A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

Stave 3 - The Second of the Three Spirits

Scrooge waited the bell again.

Now, when the Bell struck One, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. At last, he began to notice a ghostly light coming from the adjoining room. He shuffled in his slippers to the door.

A strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. It was his own room. But the walls and ceiling were hung with berries, holly, mistletoe, and ivy, and a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, red-hot chestnuts, apples, oranges, pears, cakes, and seething bowls of punch. Upon this food couch, there sat a jolly Giant, who bore a glowing torch, and held it 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. 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 a simple green robe, bordered with white fur. Its feet were bare; and on its head it wore a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free as its cheery voice, and its joyful air.

“You have never seen the like of me before!” exclaimed the Spirit.

“Spirit,” said Scrooge, “conduct me where you will. I went forth last night 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.

Feast, fire, room all vanished instantly and they stood in the city streets on a snowy Christmas morning. The sky was gloomy, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad like a summer day.

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.

They went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town.

The good Spirit led him straight to Scrooge’s clerk’s, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit’s dwelling. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen shillings a-week himself; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, dressed poorly in a worn dress. And now two smaller Cratchits danced about the table. “What has ever got your precious father then?” said Mrs. Cratchit. “And your brother, Tiny Tim.”

In came Bob, the father, with 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 how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs. Cratchit.

“As good as gold,” said Bob. “He told me, 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.”

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim.

At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family. Mrs. Cratchit left the room to bring the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, blazing in ignited brandy, and with Christmas holly stuck into the top. A wonderful pudding!

At last the dinner was all done, all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, and Bob proposed a toast:

“A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!”

“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, he will die this year,” repeated the Ghost. “What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit.

“Man,” said the Ghost, “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!”

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!” toasted Bob; “I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!”

“The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening.

“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 a stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do!”

“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!”

The children drank the toast after her, but they didn’t care for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party.

By-and-bye they had a song from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time. 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.

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor. “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!”

Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found an old, old man and woman, with their children and their children’s children, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man was singing them a Christmas song and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.

Again the Ghost sped on, above a black and heaving sea—on, on—until, being far away from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman, the look-out, the officers on watch; every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought. 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.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, to hear a hearty laugh and to recognise it as his own nephew’s. He found himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Scrooge’s nephew. “He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live! He believed it too!”

“More shame for him, Fred!” said Scrooge’s niece, indignantly.

“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 am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always.”

After tea, they had some music and played at games; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas.

There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played and sang, and so did Scrooge; forgetting that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his singing quite loud.

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.

Much they saw, and far they went, and everywhere the Spirit went he left his blessing.

It was a long night, and Scrooge noticed that the Ghost grew older, clearly older, and 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 at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.”

The bell struck twelve. And the Spirit disappeared.

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.