Short Stories Old and New - Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"
"Why did you get married?"
"Because I fell in love."
"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if that were the only
one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. "Good
afternoon!"
"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give
it as a reason for not coming now?"
"Good afternoon."
"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be
friends?"
"Good afternoon."
"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never
had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial
in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last.
So, A Merry Christmas, uncle!"
"Good afternoon!"
"And A Happy New Year!"
"Good afternoon!"
His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. The
clerk, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in.
They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with
their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their
hands, and bowed to him.
"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring
to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr.
Marley?"
"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years. He died seven years ago,
this very night."
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman,
taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make
some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at
the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries;
hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?"
"Plenty of prisons. But under the impression that they scarcely furnish
Christian cheer of mind or body to the unoffending multitude, a few of
us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink,
and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time of all
others when Want is keenly felt and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put
you down for?"
"Nothing!"
"You wish to be anonymous?"
"I wish to be left alone. Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that
is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford
to make idle people merry. I help to support the prisons and the
workhouses,--they cost enough,--and those who are badly off must go
there."
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the
surplus population."
At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an
ill-will Scrooge, dismounting from his stool, tacitly admitted the fact
to the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle
out, and put on his hat.
"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?"
"If quite convenient, sir."
"It's not convenient, and it's not fair. If I was to stop half a crown
for it, you'd think yourself mightily ill-used, I'll be bound?"
"Yes, sir."
"And yet you don't think _me_ ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no
work."
"It's only once a year, sir."
"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of
December! But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the
earlier _next_ morning."
The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl.
The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends
of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no
great-coat), went down a slide, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty
times, in honor of its being Christmas eve, and then ran home as hard as
he could pelt, to play at blind-man's-buff.
Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and
having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening
with his banker's book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had
once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of
rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard. The building was old
enough now, and dreary enough; for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the
other rooms being all let out as offices.
Now it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the
knocker on the door of this house, except that it was very large; also,
that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence
in that place; also, that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy
about him as any man in the city of London. And yet Scrooge, having his
key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing
any intermediate process of change, not a knocker, but Marley's face.
Marley's face, with a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a
dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but it looked at Scrooge as
Marley used to look,--with ghostly spectacles turned up upon its ghostly
forehead.
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. He
said, "Pooh, pooh!" and closed the door with a bang.
The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above,
and every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a
separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be
frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall,
and up the stairs. Slowly, too, trimming his candle as he went.
Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for its being very dark. Darkness
is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he
walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough
recollection of the face to desire 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; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his
head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody
in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude
against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two
fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.
Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in;
double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against
surprise, he took off his cravat, put on his dressing-gown and slippers
and his night-cap, and sat down before the very low fire to take his
gruel.
As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon
a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated, for
some purpose now forgotten, with a chamber in the highest story of the
building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange,
inexplicable dread, that, as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing.
Soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.
This was succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below, as if some
person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant's
cellar.
Then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up
the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.
It came on through the heavy door, and a spectre passed into the room
before his eyes. And upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as
though it cried, "I know him! Marley's ghost!"
The same face, the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat,
tights, and boots. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing
him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his
coat behind.
Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had
never believed it until now.
No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through
and through, and saw it standing before him,--though he felt the
chilling influence of its death-cold eyes, and noticed the very texture
of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin,--he was still
incredulous.
"How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. "What do you want
with me?"
"Much!"--Marley's voice, no doubt about it.
"Who are you?"
"Ask me who I _was_."
"Who _were_ you, then?"
"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley."
"Can you--can you sit down?"
"I can."
"Do it, then."
Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so
transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt
that, in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the
necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down on the
opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.
"You don't believe in me."
"I don't."
"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?"
"I don't know."
"Why do you doubt your senses?"
"Because a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach
makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of
mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's
more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel in
his heart by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be
smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his
horror.
But how much greater was his horror when, the phantom taking off the
bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear in-doors, its
lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!
"Mercy! Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me? Why do spirits walk
the earth, and why do they come to me?"
"It is required of every man, that the spirit within him should walk
abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit
goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. I cannot
tell you all I would. A very little more is permitted to me. I cannot
rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked
beyond our counting-house,--mark me!--in life my spirit never roved
beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys
lie before me!"
"Seven years dead. And travelling all the time? You travel fast?"
"On the wings of the wind."
"You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years."
"O blind man, blind man! not to know that ages of incessant labor by
immortal creatures for this earth must pass into eternity before the
good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any
Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may
be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of
usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one
life's opportunities misused! Yet I was like this man; I once was like
this man!"
"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge,
who now began to apply this to himself.
"Business!" cried the ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my
business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy,
forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade
were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business."
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this
rate, and began to quake exceedingly.
"Hear me! My time is nearly gone."
"I will. But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!"
"I am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of
escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."
"You were always a good friend to me. Thank'ee!"
"You will be haunted by Three Spirits."
"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob? I--I think I'd rather
not."
"Without their visits, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect
the first to-morrow night, when the bell tolls One. Expect the second on
the next night at the same hour. The third, upon the next night, when
the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more;
and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between
us!"
It walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window
raised itself a little, so that, when the apparition reached it, it was
wide open.
Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had
entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands,
and the bolts were undisturbed. Scrooge tried to say, "Humbug!" but
stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had
undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the invisible
world, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the
hour, much in need of repose, he went straight to bed, without
undressing, and fell asleep on the instant.
STAVE TWO
THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS
When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could
scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his
chamber, until suddenly the church clock tolled a deep, dull, hollow,
melancholy ONE.
Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his
bed were drawn aside by a strange figure,--like a child: yet not so like
a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium,
which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being
diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck
and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a
wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. It held a branch
of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that
wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the
strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there
sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and
which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a
great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.
"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?"
"I am!"
"Who and what are you?"
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."
"Long past?"
"No. Your past. The things that you will see with me are shadows of the
things that have been; they will have no consciousness of us."
Scrooge then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.
"Your welfare. Rise, and walk with me!"
It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the
hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that the bed was warm, and
the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly
in his slippers, dressing-gown, and night-cap; and that he had a cold
upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was
not to be resisted. He rose; but, finding that the Spirit made towards
the window, clasped its robe in supplication.
"I am a mortal, and liable to fall."
"Bear but a touch of my hand _there_," said the Spirit, laying it upon
his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more than this!"
As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood in the
busy thoroughfares of a city. It was made plain enough by the dressing
of the shops that here, too, it was Christmas time.
The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he
knew it.
"Know it! Was 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!"
A living and moving picture of Scrooge's former self, a young man, came
briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.
"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost. "My old
fellow-'prentice, 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, before a man can
say Jack Robinson! 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 forevermore; 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 ball-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 stomachaches. 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 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.
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 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,--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. A positive
light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part
of the dance. 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, turn your partner, bow and
courtesy, cockscrew, thread the needle, and back again to your
place,--Fezziwig "cut,"--cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with
his legs.
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.
"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly folks so full of
gratitude. 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?"
"Nothing particular."
"Something, I think?"
"No, no. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just
now. That's all."
"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 he saw himself. He was older
now; a man in the prime of life.
He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a black
dress, in whose eyes there were tears.
"It matters little," she said softly to Scrooge's former self. "To you,
very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can 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?"
"A golden one. You fear the world too much. I have seen your nobler
aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain,
engrosses you. Have I not?"
"What then? Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not
changed towards you. Have I ever sought release from our engagement?"
"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. If you were free to-day, to-morrow,
yesterday, 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."
"Spirit! 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 cannot bear it! Leave me! Take me
back. Haunt me no longer!"
As he struggled with the Spirit he was conscious of being exhausted, and
overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his
own bedroom. He had barely time to reel to bed before he sank into a
heavy sleep.
STAVE THREE
THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS
Scrooge awoke in his own bedroom. There was no doubt about that. But it
and his own adjoining sitting-room, into which he shuffled in his
slippers, attracted by a great light there, had undergone a surprising
transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green,
that it looked a perfect grove. The 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 petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or
Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped upon the
floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, 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, immense twelfth-cakes, and great
bowls of punch. In easy state upon this couch there sat a Giant glorious
to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and
who raised it high to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping
round the door.
"Come in,--come in! and know me better, man! I am the Ghost of Christmas
Present. Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before!"
"Never."
"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, I am afraid I have not. Have you had many
brothers, Spirit?"
"More than eighteen hundred."
"A tremendous family to provide for! Spirit, 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 room and its contents all vanished instantly, and they stood in the
city streets upon a snowy Christmas morning.
Scrooge and the Ghost passed on, invisible, straight to Scrooge's
clerk's; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped
to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch.
Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob"[*] a week himself; he pocketed
on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost
of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!
[* Shillings.]
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 for sixpence; 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,
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's private
property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor of the day) into his
mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to
show his linen in the fashionable Parks. 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; and, basking in
luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about
the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not
proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the
slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let
out and peeled.