Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in
bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told
that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was
restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial
purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to
him through Jacob Marley's intervention. But, finding that he turned
uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this
new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own
hands, and lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the
bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its
appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous.
Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means
prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the bell struck One, and
no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five
minutes, ten minutes a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All
this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of
ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour;
and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as
he was powerless to make out what it meant. At last, however, he began
to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in
the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to
shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly
and shuffled in his slippers to the door.
The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by
his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.
It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone
a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with
living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which,
bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe,
and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been
scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as
that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or
Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the
floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry,
brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages,
mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red hot chestnuts,
cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears and immense
twelfth-cakes, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In
easy state upon this couch there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who
bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it
up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the
door.
"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost "Come in! and know me better, man!"
Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was
not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit's eyes were
clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit: "Look upon me!
You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed the Spirit.
"Never," Scrooge made answer to it.
"Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning
(for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?"
pursued the Phantom.
"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.
"A tremendous family to provide for," muttered Scrooge.
The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.
"Spirit," said Scrooge, submissively, "conduct me where you will. I went
forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working
now. To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it."
"Touch my robe!"
Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.
The whole scene vanished instantly and they stood in the city streets on
Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a
rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow
from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of
their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come
plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little
snowstorms.
Perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing his sympathy
with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there
he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the
threshold of the door the spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob
Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch.
Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a
twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a
goodly show; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit,
second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes. And now two
smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside
the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own.
"What has ever got your precious father, then?" said Mrs. Cratchit. "And
your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by
half-an-hour!"
"Here's Martha, mother," said a girl appearing as she spoke.
"Here's Martha, mother," cried the two young Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's
_such_ a goose, Martha!"
"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs.
Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet
for her with officious zeal.
"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the girl, "and
had to clear away this morning, mother!"
"Well! never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit ye
down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!"
"No no! There's father coming," cried the two young Cratchits, who were
everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha, hide!"
So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least
three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe hanging down before him;
and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable;
and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little
crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!
"Why, Where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit looking round.
"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.
"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits;
for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come
home rampant. "Not coming upon Christmas Day!"
Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so
she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his
arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off
into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the
copper.
"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had
rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his
heart's content.
"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful,
sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever
heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the
church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to
remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk and blind men
see."
Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when
he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.
His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny
Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister
to his stool beside the fire; and Master Peter and the two ubiquitous
young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned
in high procession.
Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan)
hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor;
Miss Belinda sweetened up 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, not forgetting themselves, and
mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest
they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At
last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a
breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the
carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did,
and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of
delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two
young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and
feebly cried Hurrah!
There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was
such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were
the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and mashed
potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as
Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a
bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had
had enough. But now the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs.
Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to bear witnesses--to take the
pudding up, and bring it in.
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he
regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since
their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind,
she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour.
Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it
was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat
heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a
thing.
At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth
swept, and the fire made up. Apples and oranges were put upon the table
and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family
drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning
half a one. Then Bob proposed: "A Merry Christmas to all, my dears. God
bless us!"
Which all the family re-echoed.
"God bless us, every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. Bob held
his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child and wished to
keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.
"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, "tell
me if Tiny Tim will live."
"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor chimney corner,
and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows
remain unaltered by the Future the child will die."
"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared."
"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future none other of my race,"
returned the Ghost, "will find him here. What then? If he be like to
die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and
was overcome with penitence and grief.
"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear
that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is and where
it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may
be that in the sight of Heaven you are more worthless and less fit to
live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh, God! to hear the
insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry
brothers in the dust!"
Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon
the ground. But he raised them speedily on hearing his own name.
"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the
Feast!"
"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. "I
wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and
I hope he'd have a good appetite for it."
"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas day."
Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark
shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.
After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from
the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit
told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter. The two
young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man
of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from
between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular
investments he should favor when he came into receipt of the bewildering
income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told
them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at
a stretch, and how she meant to be abed to-morrow morning for a good
long rest, to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she
had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord "was
much about as tall as Peter," at which Peter pulled up his collars so
high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. By and
by they had a song, about a lost child traveling in the snow, from Tiny
Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.
There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family;
they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being waterproof;
their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely
did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful,
pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they
faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's
torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny
Tim, until the last.
By this time it was getting dark and snowing pretty heavily; and as
Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the
roaring fires in kitchens, parlors, and all sorts of rooms, was
wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a
cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire,
and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness.
There, all the children of the house were running out into the snow to
meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the
first to greet them.
It was a great surprise to Scrooge, as he meditated on these scenes, to
hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to
recognize 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 blessed
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-humor. 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,
too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory.
"He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew, "that's the truth:
and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their
own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him."
"I 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 lamp-light.
"Well! I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, "because I
haven't any 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!"
"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 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 goodnatured, and not much caring what they laughed
at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their
merriment.
After tea they had some music, Scrooge's niece played well; 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 the 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 awhile 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 glorious game at blindman'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 up against the piano,
smothering himself amongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went
he! He always knew where the 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 endeavoring 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 Topper 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 in 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
right, too; for the sharpest needle, 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 favor, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay
until the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done.
The whole scene passed off; 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 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!
"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.
They were a boy and 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 shriveled 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, 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 of them both, and all of their degree, but most of
all beware of this boy."
"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 work-houses?"
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 toward him.