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extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a
distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.
It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of
the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the
lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as
profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged,
to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to
recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a bright, dry,
gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at
that same nephew with approving affability.
`Ha, ha.' laughed Scrooge's nephew. `Ha, ha, ha.' If you should
happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than
Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too.
Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is
infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly
contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew
laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his
face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage,
laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being not a bit
behindhand, roared out lustily.
`Ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha.'
`He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live.' cried Scrooge's
nephew. `He believed it too.'
`More shame for him, Fred.' said Scrooge's niece, indignantly. Bless
those women; they never do anything by halves. They are always in
earnest.
She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-
looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed --
as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted
into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever
saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have
called provoking, you know; but satisfactory,
`He's a comical old fellow,' said Scrooge's nephew,' that's the truth: and
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not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own
punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.'
`I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,' hinted Scrooge's niece. `At least you
always tell me so.'
`What of that, my dear.' said Scrooge's nephew. `His wealth is of no
use to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself
comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking -- ha, ha, ha. --
that he is ever going to benefit us with it.'
`I have no patience with him,' observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's
niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.
`Oh, I have.' said Scrooge's nephew. `I am sorry for him; I couldn't be
angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims. Himself, always.
Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine
with us. What's the consequence. He don't lose much of a dinner.'
`Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,' interrupted Scrooge's
niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have
been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the
dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.
`Well. I'm very glad to hear it,' said Scrooge's nephew, `because I
haven't great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper.'
Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters,
for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right
to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister -- the
plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with the roses -- blushed.
`Do go on, Fred,' said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. `He never
finishes what he begins to say. He is such a ridiculous fellow.'
Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible
to keep the infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with
aromatic vinegar; his example was unanimously followed.
`I was only going to say,' said Scrooge's nephew,' that the consequence
of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think,
that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am
sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts,
either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him
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the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He
may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it -- I
defy him -- if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, and
saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you. If it only puts him in the vein to leave
his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something; and I think I shook him
yesterday.'
It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But
being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at,
so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment,
and passed the bottle joyously.
After tea. they had some music. For they were a musical family, and
knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure
you: especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one,
and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over
it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and played among other
tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in
two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge
from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of
Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that
Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he softened more and more;
and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might
have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own
hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.
But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they
played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better
than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop.
There was first a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I no
more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his
boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's
nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he
went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the
credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over
the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering himself among the
curtains, wherever she went, there went he. He always knew where the
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plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up
against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made a
feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to
your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of
the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was
not. But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken
rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner
whence there was no escape; then his conduct was the most execrable. For
his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to
touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by
pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck;
was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when,
another blind-man being in office, they were so very confidential together,
behind the curtains.
Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party, but was
made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner,
where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the
forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the
alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very
great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow:
though they were sharp girls too, as could have told you. There might have
been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did
Scrooge, for, wholly forgetting the interest he had in what was going on,
that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his
guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest
needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper
than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be.
The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked
upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay
until the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done.
`Here is a new game,' said Scrooge. `One half hour, Spirit, only one.'
It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to
think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to
their questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to
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which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal,
a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that
growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in
London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and
wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed
in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or
a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to
him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so
inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp.
At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:
`I have found it out. I know what it is, Fred. I know what it is.'
`What is it.' cried Fred.
`It's your Uncle Scrooge.'
Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment,
though some objected that the reply to `Is it a bear.' ought to have been
`Yes;' inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have
diverted their thoughts from Mr Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any
tendency that way.
`He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,' said Fred,' and it
would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine
ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, "Uncle Scrooge."'
`Well. Uncle Scrooge.' they cried.
`A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever
he is.' said Scrooge's nephew. `He wouldn't take it from me, but may he
have it, nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge.'
Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart,
that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and
thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But
the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his
nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.
Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but
always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were
cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men,
and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In
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almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in
his little brief authority had not made fast the door and barred the Spirit
out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.
It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts
of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the
space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge
remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly
older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they
left a children's Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they
stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey.
`Are spirits' lives so short.' asked Scrooge.
`My life upon this globe, is very brief,' replied the Ghost. `It ends to-
night.'
`To-night.' cried Scrooge.
`To-night at midnight. Hark. The time is drawing near.'
The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.
`Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said Scrooge, looking
intently at the Spirit's robe,' but I see something strange, and not belonging
to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw.'
`It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was the Spirit's
sorrowful reply. `Look here.'
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject,
frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon
the outside of its garment.
`Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish;
but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have
filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale
and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and
pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils
lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no
perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of
wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way,
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he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves,
rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
`Spirit. are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more.
`They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. `And they
cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl
is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware
this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the
writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards
the city. `Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes,
and make it worse. And abide the end.'
`Have they no refuge or resource.' cried Scrooge.
`Are there no prisons.' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time
with his own words. `Are there no workhouses.' The bell struck twelve.
Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last
stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob
Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and
hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.
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Stave 4: The Last of the Spirits
The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came,
Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this
Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.
It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its
face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand.
But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night,
and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.
He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its
mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more,
for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.
`I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.' said
Scrooge.
The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.
`You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not
happened, but will happen in the time before us,' Scrooge pursued. `Is
that so, Spirit.'
The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its
folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he
received.
Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared
the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found
that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit pauses
a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover.
But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague
uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly
eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the
utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black.
`Ghost of the Future.' he exclaimed,' I fear you more than any spectre I
have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to
live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you
company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me.'
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It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.
`Lead on.' said Scrooge. `Lead on. The night is waning fast, and it is
precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit.'
The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge
followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and
carried him along.
They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to
spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they
were, in the heart of it; on Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried
up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in
groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their
great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often.
The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing
that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk.
`No,' said a great fat man with a monstrous chin,' I don't know much
about it, either way. I only know he's dead.'
`When did he die.' inquired another.
`Last night, I believe.'
`Why, what was the matter with him.' asked a third, taking a vast
quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. `I thought he'd never die.'
`God knows,' said the first, with a yawn.
`What has he done with his money.' asked a red-faced gentleman with
a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of
a turkey-cock.
`I haven't heard,' said the man with the large chin, yawning again.
`Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know.'
This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.
`It's likely to be a very cheap funeral,' said the same speaker;' for upon
my life I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party
and volunteer.'
`I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,' observed the gentleman
with the excrescence on his nose. `But I must be fed, if I make one.'
Another laugh.
`Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,' said the first
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speaker,' for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer
to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I
that I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak
whenever we met. Bye, bye.'
Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups.
Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation.
The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons
meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie
here.
He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of aye business:
very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of
standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in
a business point of view.
`How are you.' said one.
`How are you.' returned the other.
`Well.' said the first. `Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey.'
`So I am told,' returned the second. `Cold, isn't it.'
`Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I suppose.'
`No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning.'
Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their
parting.
Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should
attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling
assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to
consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have
any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and
this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any one
immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But
nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some latent
moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he
heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of
himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the conduct of
his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would render the
