7. "Live these fifty year!" the Bishop roared, with actions made to suit. "Are you mad, my good Lord Keeper, thus to Men have lived a thousand years, and sure his 8. "With his wondrous skill in healing ne'er a doctor can compete : 9. Loathsome lepers, if he touch them, start up Surely he could raise the dead up, did his "Did not once the Jewish captain stay the sun upon the hill, And, the while he slew the foemen, bid the silver moon stand still? So, no doubt, could gracious Canute, if it were his sacred will." 10. "Might I stay the sun above us, good Sir Bishop?" Canute cried; "Could I bid the silver moon to pause upon her heavenly ride? If the moon obeys my orders, sure I can com mand the tide. II. 11. "Will the advancing waves obey me, Bishop, if I make the sign?" Said the Bishop, bowing lowly, "Land and sea, my lord, are thine.” Canute turned towards the ocean. he said, “thou foaming brine! "Back!" 12. "From the sacred shore I stand on, I command thee to retreat; 13. Venture not, thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master's seat: Ocean, be thou still! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet!" But the sullen ocean answered, with a louder, deeper roar; And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling sound- Back the Keeper and the Bishop, back the 14. And he sternly bade them nevermore to bow to human clay, But alone to praise and worship That which earth and seas obey; And his golden crown of empire never wore he from that day. -WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. LXXXVII. THE MISER 1. Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. 2. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. 3. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. But permit me to repeat, that Marley was as dead as a doornail. 4. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. 5. Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him. 6. Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog days and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. 7. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did. 8. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, “ No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!" 9. Once upon a time-of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve — old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather - foggy withal - and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. 10. The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed. II. 11. "A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach. 12. "Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!" 13. He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. 14. "Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?" |