A Christmas Carrol

                       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 ankle, 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 'Humbug!' 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 chime 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 passed; 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 bell had 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 his 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

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