Christmas Carol 42 recto

42

their children’s 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 rustl howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was
singing them a Christmas song—it had been a very old Christmas song when he was a
boy—and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. Some of these people So surely as they raised
as it seemed from what they said, had travelled many miles their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his
vigour sank again. But no one was impatient. It was Christmas Day, and

The Spirit made no stay did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and
passing on above the moor, not on the ground—sped out to the sea on the th?? whither?—Not to sea? To sea. To Scrooge’s horror, looking back
he saw the last of the land—a frightful range of rocks—behind them; and his ears were deafened stunned
by dismal noises the thundering of of water, as it rolled and roared and raged in among the dreadful caverns it had
?? mined and [torn] worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the Earth.

Built upon a heap of dismal rocks reef reef of sunken rocks, [on] some league ?? or so from shore, on
which the waters waters waters coarse waves ?????p??? chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood
a lighthouse solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of seaweed clung about to its base, and
seagulls storm birds—born of the wind it seemed, like one might suppose, as seaweed of the water—
rose and fell about it, like the billows waves they skimmed.

But even here, two men who watched the Light, had made a Fire that
s???d through the loophole in the thick stone wall, shed out a ray of brightness on the
awful ???? sea:. And joining their horny hands over the rough table at which
they sat, they wished each other Merr Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one
of them—the [eldest] [s???on] elder? elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather
like as the figurehead of an old ship might be—struck up a sturdy song not much that was unlike
a Gale in itself.

The Spirit Again the Ghost sped away on, above the dark black and angry billows heaving seas sea
—on, on, on —until being far away as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted
on a ship. There stood They ??? stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers
whose watch it was had the watch; dark ghostly figures in their several stations
on the deck; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christ-
mas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christ-
mas Day, with homeward associations belonging to it hopes belonging to it. aAnd 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 thought of remembered those he cared for at a distance;
and had known, as ?? that they would think r???? of him as tenderly delighted to remember him.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge while listening to the solemn
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 laugh hearty laugh. It was an infinitely a much greater surprise to Scrooge
to recognize it as his own nephew’s, and to find himself in a bright, dry,
gleaming room on [and ashore] with not an ?? the Spirit standing smiling by his
side and looking on at that same his nephew with that same nephew his nephew with especial affectation approving affability!