A Christmas Carol (5 page)

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.