{"id":31696,"date":"2020-11-28T21:39:17","date_gmt":"2020-11-29T04:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?page_id=31696"},"modified":"2020-11-28T22:59:23","modified_gmt":"2020-11-29T05:59:23","slug":"christmas-of-the-poor","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/dickens-in-days\/christmas-of-the-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 13 – Christmas of the Poor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dickens<\/a>By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour\u2019s house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter\u2014artful witches, well they knew it\u2014in a glow!<\/p>\n

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas<\/a>!<\/p>\n

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat place is this?\u201d asked Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u201cA place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,\u201d returned the Spirit. \u201cBut they know me. See!\u201d<\/p>\n

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children\u2019s children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas<\/a> song\u2014it had been a very old song when he was a boy\u2014and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.<\/p>\n

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped\u2014whither? Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge\u2019s horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.<\/p>\n

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds\u2014born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water\u2014rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.<\/p>\n

But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas<\/a> in their can of grog; and one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.<\/p>\n

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea\u2014on, on\u2014until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas<\/a> tune, or had a Christmas<\/a> thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas<\/a> Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.<\/p>\n

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew\u2019s and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability!<\/p>\n

\u201cHa, ha!\u201d laughed Scrooge\u2019s nephew. \u201cHa, ha, ha!\u201d<\/p>\n

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge\u2019s nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I\u2019ll cultivate his acquaintance.<\/p>\n

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge\u2019s nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge\u2019s niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.<\/p>\n

\u201cHa, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said that Christmas<\/a> was a humbug, as I live!\u201d cried Scrooge\u2019s nephew. \u201cHe believed it too!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMore shame for him, Fred!\u201d said Scrooge\u2019s niece, indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.<\/p>\n

She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed\u2014as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature\u2019s head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a comical old fellow,\u201d said Scrooge\u2019s nephew, \u201cthat\u2019s the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure he is very rich, Fred,\u201d hinted Scrooge\u2019s niece. \u201cAt least you always tell me so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat of that, my dear!\u201d said Scrooge\u2019s nephew. \u201cHis wealth is of no use to him. He don\u2019t do any good with it. He don\u2019t make himself comfortable with it. He hasn\u2019t the satisfaction of thinking\u2014ha, ha, ha!\u2014that he is ever going to benefit US with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no patience with him,\u201d observed Scrooge\u2019s niece. Scrooge\u2019s niece\u2019s sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I have!\u201d said Scrooge\u2019s nephew. \u201cI am sorry for him; I couldn\u2019t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won\u2019t come and dine with us. What\u2019s the consequence? He don\u2019t lose much of a dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,\u201d interrupted Scrooge\u2019s niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell! I\u2019m very glad to hear it,\u201d said Scrooge\u2019s nephew, \u201cbecause I haven\u2019t great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?\u201d<\/p>\n

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge\u2019s niece\u2019s sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge\u2019s niece\u2019s sister\u2014the plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with the roses\u2014blushed.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo go on, Fred,\u201d said Scrooge\u2019s niece, clapping her hands. \u201cHe never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrooge\u2019s nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was unanimously followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was only going to say,\u201d said Scrooge\u2019s nephew, \u201cthat the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas<\/a> till he dies, but he can\u2019t help thinking better of it\u2014I defy him\u2014if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that\u2019s something; and I think I shook him yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle joyously.<\/p>\n

After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Scrooge\u2019s niece played well upon the harp; and played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas<\/a> Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton\u2019s spade that buried Jacob Marley.<\/p>\n

But they didn\u2019t devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas<\/a>, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at blind-man\u2019s buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge\u2019s nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas<\/a> Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn\u2019t catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn\u2019t fair; and it really was not. But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office, they were so very confidential together, behind the curtains.<\/p>\n

Scrooge\u2019s niece was not one of the blind-man\u2019s buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love<\/a> to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge\u2019s nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you. There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be.<\/p>\n

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere is a new game,\u201d said Scrooge. \u201cOne half hour, Spirit, only one!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge\u2019s nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn\u2019t made a show of, and wasn\u2019t led by anybody, and didn\u2019t live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is it?\u201d cried Fred.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!\u201d<\/p>\n

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to \u201cIs it a bear?\u201d ought to have been \u201cYes;\u201d inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,\u201d said Fred, \u201cand it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, \u2018Uncle Scrooge!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell! Uncle Scrooge!\u201d they cried.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Merry Christmas<\/a> and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!\u201d said Scrooge\u2019s nephew. \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!\u201d<\/p>\n

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.<\/p>\n

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery\u2019s every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"parent":31663,"menu_order":13,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"pageWithContainerAndSidebar.php","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":12,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-31696","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31696\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}