Christmas With Dickens - A Christmas Carol 2

This is SD Hudson Magic.

Welcome to my Christmas series.

These extracts are taken from a Christmas carol written by Charles Dickens in the 19th century.

Here's wishing all my loyal listeners a very peaceful and restful Christmas and Happy New Year.

Stave 2.

Scrooge as a schoolboy.

I wear the chain I forged in life,

Replied the ghost.

I made it link by link and yard by yard.

I girded it of my own free will and of my own free will I wore it.

Is its pattern strange to you?

Scrooge trembled more and more.

All would you know,

Pursued the ghost,

The weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself.

It was full,

As heavy and as long as this,

Seven Christmas eves ago.

I have laboured on it since.

It is a ponderous chain.

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor in the exception of finding himself surrounded by some 50 or 60 fathoms of iron cable.

But he could see nothing.

Jacob,

He said imploringly.

Oh,

Jacob Marley,

Tell me more.

Speak comfort to me,

Jacob.

I have none to give,

The ghost replied.

It comes from other regions,

Ebenezer Scrooge,

And is conveyed by other ministers to other kinds of men.

Nor 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 beyond our counting house.

Mark me,

In life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of a money-changing hole,

And weary journeys lie before me.

It was a habit with Scrooge,

Whenever he became thoughtful,

To put his hands in his breeches' pockets.

Pondering on what the ghost had said,

He did so now,

But without lifting up his eyes or getting off his knees.

You must have been very slow about it,

Jacob,

Scrooge observed in a business-like manner,

Though with humility and deference.

Slow?

The ghost repeated.

Seven years dead,

Mused Scrooge,

And travelling all the time.

The whole time,

Said the ghost,

No rest,

No peace,

Incessant torture of remorse.

You travel fast,

Said Scrooge.

On the wings of the wind,

Replied the ghost.

You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,

Said Scrooge.

The ghost,

On hearing this,

Set up another cry,

And clanked its chains so hideously in the dead silence of the night,

That the ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.

Oh,

Captive-bound and double-ironed,

Cried the phantom,

Not to know that ages of incessant labour by mortal creatures,

For this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is acceptable is all developed.

Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in this little sphere,

Whatever it may be,

Will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness.

Not to know that no space or regret can make amends for one's life's opportunity misused.

Yet such was I,

Oh,

Such was I.

But you were always a good man of business,

Jacob,

Thoughtered Scrooge,

Who now began to apply this to himself.

Business,

Cried the ghost,

Wringing its hands again.

Mankind was my business.

The common welfare was my business.

Charity,

Mercy,

Forbearance and benevolence were all my business.

The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.

The ghost of Christmas passed.

It was a strange figure,

Like a child,

Yet not so like a child as an old man.

You drew 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 tenderness 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 very 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 its 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 forced me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?

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 saw.

They left the high road by a well-remembered lane and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick,

With a little weathercock surmounted coupler 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.

Fouls clucked and strutted in the stables,

And the coach houses and sheds were overrun 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 earthly savour in the air,

A chilled bareness in the place,

Which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candlelight,

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 bare as still by lines of plain dill 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,

Nor 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 storehouse 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.

Why,

It's old Fezziwig,

Bless his heart,

It's Fezziwig alive again!

Old Fezziwig lay 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 the 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 apprentice.

Dick Williams,

To be sure,

Said Scrooge to the ghost,

Bless me,

Yes,

There he is.

He was very much attracted to me,

Was Dick.

Poor Dick,

Dear,

Dear.

Yo-ho,

My boys,

Said Fezziwig,

No more work tonight,

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 them up in their places,

Four,

Five,

Six,

Barred them and pinned them,

Seven,

Eight,

Nine,

And came back before you could have got to twelve,

Panting like racehorses.

Helio,

Cried old Fezziwig,

Skipping down from the high desk with a wonderful agility.

Clear away,

My lads,

And let's have lots of room here.

Helio,

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 as bright a ballroom 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 turned like fifty stomachaches.

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 bawled 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 the other,

Some shyly,

Some boldly,

Some gracefully,

Some awkwardly.

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 at 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 brand new man resolved to beat him out of sight or perish.

There were more dancers,

And there were forfeits,

And more dancers,

And there was a cake,

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,

And the sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told him,

Struck up Sir Roger de Coverlie.

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.