Month: December 2021

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

by Charles Dickens

(OCF editing – Part 10)

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 have become of them next. And when old

Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance;

advance and retire, both hands to 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

of 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.

Charles Dickens

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

by Charles Dickens

(OCF editing – Part 9)

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

1. 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 will 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 Welsh

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

1. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if

it were dismissed from public life for evermore; 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.

 

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

lovable. 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 done!” 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.

Charles Dickens