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. "I was 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 racehorses.
"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! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!"
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 ballroom
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 the six young followers
whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women
employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin,
the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend,
the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of
not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself
behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had
her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after
another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly,
some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow.
Away they all went, twenty couple at once, hands half round and back
again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in
various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always
turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as
soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one
to help them. When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig,
clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the
fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially
provided for that purpose. But scorning rest upon his reappearance,
he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the
other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter; and he
were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.
There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and
there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of
Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there
were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the
evening came after the Roast and Boiled when the fiddler (an artful
dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or
I could have told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley." Then
old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too;
with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and
twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with;
people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.
But if they had been twice as many: ah, four times: old Fezziwig
would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to
_her_, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term.
If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A
positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone
in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted,
at any given time, what would become of 'em next. And when old
Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance
and retire, hold hands with your partner; bow and courtesy;
cork-screw; thread-the-needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig
"cut"--cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and
came upon his feet again without a stagger.
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 burned 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,
"tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"
He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of
himself. But he said with a struggle, "You think not."
"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered, "Heaven
knows! When _I_ have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong
and irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow,
yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless
girl--you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by
Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your
one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance
and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a
full heart, for the love of him you once were."
He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.
"You may--the memory of what is past half makes me hope you
will--have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will
dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream,
from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the
life you have chosen!"
She left him, and they parted.
"Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do
you delight to torture me?"
"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.
"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don't wish to see it. Show
me no more!"
But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced
him to observe what happened next.
They were in another scene and place; a room not very large or
handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a
beautiful young girl, so like the last that Scrooge believed it was
the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her
daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there
were more children there than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind
could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were
not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child
was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious
beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother
and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the
latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the
young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be
one of them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I
wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided
hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't
have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my life. As to
measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I
couldn't have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown
round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I
should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have
questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon
the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have
let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond
price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the
lightest license of a child, and yet been man enough to know its
value.
But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately
ensued that she with laughing face and plundered dress was borne
toward it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time
to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with
Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling,
and the onslaught that was made on the defenseless porter! The
scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his pockets, despoil
him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him
round the neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible
affection! The shouts of wonder and delight with which the
development of every package was received! The terrible announcement
that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's
frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having
swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! The
immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and
gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is
enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the
parlor and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house; where
they went to bed, and so subsided.
And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master
of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down
with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that
such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise,
might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard
winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.
"Belle," said the husband, turning 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 in the same breath,
laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."
"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not
shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing
him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he
sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe."
"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me from this place."
"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 can not bear it!"
He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a
face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the
faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.
"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 observed that its light was burning
high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over
him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed
it down upon its head.
The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its
whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he
could not hide the light, which streamed from under it, in an
unbroken flood upon the ground.
He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible
drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the
cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time
to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.