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A Christmas Ballad past Charles Dickens

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We are super pumped for the holidays, and to go even more than in the mood, we'll be republishing A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

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If yous haven't already, be sure to give Function i a read earlier continuing to the story beneath.

The post-obit was written by Charles Dickens and originally published in 1843.

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Marley's Ghost — Part 2

At length the hr of shutting up the counting- house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.

'Yous'll want all mean solar day to-morrow, I suppose?' said Scrooge.

'If quite convenient, sir.'

'It's not convenient,' said Scrooge, 'and it's not off-white. If I was to stop half-a-crown for information technology, y'all'd think yourself ill- used, I'll be jump?'

The clerk smiled faintly.

'And yet,' said Scrooge, 'yous don't think me sick-used, when I pay a day's wages for no piece of work.'

The clerk observed that information technology was but in one case a year.

'A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of Dec!' said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. 'But I suppose you must have the whole twenty-four hour period. Exist here all the earlier side by side morning.'

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The part was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling beneath his waist (for he boasted no nifty-coat), went downwardly a slide on Cornhill, at the finish of a lane of boys, xx times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, so ran dwelling to Camden Town equally hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman's-vitrify.

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his broker'southward- book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of edifice upwards a yard, where it had and so little business organization to be, that one could scarcely aid fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out once more. Information technology was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it only Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was then nighttime that fifty-fifty Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black sometime gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.

Now, it is a fact, that there was cypher at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had seen it, nighttime and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy most him equally any homo in the urban center of London, even including — which is a bold word — the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let information technology also exist borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change — not a knocker, only Marley's face.

Marley's face up. It was non in impenetrable shadow equally the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light most it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not aroused or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned upwardly on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if past breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made information technology horrible; just its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part or its ain expression.

Equally Scrooge looked fixedly at this miracle, information technology was a knocker over again.

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was non witting of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his paw upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.

He did interruption, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did wait cautiously backside it first, equally if he half-expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley'south pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, and so he said 'Pooh, pooh!' and closed it with a bang.

The sound resounded through the business firm like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant'south cellars below, appeared to accept a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked beyond the hall, and upward the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.

Yous may talk vaguely well-nigh driving a motorcoach-and-half dozen upwards a adept old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might accept got a hearse upward that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter- bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and done it like shooting fish in a barrel. At that place was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. One-half a dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so y'all may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is inexpensive, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face up to desire to practise that.

Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a pocket-sized burn down in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the lilliputian saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his caput) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious mental attitude confronting the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guards, old shoes, ii fish-baskets, washing-stand on 3 legs, and a poker.

Quite satisfied, he airtight his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down earlier the fire to take his gruel.

Information technology was a very depression burn down indeed; nothing on such a bitter dark. He was obliged to sit down close to it, and brood over it, earlier he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an sometime one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all circular with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. In that location were Cains and Abels, Pharaohs' daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like plumage-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to concenter his thoughts — and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet'southward rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a bare at start, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of onetime Marley'southward head on every one.

'Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the room.

Afterward several turns, he sat downwards again. Equally he threw his head dorsum in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bong, a disused bong, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose at present forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bong brainstorm to swing. Information technology swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; merely soon it rang out loudly, and and so did every bell in the house.

This might accept lasted one-half a minute, or a infinitesimal, but it seemed an hr. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking dissonance, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant'due south cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging bondage.

The cellar-door flew open with a booming audio, then he heard the dissonance much louder, on the floors beneath; so coming upwards the stairs; so coming straight towards his door.

'It'southward humbug still!' said Scrooge. 'I won't believe it.'

His colour changed though, when, without a pause, information technology came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room earlier his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though information technology cried 'I know him; Marley's Ghost!' and fell once more.

The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, similar his pigtail, and his glaze-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of greenbacks- boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His torso was transparent; and then that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.

Scrooge had ofttimes heard information technology said that Marley had no bowels, merely he had never believed it until now.

No, nor did he believe it even at present. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw information technology standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its decease-cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief leap about its head and mentum, which wrapper he had non observed before; he was notwithstanding incredulous, and fought confronting his senses.

'How now!' said Scrooge, caustic and common cold as ever. 'What do you desire with me?'

'Much!' — Marley's voice, no doubt near it.

'Who are y'all?'

'Enquire me who I was.'

'Who were you lot then?' said Scrooge, raising his voice.

'You're detail, for a shade.' He was going to say 'to a shade,' but substituted this, equally more than appropriate.

'In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.'

'Can you — can you sit down?' asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.

'I tin can.'

'Do it, then.'

Scrooge asked the question, considering he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to accept a chair; and felt that in the effect of its being impossible, information technology might involve the necessity of an embarrassing caption. Merely the ghost sat downward on the opposite side of the fireplace, equally if he were quite used to it.

'You don't believe in me,' observed the Ghost.

'I don't.' said Scrooge.

'What testify would yous have of my reality beyond that of your senses?'

'I don't know,' said Scrooge. 'Why practise you incertitude your senses?'

'Considering,' said Scrooge, 'a petty thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may exist an undigested scrap of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatsoever you are!'

Scrooge was non much in the habit of not bad jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by whatsoever means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping downwards his terror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

To sit, staring at those fixed glazed optics, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre'south beingness provided with an infernal temper of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, merely this was conspicuously the instance; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were still agitated equally by the hot vapour from an oven.

'Yous encounter this toothpick?' said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision'southward stony gaze from himself.

'I do,' replied the Ghost.

'You are non looking at it,' said Scrooge.

'Only I meet it,' said the Ghost, 'notwithstanding.'

'Well!' returned Scrooge, 'I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted past a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you! braggadocio!'

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling racket, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, every bit if it were too warm to clothing indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!

Scrooge brutal upon his knees, and clasped his easily earlier his face.

'Mercy!' he said. 'Dreadful bogeyman, why do you trouble me?'

'Man of the worldly mind!' replied the Ghost, 'do you believe in me or not?'

'I do,' said Scrooge. 'I must. But why practise spirits walk the earth, and why practice they come up to me?'

'Information technology is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, 'that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, information technology is condemned to do so after decease. It is doomed to wander through the earth — oh, woe is me! — and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!'

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

'You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. 'Tell me why?'

'I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. 'I made it link by link, and m by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its blueprint strange to you?'

Scrooge trembled more and more than.

'Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, 'the weight and length of the stiff coil you comport yourself? It was full as heavy and every bit long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You lot have laboured on it, since. Information technology is a ponderous chain!'

Scrooge glanced nearly him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some l or 60 fathoms of fe cable: only he could meet nothing.

'Jacob,' he said, imploringly. 'Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak condolement to me, Jacob!'

'I have none to give,' the Ghost replied. 'It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed past other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell y'all what I would. A very little more, is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house — mark me! — in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our coin-changing hole; and weary journeys prevarication earlier me!'

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did and then at present, but without lifting upwardly his eyes, or getting off his knees.

'You must take been very slow about it, Jacob,' Scrooge observed, in a business-like way, though with humility and deference.

'Slow!' the Ghost repeated.

'Seven years dead,' mused Scrooge. 'And travelling all the time!'

'The whole fourth dimension,' said the Ghost. 'No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse.'

'You lot travel fast?' said Scrooge.

'On the wings of the wind,' replied the Ghost.

'You might have got over a slap-up quantity of basis in seven years,' said Scrooge.

The Ghost, on hearing this, gear up up some other cry, and clanked its chain and so hideously in the expressionless silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.

'Oh! captive, spring, and double-ironed,' cried the phantom, 'non to know, that ages of incessant labour, past immortal creatures, for this earth must laissez passer into eternity before the good of which information technology is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its piddling sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret tin can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!'

'But you lot were always a expert man of business organization, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to utilise this to himself.

'Business concern!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands once again. 'Mankind was my business organisation. The common welfare was my business concern; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business organization. The dealings of my trade were but a driblet of h2o in the comprehensive bounding main of my business organisation!'

Information technology held upward its chain at arm's length, every bit if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

'At this fourth dimension of the rolling year,' the spectre said 'I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow- beings with my optics turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were at that place no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!'

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

'Hear me!' cried the Ghost. 'My time is nearly gone.'

'I will,' said Scrooge. 'Merely don't exist hard upon me! Don't exist flowery, Jacob! Pray!' 'How it is that I appear before you in a shape that y'all can run across, I may not tell. I have saturday invisible beside you many and many a twenty-four hours.'

It was not an amusing idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

'That is no light part of my penance,' pursued the Ghost. 'I am here to-dark to warn you lot, that y'all have withal a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A risk and promise of my procuring, Ebenezer.'

'You were always a good friend to me,' said Scrooge. 'Give thanks 'ee!'

'You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, 'past Three Spirits.'

Scrooge'due south countenance barbarous almost as depression as the Ghost'southward had done.

'Is that the hazard and hope you mentioned, Jacob?' he demanded, in a unpleasing voice.

'Information technology is.'

'I — I think I'd rather not,' said Scrooge.

'Without their visits,' said the Ghost, 'you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Await the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls One.'

'Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have information technology over, Jacob?' hinted Scrooge.

'Expect the second on the side by side night at the aforementioned hour. The third upon the next night when the final stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Wait to run into me no more; and wait that, for your own sake, you call back what has passed between us!'

When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and jump it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, past the smart sound its teeth fabricated, when the jaws were brought together past the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and constitute his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and near its arm.

The bogeyman walked backward from him; and at every pace it took, the window raised itself a piddling, and then that when the spectre reached information technology, it was wide open. Information technology beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within ii paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, alert him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.

Not and so much in obedience, as in surprise and fright: for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of dislocated noises in the air; breathless sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, nighttime night.

Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley'south Ghost; some few (they might exist guilty governments) were linked together; none were gratuitous. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe fastened to its talocrural joint, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for adept, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been when he walked abode.

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, equally he had locked it with his ain hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say 'Humbug!' simply stopped at the first syllable. And beingness, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible Earth, or the tiresome conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of tranquility; went straight to bed, without undressing, and roughshod asleep upon the instant.

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Source: https://medium.com/the-mission/a-christmas-carol-by-charles-dickens-aaf8e8817850

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