‘‘What place is this?’ asked Scrooge.
‘‘A place where Miners live, who labor 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 toward 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 vigor sank again.
‘The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled, and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.
‘Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from the shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base, and storm-birds—born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water—rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.
‘But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other a Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them—the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figurehead of an old ship might be—struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.
‘Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea—on, on—until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations: but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities: and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.’
The second of these spirits accompanies Scrooge to a scene that is well worth seeing, and the like of which many of our readers have doubtless often encountered—a regular Christmas frolic; in the present instance at the residence of his nephew, who has a sister, a lovely, plump damsel, with a lace tucker: she was pretty, exceedingly pretty. ‘With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed, as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature’s head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory!’ Is not the following a most glowing sketch of a well known pastime?
‘But they didn’t devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at blindman’s buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge’s nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there went he. He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn’t catch any body else. If you had fallen up against him, as some of them did, and stood there; he would have made a feint endeavoring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding: and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn’t fair; and it really was not. But when, at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and farther to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blindman being in office, they were so very confidential together, behind the curtains.’
The Ghost of Christmas to Come is the third spirit. It is a stately figure, surrounded in black and impenetrable drapery. It leads Scrooge into the heart of the city, and he hears his acquaintance talking jestingly of one departed; into the Exchange, and he sees another standing against his peculiar pillar; into a haunt of infamy, where wretches are dividing the spoils and hoardings of the dead; into a wretched room, where a corpse lies shrouded, whose face Scrooge dares not uncover; into dwellings made miserable by the grasping avarice of those who had wealth they could not use; into his nephew’s house, shorn of its comforts, where the inmates, care-worn and weary, are wringing their hands with distress; into poor Bob Cratchit’s abode, made cheerless by death; and lastly, into a sad churchyard, where, on the stone of a neglected grave, is inscribed his own name! He implores the spirit to say whether these shadows may not be changed by an altered life. Its trembling hand seems to give consent. He pleads earnestly for a more decisive sign, and while he does so, the phantom dwindles down into a bed-post, and Scrooge sits upright in his bed. Who cannot imagine the conclusion? It is broad day. He looks out of the window: the bells are ringing; the people are going to church; all proclaim it as Christmas Day. The future is yet before him, and he is resolved to make the most of it. The prize turkey is got in haste from the neighboring poulterer’s, and sent by a cab to Bob Cratchit’s; and Scrooge hastens off to his nephew’s to dinner, where he finds the vision of the spirit realized. Scrooge from that hour is another and a better man. We have in conclusion but three words to say to every reader of the Knickerbocker who may peruse our notice of this production: Read the Work.