Chapter 3 - 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 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.

             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 don'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 quater 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 think -- 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 too -- 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 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 petrification 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 chesnuts, 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 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!''

             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.

             ``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.

             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 recrossed 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 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 hearts' 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 snowball -- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest -- laughing
             heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops
             were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great,
             round, pot-bellied baskets of chesnuts, 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 shopkeepers' benevolence to dangle
             from conspicuous hooks, that people'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, squab 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 Grocers'! oh the Grocers'! 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 baker' shops.
             The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he
             stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker'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 baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as if
             its stones were cooking too.

             ``Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?'' asked Scrooge.

             ``There is. My own.''

             ``Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?'' asked Scrooge.

             ``To any kindly given. To a poor one most.''

             ``Why to a poor one most?'' asked Scrooge.

             ``Because it needs it most.''

             ``Spirit,'' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, ``I wonder you, of all the beings
             in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities
             of innocent enjoyment.''

             ``I!'' cried the Spirit.

             ``You 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,'' said Scrooge. ``Wouldn't you?''

             ``I!'' cried the Spirit.

             ``You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?'' said Scrooge. ``And it
             comes to the same thing.''

             ``I seek!'' exclaimed the Spirit.

             ``Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of
             your family,'' said Scrooge.

             ``There are some upon this earth of yours,'' returned the Spirit, ``who 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 out kith and kin, as if
             they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not
             us.''

             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 baker'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 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 sprinkling 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!

             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 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 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.

             ``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 before
             the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs -- as if, poor fellow, they were capable
             of being made more shabby -- compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and
             lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master
             Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which
             they soon returned in high procession.

             Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a
             feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course; and in truth
             it was something very like it in that house. Mrs Cratchit made the gravy (ready
             beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes
             with incredible vigour; 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 flavour, 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, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were
             steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! 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.

             Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out!
             Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it,
             while they were merry with the goose: a supposition at which the two young
             Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

             Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a
             washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's
             next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding.
             In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered: flushed, but smiling proudly: with the pudding,
             like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of
             ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

             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 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. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples
             and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chesnuts on the fire.
             Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a
             circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of
             glass; two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

             These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would
             have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chesnuts on the
             fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

             ``A Merry Christmas to us 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 wn 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.''

             ``It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,'' said she, ``on which one drinks the health
             of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr Scrooge. You know he is,
             Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!''

             ``My dear,'' was Bob's mild answer, ``Christmas Day.''

             ``I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,''said Mrs Cratchit, ``not for his.
             Long life to him. A merry Christmas and a happy new year! He'll be very merry and
             very happy, I have no doubt!''

             The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which
             had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it.
             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, which would bring in, if obtained, full
             five-and-sixpence weekly. 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 favour when he came into the receipt of that 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 lie a-bed 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. All this time the chesnuts and the jug went round and round; and bye and
             bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling 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 water-proof; 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,
             parlours, 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. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blind of guests
             assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and
             all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour's house; where,
             woe upon the single man who saw them enter -- artful witches, well they knew it --
             in a glow!

             But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly
             gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome
             when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its
             fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How it bared its
             breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring,
             with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach!
             The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of
             light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly
             as the Spirit passed: though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company
             but Christmas!

             And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and
             desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it
             were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed; or
             would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but
             moss and furze, and coarse, rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left
             a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen
             eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest
             night.

             ``What place is this?'' asked Scrooge.

             ``A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,'' returned the
             Spirit. ``But they know me. See!''

             A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it.
             Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company
             assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children
             and their children's children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out
             gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the
             howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song : it
             had been a very old song when he was a boy; and from time to time they all joined
             in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe
             and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

             The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on
             above the moor, sped whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking
             back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his
             ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled, and roared, and raged
             among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

             Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which
             the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary
             lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds -- born of
             the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water -- rose and fell about it, like
             the waves they skimmed.

             But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the
             loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea.
             Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each
             other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them: the elder, too, with his
             face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship
             might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.

             Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea -- on, on -- until, being
             far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood
             beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had
             the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among
             them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his
             breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes
             belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had
             had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had
             shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at
             a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.

             It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and
             thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an
             unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great
             surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much
             greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise 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 blest 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-humour. 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'm sure he is very rich, Fred,'' hinted Scrooge's niece. ``At least you always tell
             me so.''

             ``What of that, my dear!'' said Scrooge's nephew. ``His wealth is of no use to him.
             He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't
             the satisfaction of thinking -- ha, ha, ha! -- that he is ever going to benefit Us with
             it.''

             ``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 lamplight.

             ``Well! I'm very glad to hear it,'' said Scrooge's nephew, ``because I haven't 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!''

             Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the
             infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his
             example was unanimously followed.

             ``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 good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they
             laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle
             joyously.

             After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what
             they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially
             Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the
             large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Scrooge's niece played
             well upon the harp; 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
             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 a while they played at
             forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at at
             Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a
             game at blind-man'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 against the piano, smothering himself among 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 endeavouring 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 vey often guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest
             needle, best Whitechapel, 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 favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests
             departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done.

             ``Here is a new game,'' said Scrooge. ``One half hour, Spirit, only one!''

             It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of
             something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions
             yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed,
             elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a
             disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted
             sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the
             streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a
             menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a
             cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh
             question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and
             was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp.
             At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

             ``I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!''

             ``What is it?'' cried Fred.

             ``It's your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!''

             Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some
             objected that the reply to ``Is it a bear?'' ought to have been ``Yes;'' inasmuch as
             an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr
             Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.

             ``He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,'' said Fred, ``and it would be
             ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand
             at the moment; and I say, ``Uncle Scrooge!''''

             ``Well! Uncle Scrooge.'' they cried.

             ``A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!'' said
             Scrooge's nephew. ``He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless.
             Uncle Scrooge!''

             Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would
             have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an
             inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off
             in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; 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. Scrooge had
             observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night
             party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he
             noticed that its hair was grey.

             ``Are spirits' lives so short?'' asked Scrooge.

             ``My life upon this globe, is very brief,'' replied the Ghost. ``It ends to-night.''

             ``To-night!'' cried Scrooge.

             ``To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.''

             The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

             ``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.

             ``Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!'' exclaimed the Ghost.

             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 shrivelled 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 them
             both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see
             that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!'' cried the Spirit,
             stretching out its hand towards the city. ``Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for
             your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!''

             ``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 workhouses?''

             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, towards him.