Christmas Carol 09 recto

9

Marley’s face.

[Old?] [????] Marley’s face. [But?] a dark face [pla? plain] [dark] and [heavy? ?????] It was not in impenetrable
shadow like as the other objects in the yard [was] were, but [???? ????? a ????] had a [strange?] dismal light
about it like about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. , as if it [the very face?] It was not angry, or
of Marley's body in a certain stage of decomposition ferocious [or horrible] in itself,
but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up upon its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if
[??] by [breath ??] breath or hot air, and though the eyes were wide open, [but without motion] they were
perfectly motionless. That, and its livid [hue] color, made it horrible; but its
horror seemed [???] to [?????? ????] be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than [??] a part of its own ex-
pression.

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it [beca] was a knocker
again.

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

He did pause, [a mom] with a moment’s irresolution, before he shut the
door, and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half-expected to be
terrified with the sight of Marley’s pigtail sticking out into the hall.
But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and
nu nuts [which] that held the knocker on; so he said “Pooh Pooh!” and
closed it with a bang.

The sound resounded through the house, like thunder. Every room
above, and every cask in the wine-merchant’s cellars below, appeared to have
a separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge [He] Scrooge was not a man to be
frightened by echoes. He [??????] fastened the door fast; and walked across the hall,
and up the stairs — slowly too — [?] trimming his candle as he went.

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach and six up a good old flight of
stairs or through [ ?? ??? ] a bad young act of Parliament; but I mean to
say [that?] you might have [brought] got a Hearse [ ?????? ] up that staircase, [with ???]
and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall, and the
door towards the balustrades—and done it easy. There 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.

You never find a ghost in a [small] Half a dozen gas lamps out of the street
[?nds] wouldn’t have lighted it too well; [??] so you may suppose that it was
pretty dark with Scrooge’s dip.

Up Scrooge went, [?] not caring a [????] button for that. for ??? darkness is
cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut [?? ???????ked] But before he shut his heavy door, he walked
through his rooms to see that all was right. He had [sufficient] just enough recollection