A Christmas Carol: Stave III - The Second of the Three Spirits

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Hi friends, and welcome to another fine episode of Forward into the Past.

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I'm J.

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C.

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Ridday, your host and narrator, and today we're diving right back into the immortal holiday classic, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

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While the spirit of Christmas often conjures images of cozy fireplaces, carols by the hearth, and overflowing stockings, There's a hidden archipelago of curious customs and traditions just waiting to be explored.

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Today, we embark on a voyage beyond the unexpected, charting the course for a delightful encounter with more obscure gems of the season.

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FIrst, let's set sail for the shores of Iceland, where Yule Lads, 13 impish figures, weave their playful chaos throughout December.

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Think of them as Santa's mischievous minions, leaving gifts for good children, and for the less well behaved Potato rewards, a decidedly less delightful surprise.

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Our next stop finds us in sunny Mexico, where Las Posadas takes center stage.

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This vibrant procession retells the biblical journey of Mary and Joseph with families traversing their neighborhoods, carol singing in search of Posada, or shelter.

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Imagine, if you will, a festive mix of door to door carolers and nativity scenes, a truly immersive holiday experience.

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Now, we navigate to the enchanting tapestry of Ukrainian folklore, where Christmas Eve takes on a unique and fascinating twist.

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Here, cobwebs are not banished, but rather revered as symbols of good fortune and guardians against evil spirits.

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So, while the rest of the world is dusting away Ukrainian homes embrace these wispy strands as festive blessings.

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By the way, this is where we get the tradition of hanging tinsel on our Christmas trees.

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Shifting gears, we touch down in Japan, where a most unexpected culinary tradition has taken root.

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Forget the roasted turkey and cranberry sauce, for here, Christmas Eve beckons with the aroma of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

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Yep, a clever marketing campaign in the 1970s transformed Colonel Sanders into a festive icon and KFC buckets became synonymous with holiday cheer, a testament to the boundless adaptability of cultural practices.

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Finally, we arrive in Javla, Sweden, where the Yule Goat stands tall and proud.

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Well, most of the time.

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This towering straw effigy holds the dubious honor of being a prime target for mischievous arsonists and pranksters, making its survival through the season a source of local amusement and occasional fiery drama.

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So, dear listeners, as you raise a toast to the holidays, Remember that Christmas magic comes in all shapes and sizes.

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From Icelandic elf mischief to Mexican nativity processions, Ukrainian webs of fortune, and Japanese fried fowl feasts, the world offers a vibrant tapestry of festive practices just waiting to be unraveled.

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Let this season be an invitation to embrace the unexpected, delve into the curious, and discover the joy that lies beyond the familiar.

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And, of course, if you do find yourself in Javala, remember to keep your camera at the ready.

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Yule Goat's fate might unfold before your very eyes.

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And with that, friends, let's continue into the story that gave us most of the more traditional elements of the holiday season.

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Stave 3 of that Christmas classic, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

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Stave 3.

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The Second of the Three Spirits Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of one.

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He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention, but finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of the curtains this new specter would draw back, he put them everyone aside with his own hands and lying down again, established a sharp lookout all round the bed for he wished to challenge the spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous.

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Gentlemen of the free and easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, And being usually equal to the time of day, express the wide range of the capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch and toss to manslaughter, between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects, without venturing for scrooge, quite as hardly as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

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Now being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing, and consequently when the bell struck one, and no shape appeared, He was taken with a violent fit of trembling.

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Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came.

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All this time he lay upon his bed the very core and center of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour, and which being only light was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant or would be at, and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment, an interesting case of spontaneous combustion without having the consolation of knowing it.

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At last, however, he began to think as you or I would've thought at first.

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For it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too.

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At last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, It seemed to shine.

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This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door.

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The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name and bade him enter.

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He obeyed.

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It was his own room, there was no doubt about that, but it had undergone a surprising transformation.

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The walls and ceilings were so hung with living green that it looked a perfect grove, from every part of which bright gleaming berries glistened.

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The crisp leaves of holly, Mistletoe and Ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there, and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's.

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Or for many and many a winter season gone, Heaped up to the floor, To form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, Great joints of meat, Sucking pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince pies, plum puddings, barrels of oysters, red hot chestnuts, cherry cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth cakes, and seething bowls of punch that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.

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In easy state upon this couch, there sat A jolly giant, glorious to see, who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.

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Come in! exclaimed the ghost.

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Come in, and know me better, man! Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this spirit.

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He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been, and though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

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I am the ghost of Christmas present, said the Spirit.

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Look upon me.

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Scrooge reverently did so.

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It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur.

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This garment hung so loosely on the figure that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice.

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Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare, and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath set here and there with shining icicles.

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Its dark brown curls were long and free, free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanor, and its joyful air.

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Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard, but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

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'You've never seen the like of me before! exclaimed the spirit.

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'Never! Scrooge made to answer it.

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Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family, meaning, for I am very young, my elder brothers born in these later years.

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Pursued the phantom.

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'I don't think I have, said Scrooge.

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'I am afraid I have not.

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Have you had many brothers, spirit?

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'More than eighteen hundred, said the ghost.

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'A tremendous family to provide for.

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MUTTERED SCROOGE.

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THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT ROSE.

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SPIRIT, SAID SCROOGE SUBMISSIVELY, CONDUCT ME WHERE YOU WILL.

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I WENT FORTH LAST NIGHT ON COMPULSION, AND I LEARNED A LESSON WHICH IS WORKING NOW.

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TONIGHT, IF YOU HAVE aught TO TEACH ME, LET ME PROFIT BY IT.

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TOUCH MY ROBE, THEN.

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SCROOGE DID AS HE WAS TOLD, AND HELD IT FAST.

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Holly, Mistletoe, Redberries, Ivy, Turkeys, Geese, Game, Poultry, Brawn, Meat, Pigs, Sausages, Oysters, Pies, Puddings, Fruit, and Punch all vanished instantly.

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So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where, for the weather was severe, the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys, to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snowstorms.

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The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs.

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And with the dirtiest snow upon the ground, which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons, furrows that crossed and re crossed each other hundreds of times, where the great streets branched off and made intricate channels, Hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water.

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The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had by one consent caught fire and were blazing away to their dear heart's content.

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There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, And yet, was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavored to diffuse in vain?

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For, the people who were shoveling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee, calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball, Better natured missile far than many a wordy jest, Laughing heartily if it went right, And not less heartily if it went wrong.

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The poulterer's shops were still half open, And the fruterers were radiant in their glory.

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There were great, round, pot bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence.

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There were ruddy, brown faced, broad girthed Spanish onions shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish friars and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by and glanced demurely at the hung up mistletoe.

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There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids.

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There were bunches of grapes made, in the shopkeeper's benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks that the people's mouths might water gratis as they passed.

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there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling in their fragrance ancient walks among the woods and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves.

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There were Norfolk biffins, squat and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner.

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The very gold and silver fish set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on, and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

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The grocers, oh, the grocers, nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one, but Through those gaps, such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counters made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers on feel faint and subsequently bilious, Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress.

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But the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter and came running back to fetch them and committed hundreds of the like mistakes in the best humor possible while the grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own worn outside for general inspection and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

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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.

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And at the same time there emerged from scores of by streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people carrying their dinners to the baker's shops.

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The sight of these poor revelers appeared to interest the spirit very much.

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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.

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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 humor was restored directly for, they said it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas day.

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And so it was God love it.

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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.

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Is there a peculiar flavor in what you sprinkle from your torch?

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Asked Scrooge.

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There is.

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My own.

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Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?

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Asked Scrooge.

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To any kindly given, to a poor one most.

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Why, to a poor one most, asked Scrooge.

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Because it needs it the most.

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Spirit, said Scrooge, after a moment's thought.

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I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunity of innocent enjoyment.

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I?

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Cried the spirit.

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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.

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Said Scrooge, wouldn't you?

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I?

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Cried the spirit.

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You seek to close these places on the seventh day, said Scrooge, and it comes to the same thing.

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I seek?

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Exclaimed the spirit.

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Forgive me if I am wrong.

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It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family, said Scrooge.

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There are some upon this earth of yours, returned the spirit.

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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.

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Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.

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Scrooge promised that he would.

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And they went on, invisible as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town.

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It was a remarkable quality of the ghost, which Scrooge had observed at the baker's, that, notwithstanding his giant 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.

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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 clerks.

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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.

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Think of that.

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Bob had but 15 bob a week himself.

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He pocketed on Saturdays but 15 copies of his Christian name, and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four roomed house.

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Then up rose Mrs.

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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.

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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 honor of the day.

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Into his mouth rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable parks.

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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.

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Whatever has got your precious father then?

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Said Mrs.

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Cratchit.

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And your brother, Tiny Tim?

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And Martha weren't as late last Christmas day by half an hour?

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Here's Martha, Mother! Said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

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Here's Martha, mother! Cried the two young Cratchits.

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Hurrah! Oh, there's such a goose, Martha! Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are! Said Mrs.

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Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

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We'd a great deal of work to finish up last night, replied the girl, and had to clear away this morning, mother.

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Oh, well, never mind, so long as you are come, said Mrs.

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Cratchit.

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Sit you down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm.

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Lord bless you! No, no! there's father coming, cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once.

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'Hide, Martha, hide! So, Martha hid herself, and in came 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.

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Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.

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Why?

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Where's our Martha?

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cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.

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Uh, oh, uh, Not coming, said Mrs.

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Cratchit.

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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.

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Not coming upon Christmas Day! Martha did not like to see him disappointed, if it were only a 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.

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And how did little Tim behave?

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asked Mrs.

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Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

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As good as gold, said Bob, and better.

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Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you've ever heard.

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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.

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Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, And trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

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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.

00:24:22.070 --> 00:24:31.590
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.

00:24:31.800 --> 00:24:35.280
And in truth, it was something very like that in that house.

00:24:36.121 --> 00:24:36.451
Mrs.

00:24:36.461 --> 00:24:41.520
Cratchit made the gravy, ready beforehand in a little saucepan, hissing hot.

00:24:42.181 --> 00:24:45.740
Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor.

00:24:46.070 --> 00:24:48.651
Miss Belinda sweetened up the applesauce.

00:24:48.971 --> 00:24:51.141
Martha dusted the hot plates.

00:24:51.240 --> 00:24:55.010
Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table.

00:24:55.361 --> 00:25:08.330
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.

00:25:09.211 --> 00:25:11.361
At last, the dishes were set on.

00:25:11.596 --> 00:25:13.425
And grace was said.

00:25:14.246 --> 00:25:17.776
It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs.

00:25:17.806 --> 00:25:23.895
Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast.

00:25:24.766 --> 00:25:47.125
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.

00:25:47.326 --> 00:25:50.546
Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked.

00:25:51.145 --> 00:25:53.036
It's tenderness and flavor.

00:25:53.276 --> 00:26:01.496
Size and cheapness were the themes of universal admiration eked out by applesauce and mashed potatoes.

00:26:01.705 --> 00:26:04.855
It was a sufficient dinner for the whole family.

00:26:05.435 --> 00:26:06.816
Indeed, as Mrs.

00:26:06.816 --> 00:26:11.675
Cratchit said, with great delight surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish.

00:26:12.066 --> 00:26:14.405
They hadn't ate it all at last.

00:26:15.101 --> 00:26:23.050
Yet, everyone had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows.

00:26:23.480 --> 00:26:27.201
But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs.

00:26:27.201 --> 00:26:33.661
Cratchit left the room alone, too nervous to bear witnesses, to take the pudding up and bring it in.

00:26:34.901 --> 00:26:36.951
Suppose it should not be done enough.

00:26:37.770 --> 00:26:39.770
Suppose it should break in turning out.

00:26:40.471 --> 00:26:46.580
Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the backyard and stolen it while they were merry with the goose.

00:26:47.351 --> 00:26:50.661
A supposition at which the two young cratchits became livid.

00:26:50.891 --> 00:26:54.801
All sorts of horrors were supposed.

00:26:54.801 --> 00:26:57.101
Hullo, a great deal of steam.

00:26:57.980 --> 00:26:59.941
The pudding was out of the copper.

00:27:00.556 --> 00:27:02.086
A smell like a washing day.

00:27:02.155 --> 00:27:04.006
Oh, that was the cloth.

00:27:04.566 --> 00:27:10.205
A smell like an eating house and a pastry cooks next door to each other with the laundresses next to that.

00:27:10.915 --> 00:27:12.425
That was the pudding.

00:27:13.276 --> 00:27:14.655
In half a minute, Mrs.

00:27:14.655 --> 00:27:30.715
Cratchit entered, flush, but smiling proudly, with the pudding, like a speckled cannonball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half a quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

00:27:31.435 --> 00:27:34.326
Oh, a wonderful pudding.

00:27:34.756 --> 00:27:41.445
Bob Cratchit said, and calmly, too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs.

00:27:41.445 --> 00:27:41.925
Cratchit.

00:27:42.171 --> 00:27:43.931
Since their marriage.

00:27:43.931 --> 00:27:44.260
Heh heh.

00:27:45.661 --> 00:27:46.040
Mrs.

00:27:46.040 --> 00:27:52.990
Cratchit said now that the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour.

00:27:53.431 --> 00:28:01.340
Oh, everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family.

00:28:01.730 --> 00:28:04.090
It would have been flat heresy to do so.

00:28:04.671 --> 00:28:07.921
Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

00:28:08.905 --> 00:28:11.145
At last, the dinner was all done.

00:28:11.155 --> 00:28:15.566
The cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up.

00:28:16.385 --> 00:28:20.286
The compound in the jug being tasted and considered perfect.

00:28:20.625 --> 00:28:26.215
Apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire.

00:28:26.895 --> 00:28:32.405
Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle.

00:28:32.746 --> 00:28:33.955
Meaning half of one.

00:28:34.576 --> 00:28:39.006
And at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass.

00:28:39.596 --> 00:28:42.546
Two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle.

00:28:43.346 --> 00:28:56.256
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.

00:28:57.056 --> 00:29:00.726
Then Bob proposed, A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears.

00:29:01.385 --> 00:29:02.276
God bless us.

00:29:02.578 --> 00:29:04.368
Which all the family re echoed.

00:29:05.019 --> 00:29:09.759
God bless us, everyone! Said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

00:29:10.578 --> 00:29:14.138
He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool.

00:29:14.788 --> 00:29:25.108
Bob held his withered hand in his, as if he loved the child and wished to keep him safe by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:29.898
Spirit, said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before.

00:29:30.502 --> 00:29:32.792
Tell me, if Tiny Tim will live?

00:29:33.442 --> 00:29:42.076
I see a vacant seat, replied the ghost, in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved.

00:29:42.512 --> 00:29:48.873
If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die.

00:29:50.712 --> 00:29:57.282
No, said Scrooge, no, no, no, oh, no, kind spirit, say he will be spared.

00:29:58.282 --> 00:30:06.413
If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, none other of my race, returned the ghost, will find him here.

00:30:07.103 --> 00:30:08.583
But what then?

00:30:09.012 --> 00:30:15.692
If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

00:30:17.452 --> 00:30:25.222
Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

00:30:26.492 --> 00:30:28.452
Man, said the ghost.

00:30:28.807 --> 00:30:38.417
If, man, you be in heart, not adamant, Forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and where it is.

00:30:39.077 --> 00:30:42.548
Will you decide what men shall live and what men shall die?

00:30:43.327 --> 00:31:03.131
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! 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.

00:31:03.780 --> 00:31:04.310
Mr.

00:31:04.330 --> 00:31:07.601
Scrooge, said Bob,'I give you Mr.

00:31:07.621 --> 00:31:10.340
Scrooge, the founder of our feast.

00:31:12.151 --> 00:31:14.941
'The founder of the feast, indeed! cried Mrs.

00:31:14.941 --> 00:31:15.961
Cratchit, reddening.

00:31:15.961 --> 00:31:17.131
I wish I had him here.

00:31:17.520 --> 00:31:22.111
I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'll have a good appetite for it.

00:31:22.760 --> 00:31:27.080
My dear, said Bob,'the children, Christmas Day.

00:31:27.730 --> 00:31:38.201
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.

00:31:38.201 --> 00:31:38.770
Scrooge.

00:31:39.310 --> 00:31:40.391
'You know he is, Robert.

00:31:40.590 --> 00:31:43.040
Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow.

00:31:43.691 --> 00:31:47.931
My dear, was Bob's mild answer, Christmas Day.

00:31:48.580 --> 00:31:52.730
I'll drink to his health, for your sake, and the day's, said Mrs.

00:31:52.730 --> 00:31:54.961
Cratchit, but not for his.

00:31:55.211 --> 00:31:56.570
A long life to him.

00:31:57.101 --> 00:31:59.621
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

00:32:00.651 --> 00:32:04.990
He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt.

00:32:05.641 --> 00:32:07.871
The children drank the toast after her.

00:32:08.675 --> 00:32:12.576
It was the first of their proceedings, which had no heartiness.

00:32:13.556 --> 00:32:19.115
Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but He didn't care a tuppence for it.

00:32:20.016 --> 00:32:22.986
Scrooge was the ogre of the family.

00:32:23.195 --> 00:32:30.326
The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for a full five minutes.

00:32:30.976 --> 00:32:39.236
After it had passed away, however, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with.

00:32:40.056 --> 00:32:50.365
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.

00:32:51.195 --> 00:33:09.715
The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter 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 favor when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income.

00:33:10.365 --> 00:33:27.615
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 abed tomorrow morning for a good long rest, tomorrow being a holiday she passed at home.

00:33:28.395 --> 00:33:42.411
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.

00:33:43.250 --> 00:33:57.651
All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round, and, by and by, they had a song about a lost child traveling in the snow from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice and sang it very well indeed.

00:33:58.840 --> 00:34:00.740
There was nothing of high mark in this.

00:34:01.221 --> 00:34:03.310
They were not A handsome family.

00:34:03.510 --> 00:34:04.760
They were not well dressed.

00:34:04.840 --> 00:34:07.451
Their shoes were far from being waterproof.

00:34:07.671 --> 00:34:09.690
Their clothes were scanty.

00:34:09.880 --> 00:34:15.820
And Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's shop.

00:34:16.740 --> 00:34:18.630
But they were happy.

00:34:18.990 --> 00:34:37.340
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.

00:34:38.865 --> 00:34:51.806
By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily, and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightfulness of the roaring fires in the kitchens, parlors, and all sorts of rooms was wonderful.

00:34:52.405 --> 00:35:05.865
Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cozy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains ready to be drawn to shut out the cold and darkness.

00:35:06.476 --> 00:35:16.661
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.

00:35:17.050 --> 00:35:37.411
Here again, were shadows on the window blind of guests assembling, and there, a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur booted and chattering all at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbor's house, and where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter, artful witches, well, they knew it, in a glow.

00:35:38.300 --> 00:35:52.871
BUt, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that there was no one at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company and piling up its fires, half chimney high.

00:35:53.431 --> 00:36:08.367
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.

00:36:09.057 --> 00:36:24.717
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.

00:36:25.387 --> 00:36:49.742
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 they 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 firs, and coarse rank grass.

00:36:50.523 --> 00:37:07.182
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, and then was lost in the thick gloom of the darkest night.

00:37:07.833 --> 00:37:09.163
What place is this?

00:37:09.336 --> 00:37:10.447
asked Scrooge.

00:37:11.097 --> 00:37:15.967
A place where miners live, who labor in the bowels of the earth, returned the spirit.

00:37:16.617 --> 00:37:18.177
But, They know me.

00:37:18.617 --> 00:37:19.126
See?

00:37:19.777 --> 00:37:24.827
A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it.

00:37:25.746 --> 00:37:31.646
Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire.

00:37:31.976 --> 00:37:41.936
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.

00:37:42.586 --> 00:37:50.487
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.

00:37:50.836 --> 00:37:53.677
It had been a very old song when he was a boy.

00:37:54.126 --> 00:37:57.197
And, from time to time, they all joined in the chorus.

00:37:57.777 --> 00:38:07.617
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.

00:38:08.617 --> 00:38:18.327
The spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, And passing on above the moor, Sped whither, to sea?

00:38:18.487 --> 00:38:19.677
No, not to sea.

00:38:20.336 --> 00:38:37.927
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.

00:38:38.797 --> 00:38:51.652
Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood A solitary lighthouse.

00:38:52.561 --> 00:39:04.802
Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base, and storm birds, born of the wind, might suppose, as a seaweed of the water, rose and fell about it like the waves they skimmed.

00:39:05.692 --> 00:39:17.952
But Even here, two men, who watched the light, made a fire that, through the loophole in the thick stone wall, shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea.

00:39:19.117 --> 00:39:27.507
Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, They wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog.

00:39:27.996 --> 00:39:41.007
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.

00:39:41.657 --> 00:39:53.016
Again the ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea, on and on, until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship.

00:39:53.827 --> 00:40:04.186
They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look out in the bow, the officers who had the watch, dark and ghostly figures in their several stations.

00:40:04.876 --> 00:40:18.126
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.

00:40:19.052 --> 00:40:40.681
And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for one 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.

00:40:41.331 --> 00:40:55.711
It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as death.

00:40:56.141 --> 00:40:59.512
It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged.

00:40:59.802 --> 00:41:02.041
To hear a hearty laugh.

00:41:02.911 --> 00:41:20.231
It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognize it as his own nephew's, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the spirit standing, smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability.

00:41:20.231 --> 00:41:23.371
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

00:41:24.452 --> 00:41:25.972
Laughed Scrooge's nephew.

00:41:27.001 --> 00:41:36.782
If you should happen by any unlikely chance to know a man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him, too.

00:41:37.322 --> 00:41:41.021
Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.

00:41:42.012 --> 00:41:54.791
It is a fair, even handed, noble adjustment of things that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.

00:41:55.492 --> 00:42:24.876
When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way, holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions, Scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he, and their assembled friends, being not a bit behind hand, roared out lustily, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live, cried Scrooge's nephew, and he believed it too.

00:42:25.527 --> 00:42:29.246
More shame for him, Fred, said Scrooge's niece indignantly.

00:42:29.896 --> 00:42:30.836
Bless those women.

00:42:31.016 --> 00:42:32.806
They never do anything by halves.

00:42:33.086 --> 00:42:34.657
They are always in earnest.

00:42:35.356 --> 00:42:56.686
She was very 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.

00:42:57.317 --> 00:43:01.507
Altogether, she was what you would have called provoking, you know.

00:43:02.157 --> 00:43:03.476
But satisfactory, too.

00:43:03.516 --> 00:43:05.317
Oh, perfectly satisfactory.

00:43:06.467 --> 00:43:09.657
He's a comical old fellow, said Scrooge's nephew.

00:43:09.836 --> 00:43:10.657
That's the truth.

00:43:10.936 --> 00:43:13.186
And not so pleasant as he might be.

00:43:13.597 --> 00:43:18.336
However, his offenses carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.

00:43:18.987 --> 00:43:22.947
I'm sure he is very rich, Fred, hinted Scrooge's niece.

00:43:23.496 --> 00:43:25.306
'At least you always tell me so.

00:43:26.456 --> 00:43:27.976
'What of that, my dear?

00:43:28.086 --> 00:43:29.177
said Scrooge's nephew.

00:43:29.536 --> 00:43:31.286
'His wealth is of no use to him.

00:43:31.657 --> 00:43:32.907
He don't do any good with it.

00:43:32.967 --> 00:43:34.876
He don't make himself comfortable with it.

00:43:35.097 --> 00:43:40.567
He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking, ha, ha, ha, that he is ever going to benefit us with it.

00:43:41.217 --> 00:43:44.626
I have no patience with him, observed Scrooge's niece.

00:43:45.206 --> 00:43:49.786
Scrooge's niece's sisters and all the other ladies expressed the same opinion.

00:43:49.786 --> 00:43:54.059
Oh, well I have, said Scrooge's nephew.

00:43:54.469 --> 00:43:55.900
I am sorry for him.

00:43:56.239 --> 00:43:58.670
I couldn't be angry with him if I tried.

00:43:59.440 --> 00:44:02.059
Well, who suffers by his ill whims?

00:44:02.664 --> 00:44:04.014
Himself, always.

00:44:04.425 --> 00:44:09.125
Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us.

00:44:09.494 --> 00:44:10.795
And what's the consequence?

00:44:10.905 --> 00:44:12.824
He don't lose much of a dinner.

00:44:13.474 --> 00:44:41.101
Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner, interrupted Scrooge's niece Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner and with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire by Lamplight Well, I am very glad to hear it said Scrooge's nephew, because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers, what do you say, topper?

00:44:41.751 --> 00:45:00.492
Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast who had no right to express an opinion on the subject, whereat Scrooge's niece's sister, oh, the plump one with the lace tucker, not the one with the roses, blushed.

00:45:00.492 --> 00:45:04.690
Oh, do go on, Fred, said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands.

00:45:05.369 --> 00:45:07.550
'He never finishes what he begins to say.

00:45:07.849 --> 00:45:23.248
He is such a ridiculous fellow! Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection off, though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example was unanimously followed.

00:45:26.418 --> 00:45:39.963
'I was only going to say, said Scrooge's nephew, That the consequence of his taking a dislike to us and not making merry with us is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments which could do him no harm.

00:45:40.672 --> 00:45:49.197
I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his moldy old office or his dusty chambers.

00:45:49.777 --> 00:45:54.958
And I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him.

00:45:55.577 --> 00:46:00.177
He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it.

00:46:00.358 --> 00:46:09.157
I defy him if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying, Uncle Scrooge, how are you?

00:46:09.777 --> 00:46:17.538
If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something, and I think I shook him yesterday.

00:46:18.188 --> 00:46:33.963
It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge, but being thoroughly good natured and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, He encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle joyously.

00:46:34.612 --> 00:46:42.842
After tea they had some music, For they were a musical family, And knew what they were about, When they sung a glee or a catch.

00:46:43.413 --> 00:46:53.663
I can assure you, especially Topper, Who could growl away in the bass like a good one, And never swell the large veins in his forehead, Or get red in the face over it.

00:46:54.313 --> 00:47:13.443
Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp, and played, among other tunes, a simple little air, a mere nothing, you might learn to whistle it in two minutes, which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding house, as he had been reminded by the ghost of Christmas past.

00:47:14.472 --> 00:47:19.972
When this strain of music sounded, all the things that ghost had shown him came upon his mind.

00:47:20.702 --> 00:47:38.112
He softened more and more, and thought that if he could have listened to it often years ago, he might have cultivated the kindness of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.

00:47:38.762 --> 00:47:41.302
But they didn't devote the whole evening to music.

00:47:41.713 --> 00:47:51.458
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.

00:47:53.257 --> 00:47:56.788
There was, first, a game at Blindman's buff.

00:47:57.108 --> 00:48:03.947
Of course there was, and I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots.

00:48:04.487 --> 00:48:11.697
My opinion is that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it.

00:48:12.648 --> 00:48:19.307
The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature.

00:48:19.768 --> 00:48:21.568
Knocking down the fire irons.

00:48:21.943 --> 00:48:30.003
Tumbling over the chairs, bumping into the piano, smothering himself amongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went he.

00:48:30.503 --> 00:48:32.572
He always knew where the plump sister was.

00:48:33.072 --> 00:48:34.753
He wouldn't catch anyone else.

00:48:35.163 --> 00:48:50.043
If you had fallen up against him, as some of them did, on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring 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.

00:48:50.693 --> 00:48:55.032
She often cried out that it wasn't fair, and it really was not.

00:48:55.393 --> 00:49:07.458
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.

00:49:08.047 --> 00:49:11.217
Then his conduct was the most excrable.

00:49:11.268 --> 00:49:27.717
Oh, for his pretending not to know her, his pretending that it was necessary to touch her headdress, and further, to assure himself of her identity, by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, oh, and a certain chain about her neck.

00:49:28.393 --> 00:49:29.983
was vile, monstrous.

00:49:31.679 --> 00:49:41.800
No doubt she told him her opinion of it when, another blind man being in office, they were so very confidential together behind the curtains.

00:49:43.530 --> 00:49:54.090
Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind man's buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and footstool in a snug corner where the ghost and Scrooge were close behind her.

00:49:54.849 --> 00:50:01.139
But she joined in the forfeits and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet.

00:50:01.960 --> 00:50:06.590
Likewise, at the game of how, when and where, she was very great.

00:50:06.920 --> 00:50:11.090
And, to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow.

00:50:11.340 --> 00:50:14.789
Though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you.

00:50:15.610 --> 00:50:34.789
There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and So did Scrooge, for wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed it right, too.

00:50:35.480 --> 00:50:44.530
For the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge, blunt as he took it in his head to be.

00:50:45.179 --> 00:50:55.485
The ghost, was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour, That he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed.

00:50:55.695 --> 00:50:59.324
But this, the spirit said, could not be done.

00:51:01.344 --> 00:51:03.635
Here is a new game, said Scrooge.

00:51:03.724 --> 00:51:06.164
One half hour spirit, only one.

00:51:07.394 --> 00:51:13.784
It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what.

00:51:14.235 --> 00:51:18.664
He, only answering to their questions, yes or no, as the case was.

00:51:19.434 --> 00:51:55.942
The brisk fire of questioning, to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, a rather disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and did not live in a menagerie and was never killed in a market and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear?

00:51:56.862 --> 00:52:09.152
At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter, and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp around.

00:52:09.847 --> 00:52:21.157
At last, the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out, I have found it! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is! Ha ha! What is it?

00:52:21.356 --> 00:52:22.117
cried Fred.

00:52:22.407 --> 00:52:27.646
Ha! It's your Uncle Scrooge! Which it certainly was.

00:52:28.177 --> 00:52:34.336
Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to Is it a bear?

00:52:34.597 --> 00:52:40.726
ought to have been yes, inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr.

00:52:40.726 --> 00:52:44.646
Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.

00:52:45.297 --> 00:52:53.777
Oh, he has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure, said Fred, and it would be ungrateful not to drink to his health.

00:52:54.286 --> 00:53:01.856
Ah, here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment, and I say Uncle Scrooge.

00:53:02.507 --> 00:53:05.396
Well, Uncle Scrooge, they cried.

00:53:06.047 --> 00:53:11.056
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is.

00:53:11.527 --> 00:53:12.626
said Scrooge's nephew.

00:53:13.137 --> 00:53:16.666
He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it nevertheless.

00:53:17.137 --> 00:53:18.666
Uncle Scrooge.

00:53:19.317 --> 00:53:33.007
Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return and thanked them in an inaudible speech if the ghost had given him time.

00:53:33.702 --> 00:53:42.541
But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew, and he and the spirit were again upon their travels.

00:53:43.456 --> 00:54:20.056
Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, But always, with a happy end, the spirit, Stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful, On foreign lands, and they were close at home, By struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope, By poverty, and they were And it was rich in almshouse, hospital, and jail, in miseries every refuge, where vain man, in his little brief authority, had not made fast the door, and barred the spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.

00:54:20.597 --> 00:54:24.777
It was a long night, if it were only a night.

00:54:25.211 --> 00:54:33.561
But Scrooge had his doubts about this, because the Christmas holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together.

00:54:34.211 --> 00:54:42.411
It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the ghost grew older, clearly older.

00:54:43.382 --> 00:54:54.827
Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it until they left a children's twelfth night party, when Looking at the spirit as they stood together in an open place.

00:54:55.246 --> 00:54:57.856
He noticed that its hair was gray.

00:54:58.507 --> 00:55:00.996
Are spirit's lives so short?

00:55:01.170 --> 00:55:08.402
Asked Scrooge My life upon this globe is very brief.

00:55:08.579 --> 00:55:09.480
Replied the ghost.

00:55:10.159 --> 00:55:11.570
It ends tonight.

00:55:12.420 --> 00:55:14.056
Tonight, cried Scrooge.

00:55:14.706 --> 00:55:16.266
Tonight at midnight.

00:55:16.916 --> 00:55:19.786
Hark! The time is drawing near.

00:55:20.436 --> 00:55:25.096
The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

00:55:25.746 --> 00:55:31.956
Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask, said Scrooge, looking intently at the spirit's robe.

00:55:32.996 --> 00:55:39.635
'But I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts.

00:55:40.835 --> 00:55:43.045
Is it a foot or a claw?

00:55:43.695 --> 00:55:49.012
It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it, was the spirit's sorrowful reply.

00:55:49.967 --> 00:55:58.318
Look here! From the foldings of its robe it brought two children, wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable.

00:55:59.157 --> 00:56:03.458
They knelt down at its feet and clung upon the outside of its garment.

00:56:04.108 --> 00:56:10.891
Oh, man, look here, look, look down here! exclaimed the ghost.

00:56:11.541 --> 00:56:17.170
They were a boy and a girl, yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish.

00:56:17.514 --> 00:56:34.708
But prostrate, too, in their humility, where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds.

00:56:35.349 --> 00:56:41.128
Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked and glared out menacing.

00:56:41.909 --> 00:56:53.418
No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

00:56:54.068 --> 00:56:56.449
Scrooge started back appalled.

00:56:57.199 --> 00:57:08.949
Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

00:57:09.599 --> 00:57:12.039
Spirit, are they yours?

00:57:12.438 --> 00:57:13.809
Scrooge could say no more.

00:57:14.998 --> 00:57:19.682
Nay, they are man's, said the spirit, looking down upon them.

00:57:20.492 --> 00:57:23.932
And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.

00:57:24.612 --> 00:57:28.913
This boy is ignorance, this girl is want.

00:57:29.362 --> 00:57:42.282
Beware them both and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is doom, unless the writing be erased.

00:57:42.432 --> 00:57:46.719
Deny it, cried the spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city.

00:57:47.438 --> 00:57:49.119
Slander those who tell it ye.

00:57:49.559 --> 00:57:52.878
Admit it for your factious purposes and make it worse.

00:57:53.704 --> 00:57:59.224
And, bide the end! Have they no refuge or resource?

00:57:59.398 --> 00:58:00.268
cried Scrooge.

00:58:01.728 --> 00:58:03.987
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

00:58:03.987 --> 00:58:05.648
Are there no prisons?

00:58:06.057 --> 00:58:09.568
said the spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words.

00:58:10.378 --> 00:58:12.568
Are there no workhouses?

00:58:12.648 --> 00:58:15.286
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

00:58:16.668 --> 00:58:19.128
The bell struck twelve.

00:58:20.688 --> 00:58:23.967
Scrooge looked about him for the ghost, and saw it not.

00:58:25.003 --> 00:58:41.722
As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and, lifting his eyes, beheld a solemn phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.

00:58:44.432 --> 00:58:45.902
And there we have it, folks.

00:58:46.253 --> 00:58:48.623
Stave 3 of A Christmas Carol.

00:58:48.902 --> 00:59:01.202
Scrooge, face to face with the Ghost of Christmas Present, a dazzling whirlwind of generosity and festive cheer, a glimpse into the lives of those less fortunate, and a stark reminder of the joy Scrooge could be missing.

00:59:01.793 --> 00:59:13.302
Well, as we head into the final two staves of this timeless story, I want to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude to all of you who listen and engage with Forward into the Past.

00:59:13.842 --> 00:59:49.958
Sharing these literary journeys with you is a true privilege, and your feedback is Fuels my passion for this project, but just like Scrooge needs the ghosts to shake him awake Forward into the past needs your support to keep moving forward If you've enjoyed this episode and you'd like to be a part of bringing more classic tales to life Please consider becoming a monthly supporter head over to the podcast website and click the buy me a coffee button Even a small contribution can make a big difference in keeping these stories alive for future generations.

00:59:50.407 --> 00:59:58.617
With your help, I can continue delving into the past, finding timeless lessons and inspiration in the pages of our greatest literary works.

00:59:59.228 --> 01:00:08.617
So, if you're feeling the Christmas spirit have generosity, and you'd like to see Scrooge find his, please consider joining our community of monthly supporters.

01:00:09.733 --> 01:00:17.293
Thank you for being a part of Forward into the Past, and I'll see you next week for the thrilling conclusion of A Christmas Carol.

01:00:17.833 --> 01:00:26.052
Until then, thanks for listening, keep sharing the stories, be a good human, and happy holidays.

01:00:26.472 --> 01:00:29.592
Bah humbug, I mean, uh, bye for now.