Month: December 2021

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (IN PROSE BEING, A Ghost Story of Christmas)

by Charles Dickens

(OCF editing – Part 17)

 

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.

Charles Dickens

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (IN PROSE BEING, A Ghost Story of Christmas)

by Charles Dickens

(OCF editing – Part 16)

 

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 chestnuts 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 chestnuts 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 own 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 abed 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 chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and

by-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!

Charles Dickens

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (IN PROSE BEING, A Ghost Story of Christmas)

by Charles Dickens

(OCF editing – Part 15)

 

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.

Charles Dickens