Chapter 3

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk,
and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In
came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss
Fezziwigs, beaming and loveable. In came the six young followers whose
hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the
business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came
the cook, with her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In came
the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board
enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from
next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her
Mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some
boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling;
in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty
couple at once, hands half round and back again the other way; down
the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of
affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong
place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there;
all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this
result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the
dance, cried out, "Well down!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face
into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But
scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though
there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried
home, exhausted, on a shutter; and he were a bran-new man resolved to
beat him out of sight, or perish.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and
there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of
Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were
mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening
came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog,
mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could
have told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley." Then old
Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple too; with a
good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty
pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who
_would_ dance, and had no notion of walking.

But if they had been twice as many: ah, four times: old Fezziwig would
have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As

to _her_, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term.
If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive
light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every
part of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any
given time, what would become of 'em next. And when old Fezziwig and
Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, hold
hands with your partner; bow and curtsey; corkscrew; thread-the-needle,
and back again to your place; Fezziwig "cut"--cut so deftly, that he
appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a
stagger.

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and
Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side the door, and
shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out,
wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but
the two 'prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful
voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were
under a counter in the back-shop.

During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his
wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self.
He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything,
and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the
bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that
he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full
upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.

"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly folks so full
of gratitude."

"Small!" echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were
pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done
so, said,

"Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money:
three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?"

"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking
unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. "It isn't that,
Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our
service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power
lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it
is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he
gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.

"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.

"Nothing particular," said Scrooge.

"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted.

"No," said Scrooge, "No. I should like to be able to say a word or two
to my clerk just now! That's all."

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the
wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open
air.

"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see,
but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He
was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh
and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of
care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the
eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the
shadow of the growing tree would fall.

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a
mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the
light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.

"It matters little," she said, softly. "To you, very little. Another
idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to
come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve."

"What Idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.

"A golden one."

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. "There is
nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it
professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!"

"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently. "All your other
hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its
sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by
one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"

"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what
then? I am not changed towards you."

She shook her head.

"Am I?"

"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and
content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly
fortune by our patient industry. You _are_ changed. When it was made,
you were another man."

"I was a boy," he said impatiently.

"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are," she
returned. "I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in
heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how
keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I
_have_ thought of it, and can release you."

"Have I ever sought release?"

"In words. No. Never."

"In what, then?"

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of
life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love
of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between
us," said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him;
"tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of
himself. But he said, with a struggle, "You think not."

"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered, "Heaven
knows! When _I_ have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and
irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow,
yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless
girl--you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by
Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your
one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and
regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full
heart, for the love of him you once were."

He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.

"You may--the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will--have
pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the
recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it
happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have
chosen!"

She left him; and they parted.

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you
delight to torture me?"

"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.

"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no
more!"

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him
to observe what happened next.

They were in another scene and place: a room, not very large or
handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful
young girl, so like the last that Scrooge believed it was the same,
until he saw _her_, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her
daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there
were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind
could

count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not
forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was
conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond
belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and
daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter,
soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young
brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of
them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn't for
the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn
it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it
off, God bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her waist in
sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I
should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment,
and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I
own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might
have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes,
and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of
which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked,
I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet
been man enough to know its value.

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately
ensued that she with laughing face and plundered dress was borne
towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time
to greet the father, who, came home attended by a man laden with
Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and
the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling
him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of
brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round the
neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection!
The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every
package was received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been
taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan into his mouth, and
was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued
on a wooden platter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm!
The joy, and gratitude, and ecstacy! They are all indescribable alike.
It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out
of the parlour and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house;
where they went to bed, and so subsided.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master
of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with
her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such
another

creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called
him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life,
his sight grew very dim indeed.

"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, "I saw an
old friend of yours this afternoon."

"Who was it?"

"Guess!"

"How can I? Tut, don't I know," she added in the same breath, laughing
as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."

"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not
shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him.
His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat
alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe."

"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me from this place."

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the
Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"

"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed. "I cannot bear it!"

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a
face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the
faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

"Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost
with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any
effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning
high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over
him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it
down upon its head.

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its
whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he
could not hide the light: which streamed from under it, in an unbroken
flood upon the ground.

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible
drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap
a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to
reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.

[_This illustration is reproduced in full color on the back cover._]

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 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 a 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 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 petrifaction of a hearth had
never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a
winter season gone. Heaped up upon 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
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 its 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 deep 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 snowstorms.

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 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 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 house-tops 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 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
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 grasping 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, clashing 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 bakers' 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 with 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 our 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.