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  • 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 hour bell 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 Ghost.

  • \"They have no consciousness of us.\"

  • The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every

  • one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to

  • see them!

  • Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past!

  • Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas,

  • as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for their several homes!

  • What was merry Christmas to Scrooge?

  • Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?

  • \"The school is not quite deserted,\" said the Ghost.

  • \"A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.\"

  • Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

  • They left the high-road, by a well- remembered lane, and soon approached a

  • mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof,

  • and a bell hanging in it.

  • It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were

  • little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their

  • gates decayed.

  • Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were over-

  • run with grass.

  • Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary

  • hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly

  • furnished, cold, and vast.

  • There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which

  • associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too

  • much to eat.

  • They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the

  • house.

  • It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer

  • still by lines of plain deal forms and desks.

  • At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down

  • upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.

  • Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the

  • panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a

  • sigh among the leafless boughs of one

  • despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a

  • clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening

  • influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

  • The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon

  • his reading.

  • Suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at:

  • stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an

  • ass laden with wood.

  • \"Why, it's Ali Baba!\" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy.

  • \"It's dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know!

  • One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come,

  • for the first time, just like that. Poor boy!

  • And Valentine,\" said Scrooge, \"and his wild brother, Orson; there they go!

  • And what's his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of

  • Damascus; don't you see him!

  • And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head!

  • Serve him right. I'm glad of it.

  • What business had he to be married to the Princess!\"

  • To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects,

  • in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his

  • heightened and excited face; would have

  • been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.

  • \"There's the Parrot!\" cried Scrooge.

  • \"Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of

  • his head; there he is!

  • Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the

  • island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been,

  • Robin Crusoe?'

  • The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't.

  • It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to

  • the little creek!

  • Halloa! Hoop!

  • Halloo!\"

  • Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in

  • pity for his former self, \"Poor boy!\" and cried again.

  • \"I wish,\" Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him,

  • after drying his eyes with his cuff: \"but it's too late now.\"

  • \"What is the matter?\" asked the Spirit.

  • \"Nothing,\" said Scrooge. \"Nothing.

  • There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night.

  • I should like to have given him something: that's all.\"

  • The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, \"Let us see

  • another Christmas!\"

  • 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 do.

  • 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 on. 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.

  • 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.

  • \"My time grows short,\" observed the Spirit.

  • \"Quick!\" This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to

  • any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect.

  • For again Scrooge saw himself.

  • He was older now; a man in the prime of life.

  • His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear

  • the signs of care and avarice.

  • There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that

  • had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.

  • He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning-dress: in

  • whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of

  • Christmas Past.

  • \"It matters little,\" she said, softly. \"To you, very little.

  • Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come,

  • as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.\"

  • \"What Idol has displaced you?\" he rejoined.

  • \"A golden one.\" \"This is the even-handed dealing of the

  • world!\" he said.

  • \"There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes

  • to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!\"

  • \"You fear the world too much,\" she answered, gently.

  • \"All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its

  • sordid reproach.

  • I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion,

  • Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?\"

  • \"What then?\" he retorted.

  • \"Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then?

  • I am not changed towards you.\" She shook her head.

  • \"Am I?\"

  • \"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and

  • content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our

  • patient industry.

  • You are changed. When it was made, you were another man.\"

  • \"I was a boy,\" he said impatiently. \"Your own feeling tells you that you were

  • not what you are,\" she returned.

  • \"I am. That which promised happiness when we were

  • one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two.

  • How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say.

  • It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you.\"

  • \"Have I ever sought release?\"

  • \"In words. No. Never.\"

  • \"In what, then?\"

  • \"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope

  • as its great end. In everything that made my love of any

  • worth or value in your sight.

  • If this had never been between us,\" said the girl, looking mildly, but with

  • steadiness, upon him; \"tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now?

  • Ah, no!\"

  • He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself.

  • But he said with a struggle, \"You think not.\"

  • \"I would gladly think otherwise if I could,\" she answered, \"Heaven knows!

  • When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must

  • be.

  • But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you

  • would choose a dowerless girl--you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh

  • everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if

  • for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not

  • know that your repentance and regret would surely follow?

  • I do; and I release you.

  • With a full heart, for the love of him you once were.\"

  • He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.

  • \"You may--the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will--have pain in this.

  • A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as

  • an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke.

  • May you be happy in the life you have chosen!\"

  • She left him, and they parted. \"Spirit!\" said Scrooge, \"show me no more!

  • Conduct me home.

  • Why do you delight to torture me?\" \"One shadow more!\" exclaimed the Ghost.

  • \"No more!\" cried Scrooge. \"No more.

  • I don't wish to see it.

  • Show me no more!\" But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in

  • both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.

  • They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full

  • of comfort.

  • Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge

  • believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her

  • daughter.

  • The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children

  • there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the

  • celebrated herd in the poem, they were not

  • forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself

  • like forty.

  • The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the

  • contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the

  • latter, soon beginning to mingle in the

  • sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly.

  • What would I not have given to be one of them!

  • Though I never could have been so rude, no, no!

  • I wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it

  • down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my

  • soul! to save my life.

  • As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done

  • it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never

  • come straight again.

  • And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have

  • questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her

  • downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to

  • have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in

  • short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a

  • child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value.

  • But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she

  • with laughing face and plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed

  • and boisterous group, just in time to greet

  • the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents.

  • Then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the

  • defenceless porter!

  • The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his pockets, despoil him of

  • brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his

  • back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection!

  • The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was

  • received!

  • The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's

  • frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a

  • fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter!

  • The immense relief of finding this a false alarm!

  • The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy!

  • They are all indescribable alike.

  • It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlour,

  • and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house; where they went to bed, and

  • so subsided.

  • And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house,

  • having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own

  • fireside; and when he thought that such

  • another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him

  • father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew

  • very dim indeed.

  • \"Belle,\" said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, \"I saw an old friend of

  • yours this afternoon.\" \"Who was it?\"

  • \"Guess!\"

  • \"How can I? Tut, don't I know?\" she added in the same

  • breath, laughing as he laughed. \"Mr. Scrooge.\"

  • \"Mr. Scrooge it was.

  • I passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I

  • could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death,

  • I hear; and there he sat alone.

  • Quite alone in the world, I do believe.\" \"Spirit!\" said Scrooge in a broken voice,

  • \"remove me from this place.\" \"I told you these were shadows of the

  • things that have been,\" said the Ghost.

  • \"That they are what they are, do not blame me!\"

  • \"Remove me!\" Scrooge exclaimed, \"I cannot bear it!\"

  • He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in

  • some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled

  • with it.

  • \"Leave me! Take me back.

  • Haunt me no longer!\"

  • In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible

  • resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge

  • observed that its light was burning high

  • and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the

  • extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head.

  • The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but

  • though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light: which

  • streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

  • He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness;

  • and, further, of being in his own bedroom.

  • He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to

  • reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.

STAVE II: THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS

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B1 中級 英國腔

Stave 2 - 查爾斯-狄更斯的《聖誕頌歌》--三種精神中的第一種精神。 (Stave 2 - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens - The First of the Three Spirits)

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    draw tide 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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