jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named
them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? Why
did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past? Why
was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry
Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and by-ways for their several
homes? What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas!
What good had it ever done to him?

"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A solitary child,
neglected by his friends, is left there still."

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a
mansion of dull red brick, with a little weather-cock surmounted cupola
on the roof and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of
broken fortunes: for the spacious offices were little used, their walls
were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed.
Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and
sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient
state within; for, entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the
open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and
vast. There was an earthly savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the
place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by
candle-light, and not too much to eat.

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the
back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare,
melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and
desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and
Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as
he had used to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice
behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the
dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent
poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a
clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening
influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self,
intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man in foreign garments: wonderfully
real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an axe
stuck in his belt, and leading by the