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from A
Christmas Carol
Stave Two (The First of the Three Spirits)
A Lonely Boy
"You recollect the way?" inquired the
Spirit.
"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with
fervour--"I could walk it blindfold."
"Strange to have forgotten it for so many
years!" observed the Ghost. "Let us go on."
They walked along the road; Scrooge recognising
every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town
appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church and
winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting
towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to
other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers.
All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each
other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music,
that the crisp air laughed to hear it.
"These are but shadows of the things that
have been," said the Ghost. "They have no
consciousness of us."
The jocund travellers came on; and as they came,
Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he
rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them! Why did his cold
eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past! Why
was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each
other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and
bye-ways, for their several homes! What was merry
Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good
had it ever done to him?
"The school is not quite deserted,"
said the Ghost. "A solitary child, neglected by his
friends, is left there still."
Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.
They left the high-road, by a well remembered
lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick,
with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola on the roof,
and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one
of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little
used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows
broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and
strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds
were over-run with grass.
Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within;
for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the
open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly
furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in
the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated
itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light,
and not too much to eat.
They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the
hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened
before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room,
made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks.
At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble
fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see
his poor forgotten self as he had used to be.
Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and
scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip
from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind,
not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent
poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house
door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the
heart of Scrooge with a softening influence, and gave a
freer passage to his tears.
The Spirit touched him on the arm and pointed to
his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man,
in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to
look at: Stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in
his belt, and leading an ass laden with wood by the
bridle.
"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge
exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's dear old honest Ali Baba!
Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, when yonder
solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for
the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,"
said Scrooge, "and his wild brother, Orson; there
they go! And what's his name, who was put down in his
drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see
him! And the Sultan's Groom turned upside-down by the
Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I'm
glad of it. What business had he to be married to the
Princess!"
To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of
his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary
voice between laughing and crying; and to see his
heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise
to his business friends in the city, indeed.
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