A Christmas Carol (7 page)

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 bye-streets, lanes, and
nameless turnings, innumerable people, 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
humour 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 flavour in what you sprinkle 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 Seventh 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 observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding
his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself 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 nature, and his sympathy with all poor
men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he
went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and
on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped
to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his
torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob" a-week
himself; he pocketed on Saturdays 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 Master 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 honour 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 smelt 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 his collars 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, appearing 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 feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe,
hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned
up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his
shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and
had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking
round.

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension 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
in joke; so she came out prematurely 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 credulity, 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, because he
was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember
upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind
men see."

Bob'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 before 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 returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose
the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a
black swan was a matter of course—and in truth it was
something 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 vigour;
Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted
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 forgetting 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
flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal
admiration. 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
Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone—too nervous to
bear witnesses—to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose 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 pudding was out of
the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the
cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next
door to each other, with a laundress's next door 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
of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight 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 confess she had
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. Any Cratchit would have blushed
to hint at 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 oranges
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 a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, 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 shadows 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
decrease 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 worthless 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! 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!"