouted to each other until the wide fields were full of merry music. The crisp air laughed to hear it!

The Ghost said, "These are only shadows of the things that have been. They do not know that we are here."

The happy travellers came on. As they came, Scrooge knew and named every one of them. Why was he so glad to see them! Why did his cold eye shine, and his heart jump as they went past! Why did he feel such joy when they said Merry Christmas to each other? They said it as they parted at cross-roads and side roads for their homes. What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Away with merry Christmas! What good did it ever do him?

"The school is not quite empty," said the Ghost. "A lonely child is still there. His friends do not care about him."

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road by a lane he remembered well. Soon they came to a large house of dull red brick. There was a little tower on the roof. It had a weathercock on top and a bell inside. It was a big house, but its good days were over. Nobody used the large outside buildings much. Their walls were damp and mossy. Their windows were broken, and their gates were rotten. Hens clucked and walked proudly in the stables. Grass covered the coach-houses and sheds. Inside, the house was no better. They went into the dreary hall and looked through the open doors of many rooms. The rooms had little furniture, and they were cold and huge. The air had an earthy smell, and the place was cold and bare. It reminded you of too much getting up by candle-light and not enough to eat.

The Ghost and Scrooge went across the hall. They came to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them. They saw a long, bare, sad room. Lines of plain wooden benches and desks made it look even barer. At one of these desks, a lonely boy was reading near a weak fire. Scrooge sat down on a bench. He cried to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.

There was a hidden echo in the house. Mice squeaked and ran behind the wooden walls. Water dripped from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind. A sad poplar sighed in its bare branches. An empty store-house door swung slowly. The fire clicked. Every small sound softened Scrooge's heart and brought more tears.

The Spirit touched his arm and pointed to young Scrooge, who was reading hard. Suddenly a man in foreign clothes stood outside the window. He looked wonderfully real and clear. He had an axe in his belt, and he led an ass with wood on its back.

"Why, it is Ali Baba!" cried Scrooge, full of joy. "It is dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, that lonely child was here all alone. Ali Baba *did* come then, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine," said Scrooge, "and his wild brother, Orson. There they go! And what is his name? Someone put him down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus. Do you not see him? And there is the Sultan's Groom! The Genii turned him upside down, and there he is on his head! Serve him right. I am glad of it. What business did *he* have to marry the Princess!"

Scrooge put all his serious nature into these things. His voice was very strange, between laughing and crying. His face was red and excited. His business friends in the city would be very surprised to hear and see this.

"There is the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce on top of his head. There he is! The man sailed round the island and came home. The Parrot called him Poor Robin Crusoe. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?' The man thought he was dreaming, but he was not. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!"

Then he changed very quickly, and this was not like him at all. He felt pity for the boy he once was. "Poor boy!" he said, and he cried again.

Scrooge dried his eyes with his cuff. He put his hand in his pocket and looked around him. "I wish ..." he muttered. "But it is too late now."

"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.

"Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I wanted to give him something. That is all."

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully and waved its hand. "Let us see another Christmas!" it said.

Young Scrooge grew larger at these words. The room became a little darker and dirtier. The wooden walls shrank and the windows cracked. Pieces of plaster fell from the ceiling, and the bare laths showed instead. Scrooge knew no more than you do how all this happened. He only knew that it was correct. Everything happened just like this. There he was, alone again. All the other boys were at home for the happy holidays.

He was not reading now. He was walking up and down in despair. Scrooge looked at the Ghost and shook his head sadly. He looked anxiously at the door.

It opened. A little girl, much younger than the boy, ran in. She put her arms round his neck and kissed him many times. She called him her "Dear, dear brother."

"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the child. She clapped her tiny hands and bent down to laugh. "To bring you home, home, home!"

"Home, little Fan?" said the boy.

"Yes!" said the child, full of joy. "Home for good and all. Home for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be that home is like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night, when I was going to bed. So I was not afraid to ask him once more if you could come home. And he said yes, you could! He sent me in a coach to bring you. And you are going to be a man!" said the child, and she opened her eyes wide. "You will never come back here. But first we will be together all Christmas. We will have the merriest time in all the world."

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

She clapped her hands and laughed and tried to touch his head. She was too little, so she laughed again and stood on tiptoe to hug him. Then she began to pull him towards the door, like the eager child she was. He went with her gladly.

A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master Scrooge's box, there!" The schoolmaster himself appeared in the hall. He looked at Master Scrooge with fierce kindness and shook hands with him. This put the boy in a terrible state. Then he took the boy and his sister into the best parlour. It was the coldest old room you ever saw, as cold as a deep well. The maps on the wall looked like wax with cold. So did the globes of the earth and the stars in the windows. Here he brought out a bottle of strangely light wine. He also brought out a block of strangely heavy cake. He gave the young people small amounts of these fine things. At the same time he sent out a thin servant. The servant offered the postboy a glass of "something". The postboy thanked the gentleman. But was it from the same tap as before? Then he would rather not have it. By this time someone tied Master Scrooge's trunk on the top of the chaise. The children said good-bye to the schoolmaster very gladly. They got into the chaise and drove happily down the garden path. The quick wheels threw frost and snow off the dark evergreen leaves like spray.

"She was always a delicate creature," said the Ghost. "One breath could kill her. But she had a large heart!"

"So she had," cried Scrooge. "You are right. I will not say no to that, Spirit. God forbid!"

"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and she had, I think, children."

"One child," Scrooge answered.

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

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind. "Yes," he answered shortly.

They left the school behind them only a moment ago. But now they were in the busy streets of a city. Shadowy people passed up and down. Shadowy carts and coaches fought for the way. All the noise and movement of a real city were there. The shops in their Christmas dress showed clearly that it was Christmas time here too. But it was evening, and the streets were full of lights.

The Ghost stopped at a warehouse door. It asked Scrooge if he knew the place.

"Know it!" said Scrooge. "I was an apprentice here!"

They went in. An old gentleman in a Welsh wig sat behind a very high desk. Two more inches, and his head would hit the ceiling. Scrooge saw him and cried out in great excitement.

"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart! It's Fezziwig alive again!"

Old Fezziwig put down his pen and looked up at the clock. It was seven o'clock. He rubbed his hands. He pulled his big waistcoat straight. He laughed all over, from his shoes to the top of his kind head. Then he called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jolly voice.

"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"

Young Scrooge, now a young man, came in quickly. His fellow-apprentice came with him.

"Dick Wilkins, of course!" said Scrooge to the Ghost. "Bless me, yes. There he is. He liked me very much, did Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!"

"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig. He clapped his hands sharply. "Up before a man can say Jack Robinson!"

You would not believe how fast those two young men worked! They ran into the street with the shutters: one, two, three. They put them up in their places: four, five, six. They put the bars across and pinned them: seven, eight, nine. They came back before you could count to twelve. They were breathing hard, like race-horses.

"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig. He skipped down from the high desk, and he was wonderfully quick. "Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!"

Clear away! With old Fezziwig watching, they wanted to clear away everything, and they could! It took one minute. They packed away everything that could move. It was as if these things left public life for ever. They swept the floor and put water on it. They cleaned the lamps. They heaped fuel on the fire. The warehouse was now a ball-room. It was cosy, warm, dry and bright. You could not want a better one on a winter's night.

In came a fiddler with a music-book. He went up to the high desk and made an orchestra of it. He tuned his fiddle, and it sounded like fifty stomach-aches.

In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one huge, solid smile.

In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, bright with smiles and easy to love.

In came the six young followers. The Miss Fezziwigs broke all their hearts.

In came all the young men and women of the business.

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

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

In came the boy from over the way. People thought his master did not give him enough food. He tried to hide behind the girl from next door but one. Everybody knew that her mistress pulled her ears.

In they all came, one after another. Some came shyly, some boldly. Some came gracefully, some awkwardly. Some pushed, some pulled. In they all came, in every possible way.

Away they all went, twenty couples at once. They joined hands half round, and went back again the other way. They danced down the middle and up again. They went round and round in loving groups of many kinds. The old top couple always turned up in the wrong place. The new top couple started off again when they got there. At last all were top couples, and there was no bottom couple to help them!

Then old Fezziwig clapped his hands to stop the dance. "Well done!" he cried. The fiddler pushed his hot face into a pot of porter. It stood there ready for him. But when he came up, he did not want to rest. He started again at once, though nobody was dancing yet. He acted as if the other fiddler was very tired. He acted as if people carried that fiddler home on a shutter. He acted like a brand-new man, who wanted to beat him or die.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances. There was cake, and there was negus. There was a great piece of Cold Roast. There was a great piece of Cold Boiled. There were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.

But the great moment of the evening came after the Roast and the Boiled. Then the fiddler played "Sir Roger de Coverley". He was a clever man, mind! He knew his business better than you or I could tell him! Old Fezziwig stood up to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. They were the top couple too. They had hard work in front of them. There were twenty-three or twenty-four pairs of partners. These were serious people. They wanted to dance, and they had no idea of walking.

But there could be twice as many people. Ah, four times as many! Old Fezziwig could still match them, and so could Mrs. Fezziwig. She was worthy to be his partner in every way. If that is not high praise, tell me a higher one. I will use it. Light seemed to shine from Fezziwig's calves. They shone like moons in every part of the dance. You could never guess what they would do next.

Old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig went through the whole dance. Forward and back. Both hands to your partner. Bow and curtsey. Corkscrew. Thread-the-needle. And back again to your place. Then Fezziwig "cut". He cut so well that he seemed to wink with his legs. He came down on his feet and did not lose his balance.

The clock struck eleven, and this ball in the warehouse ended. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig stood one on each side of the door. They shook hands with each person who went out. They wished each person a Merry Christmas. Then everybody was gone but the two apprentices. The Fezziwigs did the same to them. The cheerful voices died away, and the lads went to their beds. Their beds were under a counter in the back-shop.

All this time Scrooge acted like a man out of his mind. His heart and soul were in the scene, with young Scrooge. He agreed with everything. He remembered everything. He enjoyed everything. He felt the strangest excitement. Now the bright faces of young Scrooge and Dick turned away. Only at that moment did Scrooge remember the Ghost. It was looking straight at him, and the light on its head burned very clear.

"It is a small thing," said the Ghost, "to make these silly people so thankful."

"Small!" said Scrooge.

The Spirit made a sign to him. Scrooge listened to the two apprentices. They were praising Fezziwig with all their hearts. Then the Spirit spoke.

"Why! Is it not small? He spent only a few pounds of your human money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much? Does he deserve this praise for it?"

"It isn't that," said Scrooge. The Spirit's words made him hot and angry. Without knowing it, he spoke like young Scrooge, not like the old man. "It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to make us happy or unhappy. He can make our work light or heavy, a pleasure or a pain. Say that his power is in words and looks. They are such small things. Nobody can add them up and count them. What then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

He felt the Spirit's look and stopped.

"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.

"Nothing particular," said Scrooge.

"Something, I think?" the Ghost said again.

"No," said Scrooge. "No. I want to say a word or two to my clerk now. That's all."

Young Scrooge turned down the lamps as Scrooge said this. Scrooge and the Ghost stood side by side in the open air again.

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

The Spirit did not say this to Scrooge, or to anyone he could see. But it worked at once, because Scrooge saw himself again. He was older now, a man in the best years of his life. His face did not have the hard lines of later years yet. But it began to show signs of worry and greed. His eye moved in an eager, greedy, restless way. It showed the passion that now had its roots in him. It showed where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.

He was not alone. He sat beside a fair young girl in a mourning-dress. There were tears in her eyes. They shone in the light from the Ghost of Christmas Past.

"It matters little," she said softly. "To you, very little. Another idol has taken my place. I wanted to cheer and comfort you in the years to come. If it can do that, I have no reason to grieve."

"What idol has taken your place?" he asked.

"A golden one."

"This is the world's idea of being fair!" he said. "The world is hardest on people who are poor. And it says it blames nothing more than the search for money!"

"You fear the world too much," she answered gently. "All your other hopes have become one hope. You hope to be safe from its dirty blame. I have seen your better wishes fall away, one by one. Now Gain alone fills you. It is your one great passion. Have I not seen it?"

"What then?" he said sharply. "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you."

She shook her head.

"Am I?"

"Our promise is an old one. We made it when we were both poor and happy to be so. We planned to wait. In time, our patient work could make our lives better. You are changed. When we made it, you were another man."

"I was a boy," he said impatiently.

"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are now," she said. "I am still the same. Our promise meant happiness when we were one in heart. Now we are two, and it means misery. I will not say how often I have thought of this. I will not say how deeply. It is enough that I have thought of it, and I can release you."

"Have I ever asked for release?"

"In words. No. Never."

"In what, then?"

"In a changed nature. In a different spirit. In another kind of life, with another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love worth anything to you. Think of this promise, and say that it never existed." The girl looked at him gently but steadily. "Tell me, would you look for me now? Would you try to win me? Ah, no!"

He seemed to agree with her, against his own will. But he said with a struggle, "You think not."

"I would gladly think something else if I could," she answered. "Heaven knows! But I have learned this Truth, so I know how strong it must be. Say you were free today, tomorrow, yesterday. Can even I believe that you would choose a girl with no money? Even in your private talks with her, you weigh everything by Gain. Or say that you chose her. Say that for one moment you were false to your one great rule. Do I not know that you would surely regret it? I do, and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were."

He was about to speak, but she went on with her head turned away from him.

"You may feel pain in this. The memory of the past half makes me hope you will. But after a very, very short time, you will gladly put this memory away. It will be a useless dream, and you will be glad that you woke from it. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!"

She left him, and they parted.

"Spirit!" said Scrooge. "Show me no more! Take me home. Why do you like to torture me?"

"One shadow more!" cried the Ghost.

"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don't want to see it. Show me no more!"

But the Ghost had no pity. It held him by both arms and made him watch what happened next.

They were in another place. It was a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. A beautiful young girl sat near the winter fire. She looked so like the last girl that Scrooge thought it was the same one. Then he saw the other one. She was now a good-looking older woman, and she sat opposite her daughter.

The noise in this room was wild. There were more children than Scrooge could count in his excited state. A famous poem tells of a herd of forty that acted like one. These were not forty children who acted like one. Every child acted like forty! The result was louder than you can believe. But nobody seemed to care. The mother and daughter laughed and enjoyed it very much. Soon the daughter joined the games. The young bandits robbed her without mercy.

What would I give to be one of them! But I could never be so rude. No, no! I would not crush that braided hair and pull it down. Not for all the money in the world! And that dear little shoe! I would not pull it off, God bless my soul, not to save my life. They measured her waist in play, those bold young children. I could not do that. I would expect my arm to grow round it as a punishment. It would never come straight again. And yet, I say it honestly, I would dearly like to touch her lips. I would like to ask her questions, so that she would open them. I would like to look at the lashes of her lowered eyes. And I would not make her blush. I would like to let loose her waves of hair. One inch of it would be a treasure beyond any price. In short, I would like the freedom of a child. And I would like to be man enough to know its value.

But now somebody knocked at the door. All the children rushed to it at once. The rush carried the daughter with it. She was laughing, and her dress was all out of place. She was in the middle of a red-faced, noisy group. They came just in time to greet the father. He came home with a man, and the man carried Christmas toys and presents.

Then came the shouting and the struggling! Then came the attack on the helpless porter! They climbed up him, with chairs for ladders! They put their hands in his pockets! They took his brown-paper parcels! They held on tight by his cravat! They hugged him round his neck! They beat his back and kicked his legs, all with love! They shouted with wonder and joy at every parcel!

Then came the terrible news. Someone saw the baby with a doll's frying-pan in his mouth! And people were almost sure he swallowed a toy turkey, glued on a wooden plate! Then came the great relief, because it was a false alarm! The joy, the thanks, the delight! I cannot describe any of them. It is enough to say this. Little by little the children and their feelings left the parlour. They went up, one stair at a time, to the top of the house. There they went to bed, and all grew quiet.

Now Scrooge watched more closely than ever. The master of the house sat down at his own fire. His daughter leaned lovingly on him, and her mother sat with them. Scrooge thought: I have no child like this. She is so graceful and so full of promise. No girl like her calls me father. A girl like her could be a spring-time in the hard winter of my life. His eyes grew very dim.

"Belle," said the husband, and he turned to his wife with a smile. "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon."

"Who was it?"

"Guess!"

"How can I? Tut, don't I know?" she added at once, and she laughed as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."

"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window. It was not shut, and he had a candle inside. So I could hardly help seeing him. I hear that his partner is dying. And there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I believe."

"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice. "Take me away from this place."

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost. "They are what they are. Do not blame me!"

"Take me away!" cried Scrooge. "I cannot bear it!"

He turned on the Ghost. It looked at him with a strange face. In some way the face held pieces of all the faces it had shown him. Scrooge fought with it.

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

It was a struggle, if you can call it that. The Ghost did not fight back at all. Nothing Scrooge did could touch it. Then Scrooge saw that its light was burning high and bright. He felt, in a dim way, that the light gave it power over him. He took the extinguisher-cap and quickly pushed it down on the Ghost's head.

The Spirit sank under it, and the cap covered its whole body. Scrooge pressed down with all his force, but he could not hide the light. It streamed out from under the cap, in an unbroken flood along the ground.

He felt exhausted, and he could not fight a heavy sleepiness. He saw, too, that he was in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a last squeeze, and his hand grew weak. He just had time to reach his bed. Then he sank into a heavy sleep.

### Glossary

- **icicle**: a long, thin piece of ice that hangs down.
- **repeater**: a watch that strikes the time when you press a spring.
- **frightened**: made someone afraid.
- **sleeve**: the part of a coat or shirt that covers your arm.
- **dressing-gown**: a long, loose coat that you wear over night clothes.
- **foggy**: full of thick cloud near the ground, so you cannot see far.
- **quarter**: fifteen minutes. The church bells rang every quarter of an hour.
- **tolled**: rang slowly, like a big bell.
- **dull**: not bright; (of a sound) not clear or sharp.
- **curtains**: pieces of cloth that hang round a bed or at a window.
- **elbow**: the middle part of your arm, where it bends.
- **wrinkles**: small lines in the skin of an old face.
- **tunic**: a simple long shirt or dress.
- **holly**: a green plant with sharp leaves and red berries, used at Christmas.
- **extinguisher**: a metal cap that puts out a flame.
- **begged**: asked very strongly for something.
- **bonneted**: pushed a hat down over someone's eyes.
- **mortal**: a person who must die one day.
- **muttered**: said something quietly and not clearly.
- **gigs**: light carriages with two wheels and one horse.
- **merry**: happy and full of fun.
- **weathercock**: a metal bird on a roof. It turns and shows where the wind comes from.
- **clapped**: hit the hands together, to make a sound.
- **schoolmaster**: a man who teaches in a school or is head of it.
- **chaise**: a light carriage for travelling.
- **postboy**: the driver of a chaise.
- **laths**: thin pieces of wood behind the plaster of a wall.
- **pimple**: a small red spot on the skin.
- **poplar**: a tall, thin tree.
- **Ali Baba**: a poor man in an old story who finds a robbers' treasure.
- **Valentine and Orson**: twin brothers in an old story.
- **Genii**: magic spirits in old Arabian stories.
- **Robin Crusoe**: a man alone on an island in a famous book. Friday is his servant.
- **parlour**: a room for sitting in and meeting visitors.
- **apprentice**: a young person who learns a trade from a master.
- **shutters**: wooden covers for the outside of a shop window.
- **before a man can say Jack Robinson**: very quickly.
- **fiddler**: a person who plays the violin. A fiddle is a violin.
- **porter**: a dark beer. It can also mean a man who carries things.
- **forfeits**: a party game. If you lose, you must do something silly.
- **negus**: a hot sweet drink of wine and water.
- **"cut"**: in dancing, to jump and cross the feet quickly in the air.
- **mourning-dress**: dark clothes worn after someone dies.
- **idol**: something people love too much, as if it were a god.
- **Gain**: getting money, and getting more and more of it.
- **release**: to set someone free from a promise.
- **extinguisher-cap**: a metal cap that puts out a flame.

## Stave Three: The Second of the Three Spirits

Scrooge woke in the middle of a huge, hard snore. He sat up in bed to collect his thoughts. Nobody needed to tell him. The bell was about to strike One again. He felt that he was awake at just the right moment. He was in time to meet the second messenger. It was coming to him because of Jacob Marley. He began to wonder which curtain this new Ghost would pull back. The thought made him feel cold and uncomfortable. So he pushed back all the curtains with his own hands. He lay down again and kept a sharp watch all round the bed. He wanted to speak to the Spirit the moment it came. He did not want it to surprise him and make him nervous.

Some gentlemen are free and easy. They are proud that they know a trick or two. They like to say that they are good for anything, from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter. A coin game and the killing of a man are far apart. Many things lie between them. I will not say quite so much for Scrooge. But you can believe this. He was ready for a wide range of strange visitors. Nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would surprise him very much.

He was ready for almost anything, but he was not at all ready for nothing. So when the bell struck One and no shape came, he began to shake hard. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, and nothing came. All this time he lay on his bed. He was right in the centre of a blaze of red light. The light came when the clock struck the hour. It was only light, but it frightened him more than a dozen ghosts. That was because he could not understand what it was or what it wanted. Sometimes he had another fear. Perhaps he was at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion. And he did not even have the comfort of knowing it!

At last he began to think. You or I would think of this at once. The person who is not in trouble always knows what to do. He would certainly do it too! At last, I say, he began to think about the next room. Perhaps the secret of this ghostly light was there. He looked more closely, and it seemed to shine from there. The idea filled his mind. He got up softly and walked slowly in his slippers to the door.

Scrooge's hand touched the lock. At that moment a strange voice called his name and told him to come in. He obeyed.

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had changed in a surprising way. Living green plants hung on the walls and ceiling. The room looked like a little green wood. Bright berries shone in every part of it. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe and ivy shone like many little mirrors. A great fire roared up the chimney. That dull old fireplace never knew such a fire in Scrooge's time, or in Marley's. It had not known one for many, many winters.

Food lay heaped up on the floor, and it made a kind of throne. There were turkeys and geese. There was game and poultry. There was brawn. There were great joints of meat and sucking-pigs. There were long lines of sausages. There were mince-pies and plum-puddings and barrels of oysters. There were red-hot chestnuts, red-cheeked apples and juicy oranges. There were sweet pears and huge twelfth-cakes. There were bowls of boiling punch, and their delicious steam made the room dim.

A jolly Giant sat comfortably on this throne. He was wonderful to see. He carried a glowing torch, shaped like a horn of plenty. He held it up, high up, and its light fell on Scrooge. Scrooge was looking round the door.

"Come in!" cried the Ghost. "Come in, and know me better, man!"

Scrooge came in shyly and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the stubborn Scrooge of before. The Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, but he did not like to meet them.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit. "Look at me!"

Scrooge looked at him with respect. The Spirit wore one simple green robe with white fur at the edges. The robe hung very loosely on him, and his wide chest was bare. He did not seem to want to hide it or cover it with any trick. His feet were bare too. Scrooge could see them below the wide folds of the robe. He wore only a holly wreath on his head, with shining icicles here and there. His dark brown curls were long and free. They were as free as his kind face, his sparkling eye and his open hand. They were as free as his cheerful voice, his easy manner and his joyful air. Round his middle he wore an old scabbard. But there was no sword in it, and rust was eating the old case.

"You have never seen anyone like me before!" cried the Spirit.

"Never," Scrooge answered.

"You have never walked out with the younger members of my family?" said the Spirit. "I am very young, so I mean my older brothers, born in these later years."

"I don't think I have," said Scrooge. "I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?"

"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost.

"That is a huge family to pay for!" said Scrooge quietly.

The Ghost of Christmas Present stood up.

"Spirit," said Scrooge humbly, "take me where you want. Last night I went because I had to, and I learned a lesson. It is working in me now. Tonight, if you have anything to teach me, let me learn it."

"Touch my robe!"

Scrooge did as the Spirit said, and he held it tight.

Holly, mistletoe, red berries and ivy vanished at once. Turkeys, geese, game, poultry and brawn vanished. Meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies and puddings vanished. Fruit and punch vanished too. So did the room, the fire, the red light and the hour of night.

They stood in the city streets on Christmas morning. The weather was very cold. People scraped the snow from the pavement in front of their homes. They scraped it from their roofs too. It made a rough kind of music, but it was quick and quite pleasant. The boys loved to see the snow fall down into the road. It broke into little snow-storms there, and this made them wild with joy.

The house fronts looked black, and the windows looked blacker. Smooth white snow lay on the roofs, and dirtier snow lay on the ground. The heavy wheels of carts and waggons cut deep lines in this snow. The lines crossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets met. They made a puzzle of channels in the thick yellow mud and icy water.

The sky was gloomy. A dirty mist filled the shortest streets, half thawed and half frozen. Soot fell from it in a shower. It looked as if all the chimneys in Great Britain were on fire together. They seemed very happy to burn. There was nothing very cheerful in the weather or the town. And yet there was a cheerfulness in the air. The clearest summer air and the brightest summer sun could not give that cheerfulness.

This was because the people on the housetops were jolly and full of joy. They shovelled the snow and called to each other from the edges of the roofs. Now and then they threw a funny snowball. A snowball is much kinder than many jokes in words! They laughed loudly if it hit, and they laughed just as loudly if it missed.

The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' shops shone. There were great round baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen. They leaned at the doors. They were so full and fat that the chestnuts fell out into the street.

There were red-brown, fat Spanish Onions. They shone like fat Spanish Friars. They winked from their shelves at the girls who went by. The girls looked quietly at the mistletoe that hung there.

There were pears and apples in high pyramids. There were bunches of grapes on hooks, where everybody could see them. The kind shopkeepers hung them there so people's mouths could water for free. There were piles of brown, mossy filberts. Their smell brought back old walks in the woods. You pushed your feet through dead leaves, ankle deep. There were Norfolk Biffins, flat and dark, beside yellow oranges and lemons. They were so full of juice. They seemed to beg people to carry them home in paper bags. "Eat us after dinner!" they seemed to say.

Even the gold and silver fish had a bowl among these fine fruits. Fish are dull creatures with slow blood. But these seemed to know that something was happening. Every one of them went round and round its little world. They opened their mouths and moved slowly, excited but with no passion.

The Grocers'! Oh, the Grocers'! They were nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one. But what you could see through those gaps! The scales came down on the counter with a merry sound. The string flew quickly off the roller. The tins rattled up and down like juggling tricks. The smells of tea and coffee mixed, and they were so good for the nose. There were so many rare raisins. The almonds were so very white. The sticks of cinnamon were so long and straight. The other spices were delicious. The candied fruits were thick with sugar. They made the coldest people feel faint, and then sick. The figs were wet and soft. The French plums blushed in their decorated boxes, and they tasted a little sharp. Everything was good to eat, and everything wore its Christmas dress.

But that was not all. The customers were in a great hurry, and so full of hope for the day. They bumped into each other at the door and crashed their baskets wildly. They left their shopping on the counter and came running back for it. They made hundreds of mistakes like this, all in the best of moods. The Grocer and his people were so open and fresh. They tied their aprons behind them with shiny hearts. These could be their own hearts, worn outside for everybody to see. Christmas daws could come and peck at them.

But soon the steeples called all good people to church and chapel. They came through the streets in crowds. They wore their best clothes and their happiest faces. At the same time, many other people came out of side streets and lanes. They came out of little nameless turnings too. There were too many to count. They carried their dinners to the bakers' shops.

These poor, merry people seemed to interest the Spirit very much. He stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway. He took the covers off the dinners as the people passed. He sprinkled incense on the dinners from his torch. It was a very unusual kind of torch. Once or twice some dinner-carriers bumped each other and had angry words. The Spirit dropped a little water on them from the torch. Their good humour came back at once. They said it was a shame to quarrel on Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!

In time the bells stopped, and the bakers shut their doors. And yet you could still see signs of all these dinners cooking. There was a wet patch above each baker's oven, where the snow melted. The pavement smoked there, as if its stones were cooking too.

"Is there a special flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?" asked Scrooge.

"There is. My own."

"Does it work on any kind of dinner today?" asked Scrooge.

"On any dinner given with kindness. On a poor one most."

"Why on a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.

"Because it needs it most."

"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I am surprised at you. There are many beings in the many worlds around us. You, of all of them, want to limit these people's innocent joy!"

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You want to take away their way of eating every seventh day," said Scrooge. "It is often the only day they really have a dinner. Don't you?"

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You want to close these places on the Seventh Day?" said Scrooge. "And that comes to the same thing."

"I want that?" cried the Spirit.

"Forgive me if I am wrong," said Scrooge. "People have done it in your name, or at least in the name of your family."

"There are some people on this earth of yours," answered the Spirit. "They say they know us. They use our name for their deeds. These deeds come from passion, pride, ill-will and hatred. They come from envy, bigotry and selfishness. But they are as strange to us and our family as if they never lived. Remember that. Blame them for what they do, not us."

Scrooge promised to remember, and they went on. Nobody could see them, just as before. They went into the suburbs of the town. The Ghost had a remarkable power, and Scrooge noticed it at the baker's. He was very big, but he could fit into any place with ease. He stood under a low roof as gracefully as in a tall hall. He looked just as much like a spirit there.

Perhaps the good Spirit enjoyed showing this power. Or perhaps it was his own kind, generous, warm nature. He felt for all poor men. For one of these reasons, he went straight to the house of Scrooge's clerk. Scrooge went with him, holding on to his robe. At the door the Spirit smiled. He stopped to bless the home of Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's clerk. He sprinkled it from his torch. Think of that! Bob earned only fifteen "Bob" a week. People called a shilling a "bob". So every Saturday he took home just fifteen copies of his own first name. And yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife. She wore a poor twice-turned gown, but she was bright with ribbons. Ribbons are cheap, and they look very good for sixpence. She laid the cloth, and Belinda Cratchit helped her. Belinda was the second of her daughters, and she was bright with ribbons too.

Master Peter Cratchit pushed a fork into the saucepan of potatoes. He wore a huge shirt collar. It was Bob's own collar. He lent it to his son and heir for the day. The corners of the collar went into Peter's mouth. He was happy to be so finely dressed. He wanted to show his shirt in the fashionable Parks.

Now the two smaller Cratchits, a boy and a girl, ran in, screaming. They smelled the goose outside the baker's, they said. They knew it was their own. They thought happily of sage and onion. They danced round the table and said wonderful things about Master Peter Cratchit. Peter was not proud, although his collars nearly choked him. He blew the fire. At last the slow potatoes bubbled up. They knocked loudly at the saucepan lid. They wanted someone to let them out and peel them.

"What has happened to your dear father?" said Mrs. Cratchit. "And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha was half an hour earlier last Christmas Day!"

"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, as she came in.

"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!"

"Why, bless your heart, my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs. Cratchit. She kissed her a dozen times. She took off Martha's shawl and bonnet for her, and she was very busy about it.

"We had a lot of work to finish last night," said the girl. "And we had to clear up this morning, mother!"

"Well! Never mind, now you are here," said Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit down by the fire, my dear, and get warm. Lord bless you!"

"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha, hide!"

So Martha hid. In came little Bob, the father. At least three feet of comforter hung down in front of him. That did not count the fringe. He wore his old, thin clothes, mended and brushed, to look right for the day. Tiny Tim sat on his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim! He carried a little crutch, and an iron frame held up his limbs.

"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, and he looked round.

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"Not coming!" said Bob. All his joy fell at once. He was Tim's race-horse all the way from church. He came home jumping with joy. "Not coming on Christmas Day!"

Martha did not like to see him sad, even in a joke. So she came out too soon from behind the closet door. She ran into his arms. The two young Cratchits quickly carried Tiny Tim off to the wash-house. They wanted him to hear the pudding singing in the copper.

Mrs. Cratchit laughed at Bob for believing her. Bob hugged his daughter for as long as he wanted. Then Mrs. Cratchit asked, "And how did little Tim behave?"

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. He sits by himself so much, and somehow he gets thoughtful. He thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me something on the way home. He hoped the people saw him in the church, because he is a cripple. It might be pleasant for them on Christmas Day. They could remember who made lame beggars walk and blind men see."

Bob's voice shook when he told them this. It shook more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and healthy.

They heard his busy little crutch on the floor. Back came Tiny Tim before anyone spoke another word. His brother and sister took him to his stool by the fire. Bob turned up his cuffs, poor man, as if they could get any more shabby. He made a hot drink in a jug with gin and lemons. He stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to stay hot. Master Peter and the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere, went to fetch the goose. They soon came back in a grand parade.

There was such a fuss! You might think that a goose was the rarest of all birds. It was a wonder with feathers, and a black swan was common beside it. And in that house, it really was very like that.

Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy hissing hot. She had it ready in a little saucepan. Master Peter mashed the potatoes very, very hard. Miss Belinda sweetened the apple-sauce. Martha dusted the hot plates. Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table. The two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, and for themselves too. They sat down on guard and pushed spoons into their mouths. They did not want to shout for goose before their turn came.

At last they put the dishes on the table and said grace. Then came a breathless pause. Mrs. Cratchit looked slowly all along the carving-knife. She got ready to push it into the breast. She pushed it in, and out came the stuffing at last. A murmur of joy went round the table. Even Tiny Tim joined in, because the two young Cratchits excited him. He hit the table with the handle of his knife. He cried Hurrah! in a weak voice.

There never was such a goose. Bob said he did not believe anyone ever cooked such a goose. Everyone praised it. It was so soft and tasty, so big and so cheap! With the apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was enough dinner for the whole family. Mrs. Cratchit looked at one tiny bone on the dish. They did not eat it all, she said with great delight! Yet everyone had enough. The youngest Cratchits especially had sage and onion up to their eyebrows!

Miss Belinda changed the plates. Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone, to take the pudding up and bring it in. She was too nervous to let anyone watch.

Suppose it was not cooked enough! Suppose it broke when she turned it out! Suppose somebody climbed the back-yard wall and stole it during the goose! The two young Cratchits went white at that idea! They all imagined terrible things.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's, next door to each other! And a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding!

In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit came in, red in the face but smiling proudly. She carried the pudding. It was like a spotted cannon-ball, very hard and firm. It was burning in a very little brandy. Christmas holly stood in the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that it was her greatest success since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said the weight was off her mind now. She could admit that she had doubts about the amount of flour. Everybody had something to say about it. But nobody said or thought that it was a small pudding for a large family. That would be a terrible thing to say. Any Cratchit would blush to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was finished. They cleared the cloth, swept the hearth and made up the fire. They tasted the drink in the jug, and it was perfect. They put apples and oranges on the table. They put a shovel of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family sat round the hearth. Bob Cratchit called it a circle. He meant half a circle. At Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family's glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup with no handle.

But these held the hot drink as well as golden cups. Bob served it with a shining face, and the chestnuts on the fire cracked noisily. Then Bob said:

"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"

All the family said it after him.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, last of all.

He sat very close to his father on his little stool. Bob held the thin little hand in his own. He seemed to love the child and want to keep him by his side. He seemed afraid that someone could take him away.

Scrooge spoke with a feeling he never knew before. "Spirit, tell me if Tiny Tim will live."

"I see a vacant seat in the poor chimney-corner," said the Ghost. "And a crutch without an owner. Someone keeps it carefully. If the Future does not change these shadows, the child will die."

"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! Say he will live."

The Ghost answered. "If the Future does not change these shadows, my family will not find him here. What then? If he is likely to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Scrooge hung his head when he heard the Spirit use his own words. He was full of sorrow and shame.

"Man," said the Ghost. "If you are a man in your heart, not a stone, stop this wicked talk! Stop until you know What the surplus is and Where it is. Will you decide which men live and which men die? Perhaps in the eyes of Heaven you are worth less. Perhaps you are less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! Hear the Insect on the leaf! He talks about too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!"

Scrooge bowed his head at the Ghost's angry words. He shook and looked down at the ground. But he looked up quickly when he heard his own name.

"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob. "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!"

"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit, and her face grew red. "I wish I had him here. I'd tell him what I think of him. He could feast on that, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it!"

"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas Day."

"It must be Christmas Day, I am sure," she said. "Only then can one drink the health of Mr. Scrooge. He is such a hateful, mean, hard, unfeeling man. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor man!"

"My dear," said Bob gently, "Christmas Day."

"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's," said Mrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!"

The children drank after her. It was the first thing they did that day without joy. Tiny Tim drank last of all, but he did not care about it at all. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. His name put a dark shadow on the party. It stayed for a full five minutes.

When it passed, they were ten times merrier than before. They were merrier simply because they were finished with Scrooge the Terrible. Bob Cratchit told them about a job he had in view for Master Peter. If Peter got it, it would bring in a full five-and-sixpence a week. The two young Cratchits laughed and laughed. They thought of Peter as a man of business! Peter looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars. He seemed to be deciding how to invest that amazing income.

Martha was a poor apprentice at a milliner's. She told them what kind of work she did. She told them how many hours she worked without a rest. She planned to lie in bed tomorrow morning for a good long rest. Tomorrow was a holiday, and she could spend it at home. She also told them about a countess and a lord. She saw them some days before. The lord "was about as tall as Peter". Then Peter pulled up his collars so high that you could not see his head.

All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round. After a while they had a song from Tiny Tim. It was about a lost child travelling in the snow. He had a sad little voice, and he sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing grand in this. They were not a handsome family. They were not well dressed. Their shoes let in water. Their clothes were thin. Peter very likely knew the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy and grateful. They were pleased with each other and content with the time. At parting, the Spirit's torch sprinkled them brightly. They faded, and they looked even happier. Scrooge kept his eyes on them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

By this time it was getting dark and snowing quite heavily. Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets. The bright, roaring fires in kitchens, parlours and all kinds of rooms were wonderful. Here, the moving firelight showed people getting ready for a cosy dinner. Hot plates were warming before the fire. Deep red curtains were ready to shut out the cold and dark. There, all the children of the house ran out into the snow. They wanted to greet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles and aunts first. Here again, there were shadows of guests on the window-blind. There, a group of handsome girls in hoods and fur boots all talked at once. They walked lightly to a neighbour's house nearby. Pity the single man who saw them enter, with their glowing faces! They knew it, the clever witches!

You saw so many people on their way to friends' houses. So you might think that nobody was at home to welcome them. But every house expected company, and it piled its fires half-way up the chimney. Blessings on it, how happy the Ghost was! He bared his wide chest and opened his big, generous hand. He floated on and poured his bright, harmless joy on everything he could reach. The lamplighter ran ahead and dotted the dark street with spots of light. He was dressed to spend the evening somewhere. He laughed loudly as the Spirit passed. But he did not know that he had any company except Christmas!

With no warning from the Ghost, they stood on a bare, empty moor. Huge rough stones lay all around, as if it was the burial-place of giants. Water spread wherever it wanted. At least it tried to, but the frost held it prisoner. Nothing grew but moss, furze and rough grass. Down in the west the setting sun left a line of fiery red. For a moment it looked at the empty land like an angry eye. It frowned lower, lower, lower still. Then the thick gloom of darkest night took it.

"What place is this?" asked Scrooge.

"A place where Miners live, who work deep in the earth," said the Spirit. "But they know me. See!"

A light shone from the window of a hut, and they went quickly towards it. They passed through the wall of mud and stone. Inside, a cheerful group sat round a glowing fire. There was an old, old man and an old, old woman. Their children and their children's children were there. There was another generation after that too. They all wore their holiday clothes. The old man was singing them a Christmas song. His voice hardly rose above the howl of the wind on the empty land. The song was very old even when he was a boy. From time to time they all joined in the chorus. When they sang, the old man grew happy and loud. When they stopped, his strength fell again.

The Spirit did not stay here. He told Scrooge to hold his robe, and he flew on over the moor. Where to? Not to the sea? To the sea. Scrooge looked back in horror. He saw the last of the land behind them, a frightful line of rocks. The thunder of the water made him deaf. It rolled and roared and raged among the dreadful caves it had made. It tried fiercely to eat away the earth.

A league or so from the shore, there was a dark reef of sunken rocks. The water beat against it all through the wild year. A lonely lighthouse stood on this reef. Great heaps of sea-weed hung at its base. Storm-birds rose and fell around it, like the waves they flew over. Perhaps the wind gave birth to them, as the water did to the sea-weed.

But even here, two men who watched the light had a fire. It shone through the small opening in the thick stone wall. A ray of brightness fell on the awful sea. The two men joined their hard hands over their rough table. They wished each other Merry Christmas over their can of grog. The elder of them started a strong song. Hard weather had damaged his face, like the figure-head of an old ship. The song was like a Gale itself.

Again the Ghost flew on, above the black, moving sea. On, on, until they were very far from any shore, as he told Scrooge. They came down on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel. They stood beside the look-out at the front and the officers on watch. These men were dark, ghostly figures, each in his place. But every man hummed a Christmas tune or had a Christmas thought. Or he spoke quietly to a friend of an old Christmas Day. He hoped for home.

Every man on board, awake or asleep, good or bad, was the same. That day he had a kinder word for another man than on any other day. He shared a little in the joy of Christmas. He remembered the people he loved far away. He knew that they liked to remember him.

Scrooge listened to the sad sound of the wind. He thought about moving through the lonely dark, over an unknown deep. Its depths were as secret as Death. It was a serious thing. And while he thought this, to his great surprise, he heard a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to know it. It was his own nephew's laugh! He found himself in a bright, dry, shining room. The Spirit stood smiling beside him, and looked kindly at that same nephew.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!"

Perhaps you know a man more blessed in his laugh than Scrooge's nephew. That is very unlikely. All I can say is, I want to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I will be his friend.

It is a fair, noble thing in this world. Disease and sorrow pass from person to person. But nothing in the world spreads as strongly as laughter and good humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed, he held his sides and rolled his head. He twisted his face into the wildest shapes. Scrooge's niece by marriage, his wife, laughed as hard as he did. Their friends were not behind them at all. They all roared with laughter.

"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 angrily. Bless those women! They never do anything only half-way. They are always serious.

She was very pretty, extremely pretty. She had a dimpled, surprised-looking, lovely face. She had a ripe little mouth that seemed made for kissing, and no doubt it was. She had all kinds of good little dots on her chin. They melted together when she laughed. She had the sunniest eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. All in all, you might say she was annoying, you know. But satisfactory too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory.

"He's a funny old man," said Scrooge's nephew, "that's the truth. And he's not as pleasant as he could be. But his faults carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him."

"I'm sure he is very rich, Fred," said Scrooge's niece. "At least you always tell *me* so."

"What of that, my dear!" said Scrooge's nephew. "His wealth is no use to him. He does no good with it. He does not make himself comfortable with it. He does not even have the joy of thinking, ha, ha, ha, that he will ever help US with it."

"I have no patience with him," said Scrooge's niece. Her sisters and all the other ladies said the same.

"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew. "I am sorry for him. I could not be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers from his bad moods? Himself, always. He decides to dislike us, and he will not come and have dinner with us. And what happens? He does not lose much of a dinner."

Scrooge's niece stopped him. "Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," she said. Everybody else said the same. They were good judges, because they just had dinner. The dessert was on the table, and they sat close round the fire, by lamplight.

"Well! I'm very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew. "I'm glad because I don't have great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?"

Topper clearly liked one of the sisters of Scrooge's niece. You could see this from his answer. He said that a bachelor was a poor outcast. A bachelor had no right to speak on this subject. At this the sister blushed. It was the plump one with the lace tucker, not the one with the roses.

"Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge's niece, and she clapped her hands. "He never finishes what he starts to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!"

Fred laughed again with great joy. Nobody could stop the laughter from spreading. The plump sister tried hard with aromatic vinegar. But everybody followed him.

"I was only going to say something about Uncle Scrooge," said Scrooge's nephew. "He dislikes us and will not be merry with us. So, I think, he loses some pleasant moments, and they could do him no harm. I am sure he loses better friends than his own thoughts. He has only those, in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I plan to give him the same chance every year, because I pity him. He can like it or not. He may speak against Christmas until he dies. But I will go there in a good temper, year after year. I will say, 'Uncle Scrooge, how are you?' Then he must think better of it, I am sure. If it only makes him leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something. And I think I shook him yesterday."

Now they laughed at the idea that he shook Scrooge. He was a very good-natured man. He did not much care what they laughed at, as long as they laughed. So he encouraged them, and he passed the bottle happily.

After tea they had some music. They were a musical family. They knew how to sing a Glee or a Catch, I can tell you. Topper was especially good. He could growl away in the bass and never get red in the face. The large veins in his forehead never swelled.

Scrooge's niece played the harp well. Among other tunes she played a simple little tune. It was nothing much. You could learn to whistle it in two minutes. The child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school knew this tune. The Ghost of Christmas Past reminded him of that. When the music sounded, he remembered all the things that Ghost showed him. He softened more and more. He thought about the years before. He did not listen to this tune often then. That was a pity. With this tune, perhaps he could grow the kindnesses of life with his own hands. He could find his happiness that way, without the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.

But they did not give the whole evening to music. After a while they played forfeits, because it is good to be children sometimes. It is never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! First there was a game of blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I do not believe that Topper was really blind. I do not believe he had eyes in his boots either. My opinion is that he and Scrooge's nephew planned it together. And the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it.

Topper went after that plump sister in the lace tucker. It was too much to believe! He knocked down the fire-irons. He fell over the chairs. He bumped against the piano. He got lost in the curtains. Wherever she went, he went! He always knew where the plump sister was. He would not catch anybody else. You could fall against him on purpose, as some of them did. Then he pretended to try to catch you. That was an insult to your intelligence. At once he moved off sideways towards the plump sister. She often cried out that it was not fair, and it really was not.

At last he caught her. Her silk dress rustled, and she flew past him quickly. But he got her into a corner, and she could not escape. Then his behaviour was the worst of all. He pretended not to know her. He pretended that he must touch her head-dress. To be sure of her, he pressed a certain ring on her finger. He pressed a certain chain on her neck. Vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it. Another player was blind then, and the two talked very closely behind the curtains.

Scrooge's niece did not play blind-man's buff. She sat comfortably in a large chair with a footstool, in a snug corner. The Ghost and Scrooge stood close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits. She played "I love my love" wonderfully, with all the letters of the alphabet. She was very good at the game of How, When, and Where too. She beat her sisters easily, to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew. And they were sharp girls too, as Topper could tell you.

There were perhaps twenty people there, young and old, and they all played. So did Scrooge. He was so interested that he quite forgot something. His voice made no sound in their ears. He sometimes called out his guess quite loudly, and he was very often right. Take the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, made not to cut in the eye. It was not sharper than Scrooge. And he thought that he was blunt!

The Ghost was very pleased to see him in this mood. He looked at him very kindly. So Scrooge begged like a boy to stay until the guests left. But the Spirit said this was not possible.

"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half hour, Spirit, only one!"

It was a game called Yes and No. Scrooge's nephew had to think of something. The others must find out what it was. He could only answer their questions with yes or no. They fired questions at him, and they found out these things. He was thinking of an animal. It was a live animal. It was rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal. It growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes. It lived in London and walked about the streets. Nobody made a show of it. Nobody led it. It did not live in a menagerie. Nobody ever killed it in a market. It was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull. It was not a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every new question the nephew burst into a new roar of laughter. He enjoyed it so much! He had to get up from the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister laughed in the same way, and she cried out:

"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!"

"What is it?" cried Fred.

"It's your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!"

And it certainly was. Everyone admired this. But some people said that the answer to "Is it a bear?" should be "Yes". They said this because the answer "No" stopped them thinking of Mr. Scrooge. Perhaps they were not thinking of him anyway.

"He has given us plenty of fun, I am sure," said Fred. "It would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready for us at this moment. And I say, 'Uncle Scrooge!'"

"Well! Uncle Scrooge!" they cried.

"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew. "He would not take it from me, but may he have it all the same. Uncle Scrooge!"

Without noticing it, Uncle Scrooge became very happy and light of heart. He wanted to drink to them in return, though they could not see him. He wanted to thank them in a speech they could not hear. But the Ghost gave him no time. The whole scene passed with the last word from his nephew. He and the Spirit were travelling again.

They saw much and went far. They visited many homes, and always with a happy end. The Spirit stood by sick beds, and the sick were cheerful. He stood in foreign lands, and the people felt close to home. He stood by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope. He stood by poverty, and it was rich. He went into almshouses, hospitals and jails, into every place where misery found shelter. Vain man, with his short little power, sometimes locked the door against him. Where the door was open, he left his blessing and taught Scrooge his lessons.

It was a long night, if it was only one night. But Scrooge had his doubts about this. This was because the Christmas Holidays seemed to fit into the time they spent together. It was strange, too. Scrooge did not change on the outside, but the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge saw this change but said nothing. Then they left a children's Twelfth Night party. They stood together in an open place, and Scrooge looked at the Spirit. He saw that the Spirit's hair was grey.

"Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Scrooge.

"My life on this globe is very short," answered the Ghost. "It ends tonight."

"Tonight!" cried Scrooge.

"Tonight at midnight. Listen! The time is coming near."

The chimes were ringing a quarter to twelve at that moment.

"Forgive me if I should not ask this," said Scrooge. He looked hard at the Spirit's robe. "But I see something strange there. It is not part of you, and it is coming out from under your robe. Is it a foot or a claw?"

"It might be a claw, because there is so little flesh on it," said the Spirit sadly. "Look here."

From the folds of his robe he brought out two children. They were wretched, low, frightful, ugly and miserable. They knelt down at his feet and held on to the outside of his robe.

"Oh, Man! Look here. Look, look, down here!" cried the Ghost.

They were a boy and a girl. They were yellow, thin, ragged, scowling and wolfish. But they bowed down low too. Young faces should be full and fresh, with the bright colours of youth. But a dry old hand had pinched and twisted these faces and pulled them to pieces. Where angels could sit on thrones, devils hid and looked out with angry threats. Human beings can fall very low, in many ways. But in all of wonderful creation, no monsters are half so horrible.

Scrooge stepped back in horror. The Spirit showed them to him like this. So he tried to say they were fine children. But the words stopped in his throat. They did not want to be part of so great a lie.

"Spirit! Are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, and he looked down at them. "And they hold on to me, and ask me for help against their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and of all like them. But most of all beware of this boy, because I see writing on his forehead. The writing is Doom. It will stay there unless someone removes it. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, and he stretched out his hand towards the city. "Speak badly of those who tell you this! Use it to help your own side, and make it worse. And wait for the end!"

"Have they no safe place, and no help?" cried Scrooge.

"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit. For the last time he turned on Scrooge with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"

The bell struck twelve.

Scrooge looked for the Ghost and could not see him. As the last stroke ended, he remembered the words of old Jacob Marley. He lifted his eyes and saw a solemn Phantom, in a long robe and hood. It was coming towards him along the ground, like a mist.

### Glossary

- **snore**: the loud noise some people make when they sleep.
- **curtain**: a long piece of cloth that hangs round a bed or at a window.
- **pitch-and-toss**: a game. Players throw coins and try to win money.
- **manslaughter**: the killing of a person.
- **rhinoceros**: a very large grey animal with a horn on its nose.
- **blaze**: a very bright fire or light.
- **spontaneous combustion**: when a body starts to burn by itself.
- **berries**: small round fruits. Holly has red berries.
- **shone**: the past of "shine". It gave out bright light.
- **holly**: a green plant with sharp leaves and red berries, used at Christmas.
- **mistletoe**: a green plant with white berries, hung up at Christmas.
- **ivy**: a green plant that climbs up walls and trees.
- **chimney**: the tall pipe that takes the smoke from a fire out of a house.
- **dull**: not bright and not interesting.
- **goose**: a large bird, often cooked for Christmas dinner.
- **geese**: more than one goose.
- **game**: wild birds and animals that people hunt and eat.
- **poultry**: birds such as chickens, kept for food.
- **brawn**: cold meat from a pig's head.
- **sausages**: meat cut very small and pressed into long thin skins.
- **pudding**: here, a heavy sweet Christmas cake, boiled in a cloth.
- **chestnuts**: brown nuts, often cooked on a fire.
- **pears**: sweet green or yellow fruits.
- **twelfth-cakes**: large cakes for Twelfth Night, the last evening of the Christmas season.
- **punch**: a hot drink of wine or spirits, sugar and fruit.
- **dim**: not bright, a little dark.
- **jolly**: happy and full of fun.
- **torch**: a stick with a flame at the end.
- **horn of plenty**: a large horn full of fruit and food, a sign of having a lot.
- **scabbard**: a long case for a sword.
- **vanished**: went away suddenly.
- **scraped**: cleaned by moving a hard edge over something.
- **pavement**: the path at the side of a street.
- **cheerfulness**: a happy feeling.
- **filberts**: small brown nuts.
- **Norfolk Biffins**: dark red apples.
- **daws**: black birds, a small kind of crow.
- **incense**: something that gives a sweet smell when it burns.
- **sprinkled**: dropped a few small drops or pieces on something.
- **deeds**: things that people do.
- **bigotry**: hatred of people who think differently from you.
- **ribbons**: long thin pieces of bright cloth, worn to look pretty.
- **sage**: a plant with a strong smell, used in cooking.
- **onion**: a round vegetable with a strong taste and smell.
- **comforter**: a long woollen scarf.
- **crutch**: a stick that helps a lame person walk.
- **copper**: a big metal pot for boiling clothes.
- **stool**: a small seat with no back.
- **jug**: a tall pot with a handle, for pouring drinks.
- **hob**: a warm place beside a fire, for keeping pots hot.
- **mashed**: pressed food until it was soft.
- **hearth**: the floor of a fireplace.
- **cripple**: an old word for a lame person. It is offensive today.
- **the surplus population**: the extra people, those the country does not need. A cruel idea of Scrooge's.
- **obeyed**: did what someone told them to do.
- **crisp**: cold, dry and fresh.
- **roared**: made a very loud, deep noise.
- **heaped**: put in a big pile.
- **plum**: a small, sweet, round fruit.
- **juicy**: full of sweet liquid.
- **the Founder of the Feast**: the man who pays for the meal, because he pays Bob's wages.
- **merry**: happy and full of fun. "Merrier" means happier.
- **Ogre**: a cruel monster in old stories.
- **milliner's**: a shop that makes and sells women's hats.
- **pawnbroker's**: a shop that lends money and keeps your things until you pay.
- **curtains**: pieces of cloth that hang at a window or round a bed.
- **glowing**: bright and warm.
- **moor**: wide, wild, empty land.
- **frightful**: very bad; causing fear.
- **league**: an old measure, about five kilometres.
- **reef**: a line of rocks in the sea, just under the water.
- **grog**: a drink of rum and water.
- **niece**: the daughter of your brother or sister. Here, the wife of Scrooge's nephew.
- **satisfactory**: good enough; pleasing.
- **bachelor**: a man who is not married.
- **plump**: a little fat, in a pleasant way.
- **lace**: fine, pretty cloth with a pattern of small holes.
- **tucker**: a piece of cloth worn round the neck of a woman's dress.
- **forehead**: the part of the face above the eyes.
- **harp**: a large musical instrument with many strings.
- **blind-man's buff**: a game. One player cannot see and tries to catch the others.
- **forfeits**: a party game. If you lose, you must do something silly.
- **mulled wine**: hot wine with spices.
- **almshouses**: free homes for poor old people.
- **Twelfth Night**: the last evening of the Christmas season, in early January.
- **claw**: the hard, sharp nail on the foot of a bird or animal.
- **beware**: be careful of something dangerous.
- **Ignorance**: not knowing things; having no education.
- **Want**: not having enough food and other things you need.
- **Doom**: a terrible end.

## Stave Four: The Last of the Spirits

The Phantom came towards Scrooge. It came slowly, seriously and silently. When it came near him, Scrooge went down on one knee. He did this because the Phantom seemed to spread darkness and mystery through the air.

It wore a deep black robe. The robe hid its head, its face and its body. It held one hand out in front of it. You could see only that hand. Without the hand, it was hard to see the figure at all. It was hard to tell it from the night and the darkness around it.

When it came beside him, he felt that it was tall and grand. It was strange to be near it, and this filled him with a deep, solemn fear. He knew nothing more, because the Spirit did not speak or move.

"You are the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?" said Scrooge.

The Spirit did not answer. It pointed forward with its hand.

Scrooge went on. "You will show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen. They will happen in the time before us. Is that so, Spirit?"

The top of the robe moved in its folds for a moment. It seemed that the Spirit bent its head. That was the only answer.

Scrooge was used to ghostly company by this time. But he feared this silent shape very much. His legs shook under him. He got ready to follow it, but he could hardly stand. The Spirit stopped for a moment. It seemed to see the state he was in, and it gave him time.

But this only made things worse for Scrooge. Behind the dark cloth, ghostly eyes were looking hard at him. This thought filled him with a strange, unclear horror. He tried as hard as he could to see. But he could see only a ghostly hand and one great heap of black.

"Ghost of the Future!" he cried. "I fear you more than any Ghost I have seen. But I know you want to do me good. And I hope to live and be a different man. So I am ready to go with you, and I go with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?"

It gave him no answer. The hand pointed straight ahead.

"Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night is passing fast, and this time is precious to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!"

The Phantom moved away, just as it came. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its robe. He thought that the robe held him up and carried him along.

They hardly seemed to enter the city. It was more like the city sprang up around them and closed about them by itself. But there they were, in the heart of it. They were on 'Change among the merchants. The merchants hurried up and down. They shook the money in their pockets. They talked in groups. They looked at their watches. They played thoughtfully with their big gold seals. They did all the things Scrooge often saw them do.

The Spirit stopped beside a small group of business men. The hand pointed to them, so Scrooge went nearer to listen to their talk.

"No," said a great fat man with a huge chin. "I don't know much about it, either way. I only know he is dead."

"When did he die?" asked another man.

"Last night, I believe."

"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third man. He took a very large amount of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. "I thought he would never die."

"God knows," said the first man, and he yawned.

"What did he do with his money?" asked a red-faced gentleman. He had a growth on the end of his nose. It hung down and shook like the red skin on a turkey-cock's neck.

"I haven't heard," said the man with the huge chin, and he yawned again. "He left it to his company, perhaps. He did not leave it to *me*. That is all I know."

Everyone laughed at this joke.

"It will probably be a very cheap funeral," said the same man. "That is because, upon my life, I don't know anybody who will go to it. Shall we make a group and offer to go?"

"I don't mind going if they give us lunch," said the gentleman with the growth on his nose. "But I must eat, if I go."

Another laugh.

"Well, I am the most unselfish of you all," said the first man. "You see, I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I will offer to go, if anybody else will. Now I think of it, perhaps I was his best friend. After all, we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!"

The speakers and listeners walked slowly away and joined other groups. Scrooge knew the men. He looked at the Spirit and hoped for an explanation.

The Phantom moved on into a street. Its finger pointed to two men. They were meeting there. Scrooge listened again. He thought the explanation might be here.

He knew these men very well too. They were men of business, very rich and very important. He always made sure that they thought well of him. But only in a business way, you understand. Only in a business way.

"How are you?" said one.

"How are you?" said the other.

"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got him at last, hey?"

"So they tell me," said the second. "Cold, isn't it?"

"Right for Christmas time. You are not a skater, I suppose?"

"No. No. I have something else to think of. Good morning!"

Not another word. That was their meeting, their talk and their parting.

Scrooge was surprised at first. Why did the Spirit care about such small talk? But he felt sure that it had a hidden reason. So he tried to think what the reason was. The talk could hardly be about the death of Jacob Marley, his old partner. That was in the Past, and this Ghost's work was the Future. He could not think of anyone else close to him who fitted the talk. But he did not doubt that the talk held a hidden lesson for him. So he decided to keep every word he heard and everything he saw. Above all, he decided to watch for his own shadow when it appeared. He expected to see what his future self did. That would give him the answer, and these puzzles would be easy.

He looked for himself right there in that place. But another man stood in his usual corner. The clock showed his usual time for being there. Many people poured in through the Porch, but he saw no one like himself among them. This did not surprise him much, because he was thinking about changing his life. He thought and hoped that he saw his new plans carried out in this.

Quiet and dark, the Phantom stood beside him and held out its hand. Scrooge stopped thinking and looked up. He looked at the turn of the hand and at its place near him. He felt that the Unseen Eyes were looking hard at him. It made him shake and feel very cold.

They left this busy place and went into a hidden part of town. Scrooge had never been there before. But he knew where it was, and he knew its bad name. The ways were dirty and narrow. The shops and houses were very poor. The people were half-naked, drunk and ugly, and they wore old shoes. The small alleys and archways were like holes full of dirty water. They poured out bad smells, dirt and life onto the narrow streets. The whole quarter stank of crime, dirt and misery.

Far inside this bad place was a low, dark shop under a sloping roof. People sold iron, old rags, bottles, bones and greasy animal waste there. On the floor inside were heaps of rusty keys, nails and chains. There were hinges, files, scales and weights, and old iron of all kinds. There were secrets here too. Few people wanted to look at them. They hid in mountains of ugly rags. They hid in masses of bad fat and in graves of bones.

A grey-haired rascal sat among his goods, by a charcoal stove of old bricks. He was nearly seventy years old. A dirty curtain of all kinds of old rags hung on a line. It kept out the cold air. He smoked his pipe and enjoyed himself, like a rich old man at rest.

Scrooge and the Phantom came to this man. At that moment a woman with a heavy bundle slipped into the shop. She had hardly come in when another woman came in, with a bundle too. Right behind her came a man in faded black. He was as surprised to see them as they were to see each other. For a moment they only stared, and the old man with the pipe stared too. Then all three burst out laughing.

"Trust the charwoman to be the first!" cried the woman who came in first. "Trust the laundress to be the second! And trust the undertaker's man to be the third! Look here, old Joe, what a chance! All three of us met here, and we did not plan it!"

"You could not meet in a better place," said old Joe. He took his pipe out of his mouth. "Come into the parlour. You have been free to use it for a long time, you know. And the other two are not strangers. Wait, I will shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it squeaks! There is no metal in this place as rusty as its hinges, I believe. And there are no bones here as old as mine, I am sure. Ha, ha! We are all right for our work. We are well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour."

The parlour was the space behind the curtain of rags. The old man pushed the fire together with an old stair-rod. It was night, so he had a smoky lamp. He made it burn better with the stem of his pipe. Then he put the pipe back in his mouth.

At the same time, the charwoman threw her bundle on the floor. She sat down on a stool in a bold way. She put her elbows on her knees and looked hard at the other two.

"What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said the charwoman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves. *He* always did."

"That is true, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber, the laundress. "No man did it more."

"Then don't stand there and stare as if you are afraid, woman. Who will know? We are not going to look for faults in each other, I suppose?"

"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. "We hope not."

"Very well, then!" cried the charwoman. "That is enough. Who does it hurt to lose a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose."

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, and she laughed.

"He wanted to keep them after he was dead, did he? The wicked old screw!" said the charwoman. "Then why was he not a kind man in his life? He was not, so he had nobody to look after him when Death struck him. He lay there alone and fought for his last breath."

"It is the truest word that anyone ever spoke," said Mrs. Dilber. "It is a judgment on him."

"I wish it was a little heavier," said the charwoman. "And it would be, believe me, if I could find anything else to take. Open that bundle, old Joe, and tell me what it is worth. Speak plainly. I am not afraid to be the first. I am not afraid for them to see it. We all knew that we were helping ourselves before we met here, I believe. It is no sin. Open the bundle, Joe."

But her friends were too polite to let her go first. The man in faded black went first, like a brave soldier, and showed *his* stolen things. It was not much. There was a seal or two, a pencil-case and a pair of sleeve-buttons. There was also a brooch of little value. That was all. Old Joe looked at each thing and decided what he wanted to give for it. He wrote the prices in chalk on the wall. When there was nothing more, he added them up.

"That is your account," said Joe. "And I will not give another sixpence, not even if someone boils me for it. Who is next?"

Mrs. Dilber was next. She had sheets and towels and a little clothing. She had two old silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs and a few boots. Old Joe wrote her account on the wall in the same way.

"I always give too much to ladies. It is a weakness of mine, and that is how I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That is your account. Do not ask me for one more penny, or argue about it. If you do, I will be sorry I was so generous. And I will take off half-a-crown."

"And now undo *my* bundle, Joe," said the charwoman.

Joe went down on his knees, because this made it easier to open. He undid many knots and pulled out a large, heavy roll of dark cloth.

"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains!"

"Ah!" said the charwoman. She laughed and leaned forward on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains!"

"You took them down, rings and all, with him lying there?" said Joe.

"Yes, I did," said the woman. "Why not?"

"You were born to get rich," said Joe, "and you certainly will."

"I can reach out my hand and get something, so I will," said the woman coolly. "I will not hold back my hand for a man like Him, I promise you, Joe. Don't drop that oil on the blankets, now."

"His blankets?" asked Joe.

"Whose do you think?" said the woman. "He will not catch a cold without them, I am sure."

"I hope he did not die of anything I can catch? Eh?" said old Joe. He stopped his work and looked up.

"Don't be afraid of that," said the woman. "If he did, I would not stay near him for such things. I did not like his company that much. Ah! You can look through that shirt until your eyes hurt. But you will not find a hole in it, or a thin place. It is the best shirt he had, and a fine one too. They wanted to waste it, but I stopped them."

"What do you call wasting it?" asked old Joe.

"Putting it on him for his burial, of course," said the woman, and she laughed. "Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico is not good enough for that, it is not good enough for anything. It looks quite as good on the body. He cannot look uglier than he did in that shirt."

Scrooge listened to this talk in horror. They sat around their stolen things in the weak light of the old man's lamp. He hated them with all his heart, and they made him sick. Even foul demons who sold the dead body could not make him feel worse.

Old Joe took out a flannel bag with money in it. He counted out each person's money on the ground.

"Ha, ha!" laughed the charwoman. "This is the end of it, you see! He frightened everyone away from him when he was alive. And that helps us now that he is dead! Ha, ha, ha!"

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, and he shook from head to foot. "I see, I see. This unhappy man could be me. My life is going that way now. Merciful Heaven, what is this!"

He stepped back in terror, because the place had changed. Now he almost touched a bed. It was a bare bed with no curtains. Something lay on it under a ragged sheet. It could not speak, but it told him something terrible.

The room was very dark, too dark to see well. Scrooge looked round it all the same. Something secret inside him pushed him to do this. He wanted to know what kind of room it was. A pale light rose outside and fell straight on the bed. On the bed lay the body of this man. Thieves robbed him and left him with nothing. Nobody watched beside him. Nobody cried for him. Nobody cared.

Scrooge looked at the Phantom. Its steady hand pointed to the head. The cover lay there carelessly. One small move of Scrooge's finger could lift it and show the face. He thought of it. He felt how easy it was, and he wanted very much to do it. But he had no power to lift the cover. He also had no power to send away the Phantom at his side.

Oh cold, cold, hard, dreadful Death! Set up your altar here. Dress it with all your terrors, because this is your land! But think of a head that people loved, respected and honoured. You cannot turn one hair of it to your terrible purpose. You cannot make one part of that face ugly. It is not that the hand is heavy and falls when you let it go. It is not that the heart and pulse are still. It is this. The hand was open, generous and true. The heart was brave, warm and tender. The pulse was a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! See his good deeds grow from the wound. See them fill the world with life that never dies!

No voice said these words in Scrooge's ears. Yet he heard them when he looked at the bed. He thought: if this man could rise now, what would his first thoughts be? Love of money? Hard dealing? Greedy cares? These things brought him to a rich end, truly!

He lay in the dark empty house. No man, woman or child was there to say: He was kind to me in this or that. For the memory of one kind word, I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door. There was a sound of rats under the stone by the fire. They were biting at something. What did *they* want in the room of death? Why were they so restless? Scrooge did not dare to think about it.

"Spirit!" he said. "This is a terrible place. I will leave it, but I will not leave its lesson, believe me. Let us go!"

The Ghost still pointed to the head. Its finger did not move.

"I understand you," said Scrooge. "And I would do it, if I could. But I do not have the power, Spirit. I do not have the power."

Again it seemed to look at him.

"Is there anyone in the town who feels something about this man's death?" said Scrooge. He was in great pain. "Show that person to me, Spirit, I beg you!"

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing. It drew the robe back, and there was a room by daylight. A mother and her children were in it.

She was waiting for someone, and she was very anxious. She walked up and down the room. She jumped at every sound. She looked out of the window. She looked at the clock. She tried to sew, but she could not. She could hardly bear the voices of the children at their play.

At last the knock came. She had waited a long time for it. She hurried to the door and met her husband. He was young, but his face was tired and full of worry. There was a strange look on it now. It was a kind of serious delight. He felt ashamed of it, and he tried to hide it.

He sat down to his dinner. She had kept it warm for him by the fire. For a long time she said nothing. Then she asked in a weak voice what the news was. He did not know how to answer.

"Is it good?" she said, to help him. "Or bad?"

"Bad," he answered.

"We have lost everything?"

"No. There is hope yet, Caroline."

"If *he* shows mercy," she said in surprise, "there is! Nothing is without hope, if such a miracle has happened."

"He cannot show mercy now," said her husband. "He is dead."

She was a mild and patient woman, if her face told the truth. But she was thankful in her soul to hear it. She said so, with her hands together. The next moment she asked for forgiveness and was sorry. But the first feeling was the true feeling of her heart.

"Last night I told you about the half-drunken woman. I tried to see him and ask for one more week. She told me he was very ill. I thought it was only an excuse to keep me away. But it was true. He was not only very ill. He was dying then."

"Who will get our debt now?"

"I don't know. But we will have the money before then. And even if we don't, the next creditor will probably not be so merciless. We can sleep tonight with light hearts, Caroline!"

Yes. They tried to feel bad about it, but their hearts were lighter. The children stood close and listened quietly. They understood very little, but their faces were brighter. It was a happier house because this man was dead. This death brought only one feeling that the Ghost could show Scrooge. That feeling was pleasure.

"Let me see some tender feeling about a death," said Scrooge. "If you don't, Spirit, that dark room will stay with me for ever."

The Ghost led him through several streets he knew well. Scrooge looked here and there for himself, but he did not see himself anywhere. They went into the house of poor Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's clerk. Scrooge knew this house from his earlier visit. They found Mrs. Cratchit and the children sitting round the fire.

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits sat as still as statues in one corner. They sat and looked up at Peter. He had a book in front of him. Mrs. Cratchit and her daughters were sewing. But surely they were very quiet!

"'And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them.'"

Where did Scrooge hear those words? He did not dream them. Surely the boy read them when Scrooge and the Spirit came in at the door. Why did he not go on?

Mrs. Cratchit put her work on the table and put her hand to her face.

"The colour hurts my eyes," she said.

The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!

"They are better now," said Bob's wife. "It makes them weak by candle-light. I will not show weak eyes to your father when he comes home. Not for the world. It must be near his time."

"It is past his time," Peter answered, and he shut his book. "But I think he has walked a little more slowly these last few evenings, mother."

They were very quiet again. At last Mrs. Cratchit spoke in a steady, cheerful voice. It shook only once.

"I have seen him walk with—I have seen him walk with Tiny Tim on his shoulder, very fast indeed."

"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often."

"And so have I," cried another. So had all of them.

"But he was very light to carry," she went on. She kept her eyes on her work. "And his father loved him so much that it was no trouble. No trouble. And there is your father at the door!"

She hurried out to meet him. Little Bob came in with his comforter. He needed it, poor man. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried to help him with it. Then the two young Cratchits got on his knees. Each child laid a little cheek against his face. They seemed to say, "Don't mind it, father. Don't be sad!"

Bob was very cheerful with them. He spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work on the table. He praised Mrs. Cratchit and the girls, because they worked so well and so fast. They would finish long before Sunday, he said.

"Sunday! You went today, then, Robert?" said his wife.

"Yes, my dear," said Bob. "I am sorry you could not go. It would do you good to see how green a place it is. But you will see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!" cried Bob. "My little child!"

He began to cry all at once. He could not help it. If he could, perhaps he and his child would be farther apart than they were.

He left the room and went upstairs to the room above. There was cheerful light in it, and Christmas green hung on the walls. A chair stood close beside the child. It was clear that someone was there a short time before. Poor Bob sat down in it. He thought a little and grew calm. Then he kissed the little face. He accepted what happened, and he went down again quite happy.

They sat close to the fire and talked. The girls and their mother were still working. Bob told them about the great kindness of Fred, Mr. Scrooge's nephew. Bob had hardly seen him more than once. Fred met him in the street that day. He saw that Bob looked a little—"Just a little down, you know," said Bob. So Fred asked him what made him sad.

"He is the most pleasant gentleman you ever heard, so I told him," said Bob. "'I am truly sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,' he said, 'and truly sorry for your good wife.' By the way, I do not know how he knew *that*."

"Knew what, my dear?"

"Why, that you were a good wife," said Bob.

"Everybody knows that!" said Peter.

"Very well said, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope they do. 'Truly sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I can help you in any way,' he said, and he gave me his card, 'that is where I live. Please come to me.' It was quite delightful. It was not so much because of anything he might do for us. It was more because of his kind way. It really seemed as if he knew our Tiny Tim and felt with us."

"I am sure he is a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit.

"You would be more sure of it, my dear," said Bob, "if you saw him and spoke to him. And listen to me! I would not be at all surprised if he got Peter a better situation."

"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be seeing a girl, and he will start his own home."

"Stop that!" said Peter, and he grinned.

"It may well happen one day," said Bob, "but there is plenty of time for that, my dear. But however and whenever we part from each other, I am sure of this. None of us will forget poor Tiny Tim. Will we? And we will not forget this first parting among us."

"Never, father!" they all cried.

"And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that we will remember how patient and how mild he was. He was only a little, little child. When we remember this, we will not quarrel easily among ourselves. We will not forget poor Tiny Tim in that way."

"No, never, father!" they all cried again.

"I am very happy," said little Bob. "I am very happy!"

Mrs. Cratchit kissed him. His daughters kissed him. The two young Cratchits kissed him. Peter shook his hand. Spirit of Tiny Tim, your child's spirit came from God!

"Spirit," said Scrooge, "something tells me that our parting moment is near. I know it, but I do not know how. Tell me, who was the man we saw lying dead?"

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come took him again to the places of business men. It was at a different time, he thought. Indeed, there seemed to be no order in these last visions. The only order was that they were in the Future. The Ghost did not show him himself. The Spirit did not stop for anything. It went straight on, as if to reach the end Scrooge wanted. At last Scrooge begged it to wait a moment.

"We are hurrying through this court now," said Scrooge. "My place of work is here, and it has been here for a long time. I see the house. Let me see what I will be, in days to come!"

The Spirit stopped. The hand pointed to another place.

"The house is over there," cried Scrooge. "Why do you point away?"

The hard finger did not change.

Scrooge hurried to the window of his office and looked in. It was still an office, but not his. The furniture was different, and the person in the chair was not Scrooge. The Phantom pointed as before.

He joined it again. He wondered why he was gone and where he went. He went with the Phantom until they came to an iron gate. He stopped to look round before he went in.

A churchyard. So this was the place. The unhappy man lay here under the ground, and Scrooge now had to learn his name. It was a worthy place. Houses walled it in. Grass and weeds covered it. These plants grew from death, not from life. Too many burials choked it. It was fat and full, like an animal after too much food. A worthy place!

The Spirit stood among the graves and pointed down to One. Scrooge went towards it, and he shook with fear. The Phantom looked exactly the same as before. But he feared that he saw a new meaning in its solemn shape.

"You point to that stone," said Scrooge. "Before I go nearer to it, answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be? Or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"

The Ghost still pointed down to the grave by its side.

"A man's way of life leads to certain ends, if he stays on it," said Scrooge. "But if he leaves that way, the ends will change. Say it is like this with what you show me!"

The Spirit stayed as still as ever.

Scrooge crept towards the grave, and he shook as he went. He followed the finger. On the stone of the neglected grave he read his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.

"Am *I* that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, on his knees.

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.

"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!"

The finger stayed there.

"Spirit!" he cried, and he held its robe tight. "Hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I was going to be before these meetings. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!"

For the first time the hand seemed to shake.

"Good Spirit," he went on, and he fell on the ground before it. "Your nature speaks for me and pities me. Tell me that a new life can still change the shadows you have shown me!"

The kind hand shook.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I can wash away the writing on this stone!"

In his pain he took hold of the ghostly hand. It tried to get free, but he begged and held it tight. The Spirit was stronger, and it pushed him away.

He held up his hands in a last prayer. He asked to change his fate. Then he saw a change in the Phantom's hood and robe. It shrank, fell in and grew smaller. It became a bedpost.

### Glossary

- **'Change**: the place in London where merchants met. The Porch was its entrance.
- **snuff-box**: a small box for snuff, a tobacco powder that people breathe in through the nose.
- **black gloves**: people who went to a funeral often got these, and lunch too.
- **Old Scratch**: a name for the Devil.
- **charwoman**: a woman who cleans houses for money.
- **laundress**: a woman who washes clothes for money.
- **What odds**: what does it matter?
- **screw**: a person who hates to spend or give money.
- **judgment**: a punishment from God.
- **calico**: cheap cotton cloth.
- **creditor**: a person you owe money to.
- **situation**: a job.
- **bedpost**: one of the tall posts at the corners of a bed.

## Stave Five: The End of It

Yes! And the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, and the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own! He could use it to make things right.

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" said Scrooge again. He climbed out of bed. "The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! I praise Heaven and the Christmas Time for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob. On my knees!"

He was so excited and so full of good plans that his broken voice hardly worked. He cried very hard in his fight with the Spirit. His face was wet with tears.

Scrooge held one of his bed-curtains in his arms. "Nobody took them down," he cried. "Nobody took them down, rings and all. They are here. I am here. The shadows of the things that would have been can go away. They will go. I know they will!"

His hands were busy with his clothes all this time. He turned them inside out. He put them on upside down. He tore them and lost them. He did every kind of silly thing with them.

"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge. He laughed and cried at the same time. His stockings wound round him, and he looked like Laocoön. "I am as light as a feather. I am as happy as an angel. I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as dizzy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!"

He danced into the sitting-room and stood there, quite out of breath.

"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried Scrooge. He started off again and went round the fireplace. "There's the door where the Ghost of Jacob Marley came in! There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!"

Really, this man was out of practice after so many years. But it was a splendid laugh, a very grand laugh. It was the father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!

"I don't know what day of the month it is!" said Scrooge. "I don't know how long I have been among the Spirits. I don't know anything. I am quite a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I would rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!"

He stopped, because the churches began to ring their bells. They were the loudest, strongest bells he ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!

He ran to the window, opened it and put out his head. No fog, no mist. It was clear, bright, jolly, exciting, cold. The cold made the blood dance. Golden sunlight. Heavenly sky. Sweet fresh air. Merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!

"What's today!" cried Scrooge. He called down to a boy in Sunday clothes. Perhaps the boy came there to look about him.

"Eh?" said the boy, very surprised.

"What's today, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge.

"Today!" said the boy. "Why, Christmas Day."

"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!"

"Hallo!" said the boy.

"Do you know the Poulterer's?" Scrooge asked. "It is in the next street but one, at the corner."

"Of course I do," said the boy.

"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy! Do you know if they sold the prize Turkey? It was hanging up there. Not the little prize Turkey. The big one?"

"What, the one as big as me?" said the boy.

"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my lad!"

"It's hanging there now," said the boy.

"Is it?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it."

"Walk-er!" cried the boy.

"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am serious. Go and buy it, and tell them to bring it here. Then I can tell them where to take it. Come back with the man, and I will give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes, and I will give you half-a-crown!"

The boy was off like a shot. Only a man with a steady hand on a gun could fire half as fast.

"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's!" whispered Scrooge. He rubbed his hands and shook with laughter. "He won't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as this!"

His hand was not steady, but he wrote the address somehow. He went downstairs and opened the street door. He got ready for the poulterer's man. He stood and waited for the man. Then he saw the knocker.

"I will love it as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, and he patted it with his hand. "I hardly ever looked at it before. What an honest face it has! It's a wonderful knocker! Here's the Turkey! Hallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!"

It *was* a Turkey! That bird could never stand on his legs. They would snap in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

"Why, it is impossible to carry that to Camden Town," said Scrooge. "You must have a cab."

He chuckled when he said this. He chuckled when he paid for the Turkey. He chuckled when he paid for the cab. He chuckled when he paid the boy. But the greatest chuckle came when he sat down in his chair again, out of breath. He chuckled until he cried.

Shaving was not easy, because his hand still shook very much. Shaving needs attention, even when you do not dance at the same time. But what if he cut off the end of his nose? He would put a piece of plaster on it and be quite happy.

He dressed himself "all in his best" and at last went out into the streets. People were pouring out by this time. Earlier, with the Ghost of Christmas Present, he saw them like this. He walked with his hands behind him and smiled at everyone with delight. He looked so very pleasant that three or four cheerful men spoke to him. "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!" they said. Scrooge often said this later. Of all the happy sounds he ever heard, those were the happiest.

He did not go far. Then he saw someone coming towards him. It was the portly gentleman. The day before, this man walked into his counting-house. He said, "Scrooge and Marley's, I believe?" He wanted money for the poor. It hurt Scrooge's heart to think of their meeting. How would this old gentleman look at him? But he knew the straight path in front of him, and he took it.

"My dear sir," said Scrooge. He walked faster and took the old gentleman by both hands. "How do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!"

"Mr. Scrooge?"

"Yes," said Scrooge. "That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Please let me ask your pardon. And will you be so good—" Here Scrooge whispered in his ear.

"Lord bless me!" cried the gentleman. It seemed to take his breath away. "My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?"

"If you please," said Scrooge. "Not a farthing less. It includes a great many back-payments, I promise you. Will you do me that favour?"

"My dear sir," said the other, and he shook hands with him. "I don't know what to say to such genero—"

"Don't say anything, please," said Scrooge. "Come and see me. Will you come and see me?"

"I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear that he meant it.

"Thank you," said Scrooge. "I am very grateful to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!"

He went to church. He walked about the streets. He watched the people as they hurried here and there. He patted children on the head. He asked beggars questions. He looked down into the kitchens of houses and up at the windows. He found that everything gave him pleasure. He never dreamed that any walk, that anything, could make him so happy. In the afternoon he went towards his nephew's house.

He passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage to knock. But then he ran at it and did it.

"Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge to the girl. Nice girl! Very.

"Yes, sir."

"Where is he, my love?" said Scrooge.

"He's in the dining-room, sir, with mistress. I'll show you upstairs, if you please."

"Thank you. He knows me," said Scrooge. His hand was already on the dining-room lock. "I'll go in here, my dear."

He turned it gently and slid his face in, round the door. They were looking at the table. Everything on it looked very grand. They did this because young housekeepers are always nervous about these things. They like to see that everything is right.

"Fred!" said Scrooge.

Dear me, how Scrooge's niece by marriage jumped! Scrooge forgot for the moment that she was sitting in the corner with the footstool. If he remembered, he would not do it for anything!

"Why, bless my soul!" cried Fred. "Who's that?"

"It's me. Your Uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?"

Let him in! Fred shook his arm so hard. It was lucky that the arm did not come off. Scrooge felt at home in five minutes. Nothing could be warmer. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when *he* came. So did the plump sister when *she* came. So did everyone when *they* came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful agreement, won-der-ful happiness!

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early! If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit, his clerk, coming late! That was what he wanted most.

And he did it. Yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was a full eighteen and a half minutes late. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, so he could see him come into the Tank.

Bob's hat was off before he opened the door, and his comforter too. He was on his stool in a moment. He wrote fast with his pen, as if he wanted to catch nine o'clock.

"Hallo!" growled Scrooge. He made his voice as near to his old voice as he could. "What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?"

"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I *am* late."

"You are?" said Scrooge. "Yes. I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you please."

"It is only once a year, sir," Bob begged. He came out of the Tank. "It will not happen again. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir."

"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge. "I am not going to accept this sort of thing any longer. And so—" Scrooge jumped from his stool. He dug Bob in the waistcoat. It was so hard that Bob staggered back into the Tank again. "And so I am going to raise your salary!"

Bob shook, and he moved a little nearer to the ruler. For a moment he thought of knocking Scrooge down with it. Then he could hold him and call to the people in the court. They could bring help and a strait-waistcoat.

"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, and he clapped him on the back. Scrooge clearly meant it. "My good fellow! A merrier Christmas, Bob, than I have given you for many a year! I will raise your salary. I will try to help your struggling family. We will talk about your affairs this very afternoon. We will talk over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Put more coal on the fires! And buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!"

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and much, much more. Tiny Tim did not die, and Scrooge was a second father to him. He became as good a friend as the good old city knew. He became as good a master, and as good a man. No other good old city, town or borough knew a better one. Not in the good old world.

Some people laughed to see the change in him. But he let them laugh, and he paid little attention to them. He did this because he was wise enough to know one thing. When something good happens on this globe, some people always laugh at it first. He knew that such people are blind anyway. So he thought they might as well wrinkle up their eyes in grins. That is as good as having the same sickness in a less pretty form. His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him.

He had nothing more to do with Spirits. He lived by the Total Abstinence Principle for the rest of his life. People always said that he knew how to keep Christmas well. No man alive knew it better. May people truly say that of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim said, God bless Us, Every One!

### Glossary

- **happiest**: most happy.
- **strive**: to fight; to try very hard.
- **curtains**: pieces of cloth that hang around a bed or at a window.
- **tore**: pulled into pieces (past of "tear").
- **Laocoön**: a statue of a man who fights snakes. They wind round him, and Scrooge's stockings wind round him in the same way.
- **dizzy**: feeling that everything is turning round you.
- **merry**: happy and full of fun. "Making merry" means having a good time at Christmas.
- **gruel**: a thin, hot food made of oats and water.
- **saucepan**: a cooking pot with a handle.
- **fireplace**: the place in a room where a fire burns.
- **wandering**: moving around with no clear goal.
- **splendid**: very fine, very good.
- **ding**: the sound of a bell.
- **dong**: the sound of a bell.
- **fog**: thick cloud close to the ground.
- **Poulterer's**: a shop that sells birds for eating.
- **Walk-er!**: "I don't believe you!"
- **shilling**: a coin. There were twenty shillings in a pound.
- **half-a-crown**: two shillings and sixpence.
- **whispered**: spoke very quietly.
- **Joe Miller**: a famous joke-book.
- **knocker**: a metal ring or bar on a door. Visitors knock with it.
- **patted**: touched lightly with an open hand.
- **sealing-wax**: a hard wax that breaks easily. People used it to close letters.
- **cab**: a small carriage that you pay to ride in.
- **chuckled**: laughed quietly.
- **portly**: fat, in a pleasant way.
- **counting-house**: a business office.
- **farthing**: the smallest coin.
- **back-payments**: money that you should have paid before, but did not pay.
- **niece**: the daughter of your brother or sister. A niece by marriage is the wife of your nephew.
- **footstool**: a low stool for your feet.
- **stool**: a seat with no back.
- **Tank**: the clerk's small room.
- **comforter**: a long woollen scarf.
- **waistcoat**: a short jacket with no arms, worn over a shirt.
- **staggered**: walked in an unsteady way, almost falling.
- **strait-waistcoat**: a jacket that holds a mad person's arms still. Bob thinks Scrooge is mad.
- **smoking bishop**: a hot drink of wine, oranges and sugar.
- **coal-scuttle**: a container for carrying coal to the fire.
- **dot another i**: write one more word.
- **borough**: a town with its own local government.
- **Total Abstinence Principle**: the rule of never drinking alcohol. Strong drinks are also called "spirits", so this is a joke: Scrooge met no more ghosts.