Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were
now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed
and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and
all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain
enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas
time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.
The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he
knew it.
"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was not I apprenticed here!"
They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting
behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must
have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great
excitement:
"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig alive again!"
Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which
pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his
capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his
organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat,
jovial voice:
"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"
Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in,
accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.
"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost. "Bless me, yes.
There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear,
dear!"
"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig, "No more work to-night. Christmas Eve,
Dick, Christmas, Ebenezer. Let's have the shutters up," cried old
Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say Jack
Robinson!"
You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into
the street with the shutters--one, two, three--had 'em up in their
places--four, five, six--barred 'em and pinned 'em--seven, eight,
nine--and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like
race-horses.
"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with
wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room
here!"
Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or
couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in
a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from
public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps
were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as
snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a play-room as you would desire to
see upon a winter's night.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and
made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came
Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss
Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came all the young men and women
employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the
baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, the
milkman. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly,
some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all
came, anyhow and everyhow.
There were dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there
was cake, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a
great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies.
When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs.
Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side the door, and shaking
hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him
or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two
'prentices they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died
away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter
in the back-shop.
During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his
wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He
corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and
underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright
faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he
remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon
him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.
"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly folks so full of
gratitude."
"Small!" echoed Scrooge.
The spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were
pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig; and when he had done so
said,
"Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money:
three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?"
"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking
unconsciously like his former, not his latter self. "It isn't that,
Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our
service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power
lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it
is impossible to add and count 'em up; what then? The happiness he
gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."
He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.
"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.
"Nothing particular," said Scrooge.
"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted.
"No," said Scrooge, "No. I should like to be able to say a word or two
to my clerk just now. That's all."
His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish:
and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.
"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"
This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but
it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was
older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and
rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care
and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye,
which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of
the growing tree would fall.
He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a
mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the
light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.
"It matters little," she said, softly. "To you, very little. Another
idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to
come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve."
"What idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.
"A golden one."
"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. "There is
nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it
professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!"
"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently. "All your other
hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid
reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until
the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"
"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what
then? I am not changed toward you."
She shook her head.
"Am I?"
"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and
content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly
fortune by our patient industry. You _are_ changed. When it was made,
you were another man."
"I was a boy," he said impatiently.
"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are," she
returned. "I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in
heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how
keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I
_have_ thought of it, and can release you."
"Have I ever sought release?"
"In words. No. Never."
"In what, then?"
"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of
life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of
any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us,"
said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; "can even
I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl: or, choosing her, do I
not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and
I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were."
He was about to speak; but she left him and they parted.
"Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you
delight to torture me?"
"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the
Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"
"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed. "I cannot bear it!"
He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a
face, in which some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it
had shown him, wrestled with it.
"Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"
In the struggle--if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost,
with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort
of its adversary--Scrooge was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome
by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own
bed-room. He had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy
sleep.