Christmas Carol 19 recto

19

a cap, which it now held under its arm.

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its
strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and
now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was
dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now
a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with
twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body:
of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they
melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again: distinct
and clear as ever.

“Are you the Spirit, Sir, whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Scrooge.

“I am!”

The voice was soft and gentle—singularly low, as if instead of being
so close beside him, it were at a distance.

“Who and what are you?” Scrooge demanded.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Long past?” inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.

“No. Your past.”

Perhaps Scrooge couldn’t have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him
to be covered.

“What!” exclaimed the Ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I
give! Is it not enough that you are one of those whose ruthless passions
made this cap, and force me through whole trains of
years to wear it low upon my brow!”

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend, or any
knowledge of having wilfully “bonneted” the Spirit at any period of his life.
He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.

“Your welfare!” said the Ghost.

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help
thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive
to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for
it said immediately:

“Your reclamation then. Take heed!”

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently, by the arm.

“Rise! and walk with me!”

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour
were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was
warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers,