A Christmas Carrol
Seite 8.)
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, crashing 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 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.
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 to 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.
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
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