A Christmas Carrol

                        door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said 'Pooh, pooh!' and closed it
                        with a bang.

                        The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the
                        wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was
                        not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up
                        the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.

                        You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a
                        bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and
                        taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades:
                        and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the
                        reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom.
                        Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may
                        suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.

                        Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before
                        he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough
                        recollection of the face to desire to do that.

                        Sitting-room, bed-room, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody
                        under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little sauce-pan of gruel
                        (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet;
                        nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.
                        Lumber- room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs,
                        and a poker.

                        Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not
                        his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and
                        slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.

                        It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and
                        brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel.
                        The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with
                        quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's
                        daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like
                        feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of
                        figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the
                        ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first,
                        with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts,
                        there would have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one.

                        'Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the room.

                        After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance
                        happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some
                        purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great
                        astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to
                        swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly;
                        and so did every bell in the house.

                        This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they
                        had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some
                        person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine- merchant's cellar. Scrooge then
                        remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.

                        The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the
                        floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

                        'It's humbug still!' said Scrooge. 'I won't believe it.'

                        His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and
                        passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it
                        cried, 'I know him; Marley's Ghost!' and fell again.

                        The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels
                        on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he
                        drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made
                        (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses
                        wrought in steel. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through
                        his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.

                        Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.
                        No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw
                        it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the
                        very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not
                        observed before; he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.

                        'How now!' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. 'What do you want with me?'

                        'Much!'- Marley's voice, no doubt about it.

                        'Who are you?'

                        'Ask me who I was.'

                        'Who were you then?' said Scrooge, raising his voice. 'You're particular, for a shade.' He was going
                        to say 'to a shade,' but substituted this, as more appropriate. In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.'
                        'Can you- can you sit down?' asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.

                        'I can.'

                        'Do it, then.'

                        Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find
                        himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might
                        involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down on the opposite
                        side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.

                        'You don't believe in me,' observed the Ghost.

                        'I don't,' said Scrooge.

                        'What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?'

                        'I don't know,' said Scrooge.

                        'Why do you doubt your senses?'

                        'Because,' said Scrooge, 'a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them
                        cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of
                        an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!'

                        Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means
                        waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention,
                        and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

                        To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the
                        very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an
                        infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for
                        though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were still agitated as by
                        the hot vapour from an oven.

                        'You see this toothpick?' said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just
                        assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.

                        'I do,' replied the Ghost.

                        'You are not looking at it,' said Scrooge.

                        'But I see it,' said the Ghost, 'notwithstanding.'

                        'Well!' returned Scrooge, 'I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by
                        a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. 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 opportunity misused! Yet such was
                        I! Oh! such was I!'

                        'But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered 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 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 faltering 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, 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.

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