Old Scrooge: A Christmas Carol In Five Staves Part 3

_Gho._ In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.

_Scro._ Can you--can you sit down?

_Gho._ I can.

_Scro._ Do it, then.

_Gho._ You don't believe in me?

_Scro._ I don't.

_Gho._ What evidence do you require of my reality beyond that of your senses?

_Scro._ I don't know.

_Gho._ Why do you doubt your senses?

_Scro._ Because a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an under-done potato.

There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are. You see this tooth-pick?

_Gho._ I do.

_Scro._ You are not looking at it.

_Gho._ But I see it, notwithstanding.

_Scro._ Well! I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of gobblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you; humbug. (_Ghost rattles chain, takes bandage off jaws, and drops lower jaw as far as possible._)

_Scro._ (_Betrays signs of fright._) Mercy! dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?

_Gho._ Man of the worldly mind, do you believe in me, or not?

_Scro._ I do. I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?

_Gho._ It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men and travel far and wide, and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world--oh, woe is me--and witness what it can not share, but might have shared on earth, turned to happiness.

[_Shakes chain and wrings his hands._]

_Scro._ You are fettered; tell me why?

_Gho._ I wear the chain I forged in life; I made it link by link and yard by yard. I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to _you_? Or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself. It was full as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas-eves ago. You have labored on it since. It is a pondrous chain!

_Scro._ Jacob, old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob.

_Gho._ I have none to give. It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers to other lands of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more is all that is permitted to me. I can not rest, I can not stay, I can not linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond 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.

_Scro._ You must have been very slow about it, Jacob.

_Gho._ Slow?

_Scro._ Seven years dead. And traveling all the time.

_Gho._ The old time. No rest, no peace. Incessant tortures of remorse.

_Scro._ You travel fast?

_Gho._ On the wings of the wind.

_Scro._ You might have got over a great quant.i.ty of ground in seven years, Jacob.

_Gho._ (_Clinking his chain._) Oh! captive, bound and double-ironed, not to know that ages of incessant labor by immortal creatures; for this earth must pa.s.s into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no s.p.a.ce of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused. Yet, such was I. Oh, such was I!

_Scro._ But you were always a good man of business Jacob.

_Gho._ Business! [_wringing his hands and shaking chain._] Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business. [_Holds up chain at arm's length, and drops it._] At this time of the rolling year I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow 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 houses to which its light would have conducted _me_? Hear me! my time is nearly gone.

_Scro._ I will; but don't be hard upon me. Don't be flowery, Jacob, pray.

_Gho._ How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day. That is no light part of my penance. I am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.

_Scro._ You were always a good friend to me. Thank 'er.

_Gho._ You will be haunted by three spirits.

_Scro._ Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?

_Gho._ It is.

_Scro._ I--I think I'd rather not.

_Gho._ Without their visits you can not hope to shun the path I tread.

Expect the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls one.

_Scro._ Couldn't I take'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?

_Gho._ Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third on the night following, when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has pa.s.sed between us. [_Ghost replaces bandage around jaws, rises, winds chain about his arm, walks backward to window, beckoning Scrooge, who rises and follows. As soon as Ghost walks through window, which opens for him, he motions for Scrooge to stop, and disappears through trap. Window closes as before._]

CURTAIN.

STAVE TWO.

SCENE I.--_Scrooge's bed room. A small, four-post bedstead with curtains at_ L. E., _bureau_ R. E. _Bell tolls twelve. Scrooge pulls curtains aside and sits on side of bed. Touches spring of his repeater, which also strikes twelve._

_Scro._ Way, it isn't possible that I can have slept through a whole day, and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve o'clock at noon.