A Christmas Carol — Stave Three : The Second of the Three Spirits
by Charles Dickens
AWAKING in the middle of a prodigiously
tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his
thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to
be told that the bell was again upon the stroke
of One. He felt that he was restored to con-
sciousness in the right nick of time, for the
special purpose of holding a conference with
the second messenger despatched to him
through Jacob Marley's intervention. But,
finding that he turned uncomfortably cold
when he began to wonder which of his curtains
this new spectre would draw back, he put them
every one aside with his own hands, and
lying down again, established a sharp look-out
all round the bed. For he wished to chal-
lenge the Spirit on the moment of its appear-
ance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise
and made nervous.
Gentlemen of the free and easy sort, who
plume themselves on being acquainted with
a move or two, and being usually equal to
the time-of-day, express the wide range of
their capacity for adventure by observing that
they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss
to manslaughter; between which opposite ex-
tremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide
and comprehensive range of subjects. Without
venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this,
I don't mind calling on you to believe that he
was ready for a good broad field of strange
appearances, and that nothing between a baby
and a rhinoceros would have astonished him
very much.
Now, being prepared for almost anything, he
was not by any means prepared for nothing;
and, consequently, when the Bell struck One,
and no shape appeared, he was taken with a
violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten
minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet noth-
ing came. All this time, he lay upon his bed,
the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy
light, which streamed upon it when the clock
proclaimed the hour; and which, being only
light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts,
as he was powerless to make out what it meant,
or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive
that he might be at that very moment an in-
teresting case of spontaneous combustion, with-
out having the consolation of knowing it. At
last, however, he began to think — as you or
I would have thought at first; for it is always
the person not in the predicament who knows
what ought to have been done in it, and would
unquestionably have done it too — at last, I say,
he began to think that the source and secret
of this ghostly light might be in the adjoin-
ing room, from whence on further tracing it,
it seemed to shine. This idea taking full pos-
session of his mind, he got up softly and shuf-
fled in his slippers to the door.
The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock,
a strange voice called him by his name, and
bade him enter. He obeyed.
It was his own room. There was no doubt
about that. But it had undergone a surprising
transformation. The walls and ceiling were so
hung with living green, that it looked a per-
fect grove; from every part of which bright
gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of
holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the
light, as if so many little mirrors had been
scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went
roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrifica-
tion of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's
time, or Marley's, or for many and many a
winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to
form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese,
game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat,
suckling-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince
pies, plum puddings, barrels of oysters, red-
hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy
oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes,
and seething bowls of punch, that made the
chamber dim with their delicious steam. In
easy state upon this couch there sat a jolly
Giant, glorious to see: who bore a glowing
torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and
held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge,
as he came peeping round the door.
"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in!
and know me better, man!"
Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head
before this Spirit. He was not the dogged
Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit's
eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to
meet them.
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said
the Spirit. "Look upon me!"
Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in
one simple deep green robe, or mantle, bor-
dered with white fur. This garment hung so
loosely on the figure that its capacious breast
was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or con-
cealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable be-
neath the ample folds of the garment, were
also bare; and on its head it wore no other
covering than a holly wreath, set here and there
with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were
long and free; free as its genial face, its spark-
ling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its un-
constrained demeanor, and its joyful air.
Girded round its middle was an antique scab-
bard; but no sword was in it; and the ancient
sheath was eaten up with rust.
You have never seen the like of me before?"
exclaimed the Spirit.
"Never," Scrooge made answer to it.
"Have never walked forth with the younger
members of my family; meaning (for I am very
young) my elder brothers born in these later
years?" pursued the Phantom.
"I don't think I have," said Scrooge. "I am
afraid I have not. Have you had many broth-
ers, Spirit?"
"More than eighteen hundred," said the
Ghost.
"A tremendous family to provide for," mut-
tered Scrooge.
The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.
"Spirit," said Scrooge, submissively, "con-
duct me where you will. I went forth last
night on compulsion, and I learned a lesson
which is working now. To-night, if you have
aught to teach me, let me profit by it."
"Touch my robe!"
Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.
Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys,
geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sau-
sages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch,
all vanished instantly. So did the room, the
fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and
they stood in the city streets on Christmas
morning, where (for the weather was severe)
the people made a rough, but brisk and not
unpleasant, kind of music, in scraping the snow
from the pavement in front of their dwellings,
and from the tops of their houses, whence it
was mad delight to the boys to see it come
plumping down into the road below, and split-
ting into artificial little snowstorms.
The house fronts looked black enough, and
the windows blacker; contrasting with the
smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and
with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which
last deposit had been ploughed up in deep
furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and
wagons; furrows that crossed and re-crossed
each other hundreds of times where the great
streets branched off; and made intricate chan-
nels, hard to trace,in the thick yellow muck
and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the
shortest streets were choked up with a dingy
mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier
particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms
as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had
by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing
away to their dear heart's content. There was
nothing very cheerful in the climate or the
town and yet was there an air of cheerfulness
abroad that the clearest summer air and bright-
est summer sun might have endeavored to dif-
fuse in vain.
For the people who were shoveling away on
the housetops were jovial and full of glee; call-
ing out to one another from the parapets, and
now and then exchanging a facetious snowball
— better-natured missile far than many a wordy
jest — laughing heartily if it went right, and
not less heartily if it went wrong. The poul-
terers' shops were still half open, and the fruit-
erers' were radiant in their glory. There were
great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts,
shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentle-
men, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out
into the street in their apoplectic opulence.
There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed
Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their
growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from
their shelves in wanton shyness at the girls as
they went by, an glanced demurely at the
hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and ap-
ples, clustered high in blooming pyramids;
there were bunches of grapes, made, in the
shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from con-
spicuous hooks that people's mouths might
water gratis as they passed; there were piles
of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in
their fragrance, ancient walks amongst the
woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep
through withered leaves; there were Nofolk
Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yel-
low of the oranges and lemons, and, in the
great compactness of their juicy persons, ur-
gently entreating and beseeching to be carried
home in paper bags and eaten after dinner,
the very gold and silver fish, set forth among
these choice fruits in a bowl, though members
of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared
to know that there was something going on;
and, to a fish, went gasping round and round
their little world in slow and passionless ex-
citement.
The Grocers; oh, the Grocers! nearly closed,
with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but
through those gaps such glimpses! It was not
alone that the scales, descending on the coun-
ter, made a merry sound, or that the twine and
roller parted company so briskly, or that the
canisters were rattled up and down like jug-
gling tricks, or even that the blended scents
of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose,
or even that the raisins were so plentiful and
rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks
of cinnamon so long and straight, the other
spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked
and spotted with molten sugar, as to make the
coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently
bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist
and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed
in modest tartness from their highly-decorated
boxes, or that everything was good to eat and
in its Christmas dress; but the customers were
all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful prom-
ise 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 like mis-
takes, in the best humor possible; while the
Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh
that the polished hearts with which they fas-
tened 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 by-streets,
lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable peo-
ple, 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-humor
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 flavor in what you sprin-
kle 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 Sev-
enth 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 ob-
served at the baker's), that notwithstanding
his gigantic size, he could accommodate him-
self 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, na-
ture, and his sympathy with all poor men,
that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk; for
there he went, and took Scrooge with him, hold-
ing to his robe; and on the threshold of the
door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless
Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of
his torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen
"Bob" a week himself; he pocketed on Sat-
urdays 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 Mas-
ter 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
honor 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 smelled 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 the collar 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 appear-
ing 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 foot of
comforter exclusive of the fringe hanging down
before him; and his threadbare clothes darned
up an brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny
Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim,
he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs sup-
ported by an iron frame!
"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob
Cratchit, looking around.
"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.
"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden de-
clension 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 a joke, so she came out prema-
turely 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 cre-
dulity, 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 be-
cause he was a cripple, and it might be pleas-
ant to them to remember upon Christmas Day
who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see."
Bib'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 beside 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 re-
turned in high procession.
Such a bustle ensued that you might have
thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feath-
ered phenomenon, to which a black swan was
a matter of course — and in truth it was some-
thing 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 vigor; Miss Belinda
sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha adusted
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 forget-
ting 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 flavor, size and
cheapness, were the themes of universal admi-
ration. 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 Be-
linda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room — too nervous
to bear witness — to take the pudding up and
bring it in.
Suppose it should not be done enough! Sup-
pose 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 pud-
ding was out of the copper. A smell like a
washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like
an eating-house and a pastry-cook's next door
to each other, with a laundress's next 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 or half-a-
quartern of ignited brandy, and be tight 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 con-
fess she 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. Anny Cratchit
would have blushed to hint of 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 or-
anges 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 the handle.
These held the hot stuff from the jug, how-
ever, 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 shad-
ows 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 de-
crease 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 worth-
less 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! Christ-
mas 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, "Christ-
mas 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 in it. 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 the full five minutes.
And 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 tremulously at the
idea of Peter being a man of business; and
Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire
from between his collar, as if he were deliber-
ating what particular investments he should
favor when he came into the receipt of that be-
wildering income, Martha, who was a poor ap-
prentice at the milliners, 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 a-bed 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 collar 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-the-by they had
a song, about a lost child traveling 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 in-
side of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy,
grateful, pleased with one another, and con-
tented 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, un-
til the last.
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Robert K. Haas, Inc., Publishers, New York, N.Y.
Little Leather Edition, pp. 59 - 79
Posted Aug 3, 2018, 4:35 PM UTC
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