A Christmas Carol
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A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens

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eBook - ePub

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens

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About This Book

Here is the original Christmas classic that is often credited with returning the true spirit of Christmas to the holiday. This edition features the original interior artwork by John Leech. Come spend Christmas with Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge, and all the ghosts of Christmas. Truly a timeless wonder.

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Year
2013
ISBN
9781625585998

STAVE III: THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS

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 Marleyā€™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.
Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I donā€™t mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.
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, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to thinkā€”as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it tooā€”at last, I say, 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 Scroogeā€™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 petrification of a hearth had never known in Scroogeā€™s time, or Marleyā€™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, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, 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 Plentyā€™s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.
ā€œCome in!ā€ exclaimed the Ghost. ā€œCome in! and know me better, man!ā€
Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spiritā€™s eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.
ā€œI am the Ghost of Christmas Present,ā€ said the Spirit. ā€œLook upon me!ā€
Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.
ā€œYou have never seen the like of me before!ā€ exclaimed the Spirit.
ā€œNever,ā€ Scrooge made answer to it.
ā€œHave never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?ā€ pursued the Phantom.
ā€œI donā€™t think I have,ā€ said Scrooge. ā€œI am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?ā€
ā€œMore than eighteen hundred,ā€ said the Ghost.
ā€œA tremendous family to provide for!ā€ muttered Scrooge.
The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.
ā€œSpirit,ā€ said Scrooge submissively, ā€œconduct 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.ā€
ā€œTouch my robe!ā€
Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.
Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, 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 snow-storms.
The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and
re-crossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear heartsā€™ content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.
For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowballā€”better-natured missile far than many a wordy jestā€” laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterersā€™ shops were still half open, and the fruiterersā€™ were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepersā€™ benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that peopleā€™s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.
The Grocersā€™! oh, the Grocersā€™! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.
But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakersā€™ shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a bakerā€™s doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!
In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each bakerā€™s oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.
ā€œIs there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?ā€ asked Scrooge.
ā€œThere is. My own.ā€
ā€œWould it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?ā€ asked Scrooge.
ā€œTo any kindly given. To a poor one most.ā€
ā€œWhy to a poor one most?ā€ asked Scrooge.
ā€œBecause it needs it most.ā€
ā€œSpirit,ā€ said Scrooge, after a momentā€™s thought, ā€œI wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these peopleā€™s opportunities of innocent enjoyment.ā€
ā€œI!ā€ cried the Spirit.
ā€œYou would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,ā€ said Scrooge. ā€œWouldnā€™t you?ā€
ā€œI!ā€ cried the Spirit.
ā€œYou seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?ā€ said Scrooge. ā€œAnd it comes to the same thing.ā€
ā€œI seek!ā€ exclaimed the Spirit.
ā€œForgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,ā€ said Scrooge.
ā€œThere are some upon this earth of yours,ā€ returned the Spirit, ā€œwho lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.ā€
Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the bakerā€™s), that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.
And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scroogeā€™s clerkā€™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 Cratchitā€™s dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen ā€œBobā€ 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!
Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchitā€™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 (Bobā€™s private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour 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 bakerā€™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.
ā€œWhat has ever got your precious father then?ā€ said Mrs. Cratchit. ā€œAnd your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warnā€™t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?ā€
ā€œHereā€™s Martha, mother!ā€ said a girl, appearing as she spoke.
ā€œHereā€™s Martha, mother!ā€ cried the two young Cratchits. ā€œHurrah! Thereā€™s such a goose, Martha!ā€
ā€œWhy, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!ā€ said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.
ā€œWeā€™d a deal of work to finish up last night,ā€ replied the girl, ā€œand had to clear away this morning, mother!ā€
ā€œWell! Never mind so long as you are come,ā€ said Mrs. Cratchit. ā€œSit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!ā€
ā€œNo, no! Thereā€™s father coming,ā€ cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. ā€œHide, Martha, hide!ā€
So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of c...

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