A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas

ed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s na

, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed h

le executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadf

going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet’s Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon h

r: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business

, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in h

o falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know where to have him. The heaviest rai

asked him what it was o’clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him; and whe

is way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy t

their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring

s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predi

e. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so q

d Scrooge,

this nephew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a glow; his face was

said Scrooge’s nephew. “You

at right have you to be merry? What reason

hat right have you to be dismal? What reaso

n the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!”

ss, uncle!” s

a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work

pleaded t

nly, “keep Christmas in your own

Scrooge’s nephew. “B

d Scrooge. “Much good may it do yo

igin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below th

g immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked th

Christmas by losing your situation! You’re quite a powerful speaker, sir,”

ncle. Come! Dine w

id. He went the whole length of the expression, and

ied Scrooge’s

get married?”

I fell

that were the only one thing in the world more ri

ee me before that happened. Why give

rnoon,” sa

; I ask nothing of you;

rnoon,” sa

arrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Chris

rnoon!” sa

Happy N

rnoon!” sa

d at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, wh

: “my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and fa

were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off,

e gentlemen, referring to his list. “Have I the p

en years,” Scrooge replied. “He die

epresented by his surviving partner,” said

ts. At the ominous word “liberality,” Scrooge frowned

esirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present t

o prisons?”

aid the gentleman, lay

?” demanded Scrooge. “Are

d the gentleman, “I wish I

oor Law are in full vigo

ery bus

t something had occurred to stop them in their usef

, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this t

” Scrooge

to be an

. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to sup

here; and many w

y had better do it, and decrease the surplus p

now it,” observe

to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other p

ntlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinio

the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers’ and grocers’ trades became a splendid joke:

r as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mum

you, merr

ing you

ion, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the

Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expecta

y to-morrow, I supp

convenie

not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it,

k smiled

on’t think me ill-used, when I

ed that it was o

ber!” said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. “But I supp

ds of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of bo

of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge,

f what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London, even including—which is a bold word—the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven y

ooked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide ope

ly at this phenomenon,

tion to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand

half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley’s pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the

rs below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes

adwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought

ed it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that

the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was h

h was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dr

iles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh’s daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet t

rooge; and walked

cated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as h

were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wi

e heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then c

!” said Scrooge. “

door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying f

ey’s

head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, led

that Marley had no bowels, but h

ough he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound abo

austic and cold as ever. “

’s voice, no d

are

e who

“You’re particular, for a shade.” He was going to say

your partner,

wn?” asked Scrooge, loo

c

it,

on to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an emba

eve in me,” obs

,” said

have of my reality beyo

know,” sa

u doubt yo

them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fra

waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attent

y awful, too, in the spectre’s being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly t

charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were

replied

ooking at it,”

said the Ghost,

d be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of go

on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom t

knees, and clasped his

eadful apparition, wh

” replied the Ghost, “do

But why do spirits walk the ear

ravel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander

cry, and shook its chain

said Scrooge, trem

link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will,

embled mor

g coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven C

ation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or

“Old Jacob Marley, tell me mo

can I tell you what I would. A very little more is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked

hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he

cob,” Scrooge observed, in a business-like

he Ghost

used Scrooge. “And tr

host. “No rest, no peace. In

l fast?” s

f the wind,” re

great quantity of ground in

s chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that th

re the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mort

usiness, Jacob,” faltered Scrooge, w

elfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business.

hat were the cause of all its unavailing grie

s of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led t

ear the spectre going on at this ra

the Ghost. “My ti

t don’t be hard upon me! Do

pe that you can see, I may not tell. I have

Scrooge shivered, and wiped

here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope o

od friend to me,” sai

,” resumed the Ghost

fell almost as low a

you mentioned, Jacob?” he d

t

d rather not,

cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect

at once, and have it over

night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no m

ew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes

y step it took, the window raised itself a little, s

ere within two paces of each other, Marley’s Ghost held up

ises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory.

window: desperate in his

er; 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 b

m, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded to

d. 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 Wo