第19章 The Second of the Three Spirits(5)

"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;Christmas 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,"Christmas 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.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 full five minutes.

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 tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business;and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars,as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income.Martha,who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's,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 collars so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there.All this time the chesnuts and the jug went round and round;and bye and bye they had a song,about a lost child travelling 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 inside of a pawnbroker's.But,they were happy,grateful,pleased with one another,and contented 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,until the last.

By this time it was getting dark,and snowing pretty heavily;and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets,the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens,parlours,and all sorts of rooms,was wonderful.Here,the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner,with hot plates baking through and through before the fire,and deep red curtains,ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness.There all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters,brothers,cousins,uncles,aunts,and be the first to greet them.Here,again,were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling;and there a group of handsome girls,all hooded and fur-booted,and all chattering at once,tripped lightly off to some near neighbour's house;where,woe upon the single man who saw them enter--artful witches,well they knew it--in a glow!

But,if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings,you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there,instead of every house expecting company,and piling up its fires half-chimney high.Blessings on it,how the Ghost exulted!How it bared its breadth of breast,and opened its capacious palm,and floated on,outpouring,with a generous hand,its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach!The very lamplighter,who ran on before,dotting the dusky street with specks of light,and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere,laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed:

though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas!

And now,without a word of warning from the Ghost,they stood upon a bleak and desert moor,where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about,as though it were the burial-place of giants;and water spread itself wheresoever it listed;or would have done so,but for the frost that held it prisoner;

And nothing grew but moss and furze,and coarse,rank grass.Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red,which glared upon the desolation for an instant,like a sullen eye,and frowning lower,lower,lower yet,was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

"What place is this?''asked Scrooge.

"A place where Miners live,who labour in the bowels of the earth,''returned the Spirit."But they know me.See!''

A light shone from the window of a hut,and swiftly they advanced towards it.Passing through the wall of mud and stone,they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire.An old,old man and woman,with their children and their children's children,and another generation beyond that,all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.The old man,in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste,was singing them a Christmas song :it had been a very old song when he was a boy;

And from time to time they all joined in the chorus.So surely as they raised their voices,the old man got quite blithe and loud;and so surely as they stopped,his vigour sank again.