r
it.

"These are but shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost.
"They have no consciousness of us."

The 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

[Illustration: Original manuscript of page 20.]

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 bye-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 weathercock-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 earthy 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 panneling, 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 store-house 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 young self,
i