Kabanata Kabanata 4 · : THE END OF IT（3）

"Nothing particular," said Scrooge.

"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted.

"No," said Scrooge, "No. I should like to be able to say

a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all."

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance

to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by

side in the open air.

"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he

could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again

Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime

of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later

years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice.

There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which

showed the passion that had taken root, and where the

shadow of the growing tree would fall.

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young

girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears,

which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of

Christmas Past.

"It matters little," she said, softly. "To you, very little.

Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort

you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have

no just cause to grieve."

"What Idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.

"A golden one."

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said.

"There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and

there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity

as the pursuit of wealth!"

"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently.

"All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being

beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your

nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion,

Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"

"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so

much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you."

She shook her head.

"Am I?"

"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were

both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could

improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You

are changed. When it was made, you were another man."

"I was a boy," he said impatiently.

"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you

are," she returned. "I am. That which promised happiness

when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that

we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of

this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it,

and can release you."

"Have I ever sought release?"

"In words. No. Never."

"In what, then?"

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another

atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In

everything that made my love of any worth or value in your

sight. If this had never been between us," said the girl,

looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; "tell me,

would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in

spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, "You think

not."

"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered,

"Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this,

I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you

were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe

that you would choose a dowerless girl--you who, in your

very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or,

choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your

one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your

repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I

release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you

once were."

He was about to speak; but with her head turned from

him, she resumed.

"You may--the memory of what is past half makes me

hope you will--have pain in this. A very, very brief time,

and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an

unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you

awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!"

She left him, and they parted.

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Conduct

me home. Why do you delight to torture me?"

"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.

"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don't wish to

see it. Show me no more!"

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms,

and forced him to observe what happened next.

They were in another scene and place; a room, not very

large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter

fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge

believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely

matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this

room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children

there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count;

and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not

forty children conducting themselves like one, but every

child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences

were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care;

on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily,

and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to

mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands

most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of

them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I

wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that

braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little

shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to

save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they

did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should

have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment,

and never come straight again. And yet I should

have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have

questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have

looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never

raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of

which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should

have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence

of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its

value.

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a

rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and

plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed

and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who

came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys

and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and

the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter!

The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his

pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight

by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back,

and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of

wonder and delight with which the development of every

package was received! The terrible announcement that the

baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan

into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having

swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter!

The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy,

and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike.

It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions

got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the

top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever,

when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning

fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his

own fireside; and when he thought that such another

creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might

have called him father, and been a spring-time in the

haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a

smile, "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon."

"Who was it?"

"Guess!"

"How can I? Tut, don't I know?" she added in the

same breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."

"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as

it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could

scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point

of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in

the world, I do believe."

"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me

from this place."

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have

been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do

not blame me!"

"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed, "I cannot bear it!"

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon

him with a face, in which in some strange way there were

fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

"Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which

the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was

undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed

that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly

connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the

extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down

upon its head.

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher

covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down

with all his force, he could not hide the light: which streamed

from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an

irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own

bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand

relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank

into a heavy sleep.

STAVE III: 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. 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 despatched to him

through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that he

turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which

of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put

them every one aside with his own hands; and lying down

again, established a sharp look-out 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.

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 their

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 hardily 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

rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

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. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter

of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay

upon his bed, the very core and centre 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. At last, however, he began to think--as you or

I would have thought at first; 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--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. This idea taking

full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in

his slippers to the door.

The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange

voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He

obeyed.

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that.

But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls

and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a

perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming

berries glistened. 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, or for many and

many a winter season gone. Heaped up on 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. 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.

"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in! and know

me better, man!"

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this

Spirit. 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.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit.

"Look upon me!"

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple

green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. 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. 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. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its

genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice,

its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded

round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword

was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

"You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed

the Spirit.

"Never," Scrooge made answer to it.

"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?" pursued the Phantom.

"I don't think I have," said Scrooge. "I am afraid I have

not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?"

"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost.

"A tremendous family to provide for!" muttered Scrooge.

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

"Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where

you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt

a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught

to teach me, let me profit by it."

"Touch my robe!"

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game,

poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings,

fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. 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 snow-storms.

The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows

blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow

upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground;

which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by

the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; 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. 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 hearts' content. 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 endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

For, the people who were shovelling 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. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the

fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. 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. 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. There were

pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there

were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence

to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might

water gratis as they passed; 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; 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. 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.

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

counter 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; 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 humour 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.

But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and

chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in

their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the

same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and

nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners

to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers

appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with

Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the

covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their

dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind

of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words

between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he

shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good

humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame

to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love

it, so it was!

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and

yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners

and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of

wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as

if its stones were cooking too.

"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from

your torch?" asked Scrooge.

"There is. My own."

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

asked Scrooge.

"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."

"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.

"Because it needs it most."

"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I wonder

you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should

desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent

enjoyment."

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You would deprive them of their means of dining every

seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said

to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?"

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?" said

Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."

"I seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your

name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit,

"who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion,

pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness

in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and

kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge

their doings on themselves, not us."

Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on,

invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the

town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which

Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding

his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place

with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as

gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible

he could have done in any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in

showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind,

generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor

men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he

went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and

on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped

to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his

torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob" a-week

himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his

Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present

blessed his four-roomed house!

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out

but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons,

which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and

she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of

her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter

Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and

getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private

property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the

day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly

attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.

And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing

in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the

goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious

thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced

about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the

skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked

him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up,

knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and

peeled.

"What has ever got your precious father then?" said Mrs.

Cratchit. "And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha

warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?"

"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she

spoke.

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

"Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!"

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!"

said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off

her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the

girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!"

"Well! Never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs.

Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have

a warm, Lord bless ye!"

"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young

Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha,

hide!"

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father,

with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe,

hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned

up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his

shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and

had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

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

round.

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.

"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his

high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way

from church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming

upon Christmas Day!"

Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only

in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet

door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits

hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house,

that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit,

when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had

hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he

gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the

strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home,

that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he

was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember

upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind

men see."

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and

trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing

strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back

came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by

his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while

Bob, turning up his cuffs--as if, poor fellow, they were

capable of being made more shabby--compounded some hot

mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round

and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter,

and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the

goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose

the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a

black swan was a matter of course--and in truth it was

something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made

the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot;

Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour;

Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted

the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny

corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for

everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard

upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest

they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be

helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was

said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs.

Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared

to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the

long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of

delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim,

excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with

the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe

there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and

flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal

admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes,

it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as

Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small

atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at

last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest

Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to

the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss

Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to

bear witnesses--to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should

break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got

over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they

were merry with the goose--a supposition at which the two

young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were

supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of

the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the

cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next

door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that!

That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit

entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding,

like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half

of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with

Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly

too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by

Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that

now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had

had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had

something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it

was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have

been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed

to hint at such a thing.