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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

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

We will share this archetype Christmas story in 10 parts every weekday for the side by side 2 weeks. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter so yous don't miss whatsoever of the story!

If y'all oasis't already, be certain to requite Role 1 a read earlier continuing to the story below.

The following was written by Charles Dickens and originally published in 1843.

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Marley'due south Ghost — Function two

At length the hour of shutting up the counting- house arrived. With an sick-volition 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.

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

'If quite convenient, sir.'

'It'southward not convenient,' said Scrooge, 'and it's non fair. If I was to terminate half-a-crown for it, you lot'd think yourself ill- used, I'll exist spring?'

The clerk smiled faintly.

'And even so,' said Scrooge, 'you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a twenty-four hours'southward wages for no work.'

The clerk observed that information technology was only once a twelvemonth.

'A poor excuse for picking a human's pocket every twenty-fifth of Dec!' said Scrooge, buttoning his great-glaze to the chin. 'But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning.'

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The function was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no corking-coat), went downwards a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honor of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran abode to Camden Town every bit difficult equally he could pelt, to play at blindman's-buff.

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 banker's- 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 up a m, where it had and so picayune concern to be, that i could scarcely assistance fancying it must have run there when it was a immature house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The g was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every rock, was fain to grope with his easily. The fog and frost then hung nearly the blackness one-time gateway of the house, that it seemed equally if the Genius of the Weather saturday in mournful meditation on the threshold.

Now, it is a fact, that at that place was aught 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, night and morning time, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy nearly him equally whatsoever man in the city of London, even including — which is a bold word — the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Permit information technology also be borne in mind that Scrooge had non bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention of his seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then permit whatever homo explain to me, if he tin, how information technology happened that Scrooge, having his cardinal in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change — not a knocker, simply Marley's face.

Marley's face. It was not in bulletproof shadow equally the other objects in the thou were, but had a dismal lite about information technology, similar a bad lobster in a nighttime cellar. Information technology was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to wait: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if past jiff or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made information technology horrible; but its horror seemed to exist in spite of the face and beyond its command, rather than a role or its own expression.

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, information technology was a knocker again.

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

He did interruption, with a moment'southward irresolution, before he close the door; and he did look cautiously backside it first, as if he one-half-expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was zippo on the back of the door, except the screws and basics that held the knocker on, so he said 'Pooh, pooh!' and closed information technology with a bang.

The sound resounded through the house similar thunder. Every room in a higher place, and every cask in the wine-merchant'due south cellars below, appeared to have a dissever peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to exist frightened past echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly likewise: trimming his candle as he went.

You lot may talk vaguely almost driving a coach-and-six upwardly a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Deed of Parliament; but I mean to say yous might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter- bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and washed information technology like shooting fish in a barrel. In that location 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. Half a dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, then y'all may suppose that information technology was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he close his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to run into that all was correct. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to practise that.

Sitting-room, sleeping accommodation, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody nether the table, nobody under the sofa; a small burn in the grate; spoon and basin prepare; and the little bucket of gruel (Scrooge had a common cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the cupboard; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room equally usual. Onetime fire-guards, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was non his custom. Thus secured confronting surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sabbatum down earlier the fire to accept his gruel.

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit shut to information technology, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, congenital by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaohs' daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts — and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came similar the aboriginal Prophet'south rod, and swallowed upwards the whole. If each smoothen tile had been a bare at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of one-time Marley's caput on every i.

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

After several turns, he sat downwardly again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bong, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a bedchamber in the highest story of the edifice. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung then softly in the commencement that it scarcely fabricated a sound; but shortly information technology rang out loudly, and then did every bell in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, merely information technology seemed an 60 minutes. The bells ceased equally they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down beneath; every bit if some person were dragging a heavy concatenation over the casks in the vino merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.

The cellar-door flew open up with a booming sound, and and so he heard the noise much louder, on the floors beneath; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

'Information technology's humbug still!' said Scrooge. 'I won't believe information technology.'

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

The same face: the very aforementioned. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the pilus upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped nigh his middle. Information technology was long, and wound nearly him like a tail; and information technology was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash- boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his glaze backside.

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.

No, nor did he believe it fifty-fifty at present. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it continuing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief jump about its head and chin, which wrapper he had non observed before; he was still incredulous, and fought confronting his senses.

'How now!' said Scrooge, caustic and cold every bit ever. 'What practise you want with me?'

'Much!' — Marley'due south voice, no doubtfulness about information technology.

'Who are y'all?'

'Ask me who I was.'

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

'Yous're particular, for a shade.' He was going to say 'to a shade,' just substituted this, as more appropriate.

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

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

'I can.'

'Do it, then.'

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost then transparent might discover himself in a condition to accept a chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. Just the ghost sabbatum down on the reverse side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.

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

'I don't.' said Scrooge.

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

'I don't know,' said Scrooge. 'Why do you dubiety your senses?'

'Because,' said Scrooge, 'a niggling thing affects them. A slight disorder of the breadbasket makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beefiness, a blot of mustard, a nibble of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. In that location'due south more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!'

Scrooge was not much in the habit of keen jokes, nor did he experience, in his eye, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his ain attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre'southward voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

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

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

'I do,' replied the Ghost.

'Yous are not looking at it,' said Scrooge.

'But I see it,' said the Ghost, 'notwithstanding.'

'Well!' returned Scrooge, 'I have merely to eat this, and be for the balance of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you! humbug!'

At this the spirit raised a frightful weep, and shook its concatenation with such a dismal and bloodcurdling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. Only how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the cast round its caput, as if it were likewise warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before 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 practise,' said Scrooge. 'I must. But why practice spirits walk the world, and why do they come to me?'

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

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

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

'I wearable the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. 'I made information technology link by link, and yard by g; I girded it on of my ain gratuitous will, and of my own complimentary will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?'

Scrooge trembled more and more.

'Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, 'the weight and length of the stiff coil y'all bear yourself? Information technology was total equally heavy and equally long as this, vii Christmas Eves ago. You lot have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous concatenation!'

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some l or threescore fathoms of iron cable: merely he could meet nothing.

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

'I take 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 piffling more, is all permitted to me. I cannot residuum, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked across our counting-house — mark me! — in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before 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 so now, only without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees.

'You must have been very slow nearly it, Jacob,' Scrooge observed, in a business organization-similar manner, though with humility and deference.

'Tiresome!' the Ghost repeated.

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

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

'You travel fast?' said Scrooge.

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

'You might have got over a great quantity of ground in 7 years,' said Scrooge.

The Ghost, on hearing this, set upward another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the dark, that the Ward would take been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.

'Oh! convict, spring, and double-ironed,' cried the phantom, 'non to know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this globe must laissez passer into eternity before the skillful of which it is susceptible is all adult. Not to know that whatever Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will notice its mortal life likewise 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! However such was I! Oh! such was I!'

'But you lot were e'er a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

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

Information technology held up its chain at arm'southward length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung information technology heavily upon the ground once more.

'At this time of the rolling twelvemonth,' the spectre said 'I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of beau- beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would take conducted me!'

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

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

'I will,' said Scrooge. 'Merely don't be difficult upon me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!' 'How it is that I appear earlier y'all in a shape that you tin run into, I may non tell. I have sabbatum invisible abreast you many and many a day.'

It was non an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

'That is no light office of my penance,' pursued the Ghost. 'I am here to-night to warn you lot, that you have still a hazard and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.'

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

'You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, 'by 3 Spirits.'

Scrooge'southward countenance fell almost equally low as the Ghost's had washed.

'Is that the chance and promise yous mentioned, Jacob?' he demanded, in a faltering voice.

'It is.'

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

'Without their visits,' said the Ghost, 'you lot cannot promise to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bong tolls I.'

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

'Expect the 2d on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the side by side night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, yous remember what has passed between us!'

When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it circular its head, as earlier. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and institute his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.

The apparition walked backward from him; and at every stride it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open up. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, alert him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.

Non and then much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the manus, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent 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 dour, dark 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 every bit they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one erstwhile ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safety attached to its talocrural joint, who cried piteously at being unable to assistance a wretched adult female with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, 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 dark became every bit it had been when he walked domicile.

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked information technology with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say 'Braggadocio!' but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull chat of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of tranquility; went straight to bed, without undressing, and savage 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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