Chapter 2

Humbug, I tell you--humbug!"

At this, the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with
such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his
chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. 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!

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.

"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?"

"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do you believe in me or
not?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and
why do they come to me?"

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "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. It is doomed to wander through the world--oh, woe is
me!--and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth,
and turned to happiness!"

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain, and wrung its
shadowy hands.

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it
link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will,
and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to _you_?"

Scrooge trembled more and more.

"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the
strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as
this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is
a ponderous chain!"

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding
himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but
he could see nothing.

"Jacob," he said, imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak
comfort to me, Jacob."

"I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes from other regions,
Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of
men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all 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!"

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful,

to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost
had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting
off his knees.

"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob," Scrooge observed, in a
business-like manner, though with humility and deference.

"Slow!" the Ghost repeated.

"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And travelling all the time?"

"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no peace. Incessant
torture of remorse."

"You travel fast?" said Scrooge.

"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.

"You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,"
said Scrooge.

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain
so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would
have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.

"Oh, captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to
know, that ages of incessant labour 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 such was I! Oh! such was I!"

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faultered
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, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of
my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my
business!"

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all
its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said, "I suffer most.
Why did I walk through the crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned
down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men
to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would
have conducted _me_!"

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at

this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly gone."

"I will," said Scrooge. "But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery,
Jacob! Pray!"

"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may
not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day."

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the
perspiration from his brow.

"That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost. "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," said Scrooge. "Thank'ee!"

"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three Spirits."

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?" he demanded, in a
faultering voice.

"It is."

"I--I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.

"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope to shun the
path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls one."

"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?" hinted
Scrooge.

"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!"

When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the
table, and bound it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by
the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by
the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his
supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its
chain wound over and about its arm.

The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took,
the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached
it, it was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.
When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up
its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.

Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising
of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the

air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings
inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after
listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out
upon the bleak, dark night.

Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked
out.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in
restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore
chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty
governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been
personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar
with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe
attached to its ancle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a
wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step.
The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere,
for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he
could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and
the night became as it had been when he walked home.

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. He tried to say "Hum-bug!" 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; went straight to bed, without
undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

STAVE II.

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. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his
ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four
quarters. So he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven,
and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped.
Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An
icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most
preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve; and stopped.

"Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have slept through
a whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that
anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!"

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped
his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the
sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could
see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still
very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people
running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably
would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken
possession of the world. This was a great relief, because "three days
after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or
his order," and so forth, would have become a mere United States'
security if there were no days to count by.

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it
over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he
thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not to
think, the more he thought. Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly.
Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it
was all a dream, his mind flew back again like a strong spring
released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be
worked all through, "Was it a dream or not?"

Scrooge lay in this state until the chimes had gone three quarters
more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had

warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to
lie awake until the hour was past; and considering that he could no
more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest
resolution in his power.

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must
have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length
it broke upon his listening ear.

"Ding, dong!"

"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting.

"Ding, dong!"

"Half past!" said Scrooge.

"Ding, dong!"

"A quarter to it," said Scrooge.

"Ding, dong!"

"The hour itself," said Scrooge, triumphantly, "and nothing else!"

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep,
dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room upon the
instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not
the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to
which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn
aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found
himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as
close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at
your elbow.

It was 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. The arms were very
long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon
strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those
upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round
its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful.
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.

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing
steadiness, was _not_ its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled
and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light
one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated
in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg,
now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head
without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible
in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of
this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" asked
Scrooge.

"I am!"

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being
so close beside him, it were at a distance.

"Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"Long past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.

"No. Your past."

Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could
have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his
cap; and begged him to be covered.

"What" exclaimed the Ghost, "would you so soon put out, with worldly
hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those
whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of
years to wear it low upon my brow!"

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend, or any
knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" the Spirit at any period of
his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him
there.

"Your welfare!" said the Ghost.

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking
that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that
end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately:

"Your reclamation, then. Take heed!"

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the
arm.

"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 bed was warm,
and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but
lightly in his slippers,

dressing-gown, and nightcap; 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," Scrooge remonstrated, "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 upon
an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had
entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness
and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter
day, with snow upon the ground.

"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked
about him. "I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!"

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been
light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense
of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air,
each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and
cares long, long, forgotten!

"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is that upon your
cheek?"

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a
pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.

"You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit.

"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervour--"I could walk it
blindfold."

"Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" observed the Ghost.
"Let us go on."

They walked along the road; Scrooge recognising every gate, and post,
and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with
its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were
seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to
other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these
boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad
fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear
it.

"These are but shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost.
"They have no consciousness of us."

The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and
named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see
them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart

leap up as they went past! Why was he filled with gladness when he
heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at
cross-roads and bye-ways, for their several homes! What was merry
Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever
done to him?

"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A solitary child,
neglected by his friends, is left there still."

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road, by a well remembered lane, and soon approached
a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola,
on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one
of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their
walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates
decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the
coach-houses and sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more
retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary hall,
and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them
poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the
air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow
with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the
back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare,
melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and
desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire;
and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten
self as he had used to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice
behind the panneling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in
the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one
despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door,
no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge
with softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his young self,
intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments:
wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window,
with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading an ass laden with wood by
the bridle.

"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstacy. "It's dear old
honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, when yonder
solitary child was left here all alone, he _did_ come, for the first

time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine," said Scrooge, "and his
wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what's his name, who was put
down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see
him! And the Sultan's Groom turned upside-down by the Genii; there he
is upon his head! Serve him right. I'm glad of it. What business had
_he_ to be married to the Princess!"

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such
subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying;
and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise
to his business friends in the city, indeed.

"There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and yellow tail, with
a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he
is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after
sailing round the island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been,
Robin Crusoe?' The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was
the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the
little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!"

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual
character, he said, in pity for his former self, "Poor boy!" and cried
again.

"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and
looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: "but it's too
late now."

"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.

"Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas
Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him
something: that's all."

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did
so, "Let us see another Christmas!"

Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a
little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked;
fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were
shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no
more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that
everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all
the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge
looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced
anxiously towards the door.

It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting
in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him,
addressed him as her "Dear, dear brother."

"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the child,
clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. "To bring you
home, home, home!"

"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy.

"Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home, for good and all. Home,
for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that
home's like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was
going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might
come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to
bring you. And you're to be a man!" said the child, opening her eyes,
"and are never to come back here; but first, we're to be together all
the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world."

"You are quite a woman, little Fan!" exclaimed the boy.

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but
being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him.
Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the
door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.

A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master Scrooge's box,
there!" and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared
on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a
dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him
and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour
that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial
and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he
produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously
heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the
young people: at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer
a glass of "something" to the postboy, who answered that he thanked
the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he
had rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to
the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye
right willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily down the
garden-sweep; the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from
off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered," said
the Ghost. "But she had a large heart!"

"So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I'll not gainsay it,
Spirit. God forbid!"

"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I

think, children."

"One child," Scrooge returned.

"True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!"

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, "Yes."

Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they
were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers
passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the
way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made
plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was
Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted
up.

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he
knew it.

"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed here?"

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welch wig, sitting
behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must
have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great
excitement:

"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig alive again!"

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which
pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his
capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his
organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich,
fat, jovial voice:

"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in,
accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.

"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost. "Bless me, yes.
There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick!
Dear, dear!"

"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night. Christmas
Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up," cried old
Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say, Jack
Robinson!"

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged
into the street with the shutters--one, two, three--had 'em up in
their places--four, five, six--barred 'em and pinned 'em--seven,
eight, nine--and came back before you could have got to twelve,
panting like race-horses.

"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with
wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room
here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!"

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or
couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was

done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were
dismissed from public life for ever-more; 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.