Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - A Christmas Carol by the Fireside - part two

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Starting point is 00:00:46 please go to sleepcove.com slash support. That's sleepcove.com slash support. If you can't support the show right now, please subscribe with the bell to get alerts on all new free content thank you have you ever gazed in wonder at the great pyramid have you marvelled at the golden face of Tudankhamun

Starting point is 00:01:16 or admired the delicate features of Queen Nefertiti if you have you'll probably like the History of Egypt podcast every week we explore tales of this ancient culture The history of Egypt is available wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of ancient Egypt. Dave 2. The first of three spirits. When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of the bed,

Starting point is 00:01:56 he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour. To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven

Starting point is 00:02:17 and then from seven to eight and regularly up to twelve, then stopped. Twelve. It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve.

Starting point is 00:02:33 He touched the spring of his report. Peter to correct the most preposterous clock, its rapid little pulse beat 12 and stopped. Why isn't it possible? said Scrooge that I can't have slept through the whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is 12 at noon. The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of the bed and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with a sleeve of his dressing gown before he could see anything and could see very little then. All he could make out was that it was still very foggy

Starting point is 00:03:16 and extremely cold and that there was no noise of people running to and fro and making a great stir as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief because three days after sight of this first exchange,

Starting point is 00:03:37 paid to Mr Ebenezer Scrooge of his order, and so forth, would have been a mere United States security, if there were no days to count by. Scrooge went to bed again, and thought and thought and thought it was over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was, and the more he endeavoured not to think,

Starting point is 00:04:03 the more he thought. Miley's ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position

Starting point is 00:04:20 and presented the same problem to be worked all through. Was it a dream or not? Scrooge lay in the state until the chime had gone three-quarters more when he remembered, on a sudden that the ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell told one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was past,

Starting point is 00:04:43 and considering that he could do no more to sleep than to go to heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power. The quarter was so long that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously and missed the clock, at length it broke upon his listening ear Ding dong A quarter past said Scrooge counting Ding dong

Starting point is 00:05:12 Half past said Scrooge Ding dong A quarter to it said Scrooge Ding dong The hour itself said Scrooge triumphantly And nothing else

Starting point is 00:05:27 He spoke before the hour bell sounded which it did with a deep, dull, hollow, melanchony one. Light flashed up into the room upon the instant. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the earthly visitor who drew them, as close to it as I am to you now, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

Starting point is 00:06:00 It was a strange figure, like a child, yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age, and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular, the hands the same as if its hold were of uncommon strength.

Starting point is 00:06:42 Its legs and feet were most delicately formed, like those upper members bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white, and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt. The sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly, in its hand, and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was that from the crown of its head there sprung

Starting point is 00:07:15 a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible, and which was doubtless the occasion of its using. In its duller moments, a great extinguisher for 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 distinctiveness, being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with 20 legs, now with a pair of 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,

Starting point is 00:08:14 it would be itself again distinct and clear as ever. Are you the spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me? As Scrooge, I am. The voice was soft and gentle, singularly really 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 dwarf's stature. No, your past. Perhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him, but he had a special desire to see. see the spirit in his cap and begged him to be covered. What? exclaimed the ghost.

Starting point is 00:09:07 Would you so soon put out, with the worldly hands the light I give, it is not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and forced me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow? Scrooge reverently disclaimed all in attention to offend, or any knowledge of having willfully bonnet, the spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him here. Your welfare, said the ghost.

Starting point is 00:09:41 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 own.

Starting point is 00:10:00 strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm. Rise up and walk with me. It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour was not adapted to pedestrian purposes, that the bed was warm and the thermometer a long way below freezing, that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown and nightcap, and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose, but finding that the spirit made towards the window clasped his robe in supplication. I am immortal, Scrooge remonstrated, and liable to fall.

Starting point is 00:10:47 There but a touch of my hand there, said the spirit, laying it upon his heart, and you shall be upheld him more than this. As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city entirely vanished, not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear cold winter day, with snow upon the ground. Good heaven, said Scrooge, clasping his hands together as he looked about him.

Starting point is 00:11:23 I was bred in this place. I was a boy here. The spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts and hopes and joys and cares long, long forgotten. Your lip is trembling, said the ghost, and what is that upon your cheek? Scrooge muttered with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple, and begged the ghost to lead him where he would.

Starting point is 00:12:03 You recollect the way? Inquire the spirit. Remember it, cried Scrooge with fervour. I could walk it blindfold. Strange to have forgotten it for so many years, observed the ghost. Let us go on. They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate and post and tree. until a little market town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs,

Starting point is 00:12:36 who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music that the crisp air laughed to hear it. These are but shadows of things that have been, said the ghost. They have no consciousness of us. The travellers came on, and as they came Scrooge knew and named everyone. Why he so rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them. Why did his cold eye glisten and his heart leap up as they went past?

Starting point is 00:13:13 Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at crossroads and byways? 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.

Starting point is 00:13:39 Scrooge said he knew it, and sobbed. They left the high road by a well-remembered lane and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little wevelcock surmounted copula on the roof and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of the broken fortunes, for the spacious officers were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables,

Starting point is 00:14:12 and the coach-houses and sheds were run over with grass, nor was it more attentive of its ancient state within. for entering the Drury Hall and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold and vast. There was an earthly saviour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candlelight and not too much to eat. They went, a ghost and scrooge across the hall, to a door at the back of the house.

Starting point is 00:14:47 It opened before them and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room made bearer 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 used to be. Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mouse behind the paling, not a drip from the half-thawed water spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent popular, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door,

Starting point is 00:15:30 no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence and gave a freer passage to his tears. This 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,

Starting point is 00:15:55 with an axe struck in his belt, and meeding by the bridle, an ass laden with wood. Why, it's Alibaba, Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. It's dear, old, honest, alibaba. Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child

Starting point is 00:16:14 was left here all alone. He did come for the first time just like that. Poor boy and Valentine, said Scrooge, and his wild brother Orson. There you go. And what's his name? Who will put down in his drawers asleep and the gate of Damascus? Don't you see him? And the Sultan's groom turned upside down by the genie? There he is upon his head. Serve him right. I'm glad of it. what business had he to be married to the princess? To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on sub-sjects in the most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying

Starting point is 00:16:57 and to see his heightened and excited face would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city indeed. There's the parrot, cried Scrooge, green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out on the top of his head, There he is. Paul Robin Crusoe. He called him when he came home again after sailing around the island.

Starting point is 00:17:21 Paul Robin Crusoe. Where have he been, Robin Crusoe? The man thought he was dreaming. But he wasn't. It was the parrot you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek. Helloer. Hoop, hello.

Starting point is 00:17:37 Then, with a rapidity of transformation very foreign to his usual character, he said in pity for his former self, Poor boy, and cried again. I wish, Scrooge muttered, pulling his hand in his pocket, and looking about him after drying his eyes with his cuff. But it's too late now. What is the matter?

Starting point is 00:18:01 Asked the spirit. Nothing, said Scrooge, nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas carol and my door last night. I should like to have him given him something. That's all. The ghost smiled thoughtfully and waved its hand, saying as it did so. Let us see another Christmas. Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. Their panels shrunk, the windows cracked, fragments of plaster

Starting point is 00:18:34 fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead. But how all this was brought about? Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct that everything had happened so that there he was alone when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. He was not reading now but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the ghost with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. It opened and a little girl much younger than the boy came down. parting in and putting her arms around his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her, Dear, dear brother. I have come to bring you home, dear brother, said the child, clapping her tiny hands and bending down to laugh, to bring you home, home, home. Home, little fan, returned the boy. Yes, said the child, bringing of glee.

Starting point is 00:19:36 Home for good and all, home forever and ever. father is so much kinder than he used to be that homes like heaven he spoke so gently to me one dear night when i was going to bed that i was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home and he said yes you should and he sent me in a coach to bring you and you'll to be a man said the child opening her eyes and are never to come back here but first we're to be together all the christmas long and have the merriest time in all the world. You're quite a little woman, little fan, exclaimed the boy. She clapped her hands on laughed and tried to touch his head, but being too little laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him in her childish eagerness towards the

Starting point is 00:20:27 door, and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her. A terrible voice in the hall cried, bring down Master Scrooge's box there, and in the hall appeared the sort of schoolmaster himself, who glared at Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the various old well of shivering best parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows were waxy with cold. Here he produced a canter of curiously liked wine And a block of curiously heavy cake

Starting point is 00:21:11 And administered installments of those dainties to the young people At the same time sending out a meagre servant To offer a glass of something to the post-boy Who once said that he thanked the gentleman But if it was the same tap as he had tasted before He had rather not Master Scrooge's trunk Being by this time tied onto the top of the chase

Starting point is 00:21:33 The children bade the schoolmaster goodbye Right willingly And getting into it Drove gaily down the garden sweep The quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost And snow from the dark leaves Of the evergreens-like spray Always a delicate creature

Starting point is 00:21:50 Who a breath might have withered Said the ghost But she had a large heart So she had Crived Scrooge You're right I will not gainshe it spirit God forbid.

Starting point is 00:22:04 She died a woman, said the ghost. And had, as I think, children? One child, Scrooge returned. True, said the ghost, your nephew. Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind, and answered briefly, yes. Although they had but the moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city

Starting point is 00:22:28 where shadowy passengers passed and repassed, where shadowy cars and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, but here too it was Christmas time again, but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up. The ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.

Starting point is 00:22:56 Know it, said Scrooge. Was I apprenticed here? They went in. At the sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller, he must have knocked his head against the ceiling. Scrooge cried in great excitement. Why, it's old fezziwig! Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive again.

Starting point is 00:23:23 Old Fezziwig laid down his pen and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands, adjusted his capacious, waistcoat, laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence, and called out an uncomfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice. Yo-ho there, Ebenezer, Dick! Scrooge's former self, now groan a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow apprentice. Dick Wilkins, to be sure, said Scrooge to the ghost.

Starting point is 00:23:59 Bless me, yes, there he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick, dear, dear. Yo-ho-ho, my boys, said Fuzzywig. No more work tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer. Let's have the shutters up, cried old Fuzzywig, with a sharp clap of his hands,

Starting point is 00:24:20 before a man can say Jack Robinson. You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it. They charged into the street with the shutters. one, two, three Had them up in their places Four, five, six, Baird them and pinned them, 789, and came back before you

Starting point is 00:24:39 You could have got to twelve, panting like racehorses. Hilly-ho, cried Fuzzywig, skipping down from the high desk With wonderful agility. Clear away, my lads, and let's have a lot of room here. Hilly-ho, Dick, Chirubb, Ebenezer.

Starting point is 00:24:56 Clear away, There was nothing that wouldn't have cleared away or couldn't have cleared away with old fizzy wig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off as if it were dismissed from public life forevermore. The door was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire, and the warehouse was as snug and warm and dry and brighter ballroom as you desire to see upon a winter's night. in came a fiddler with a music book and went up to the lofty desk

Starting point is 00:25:30 and made an orchestra of it and tuned like 50 stomach aches in came Mrs. Feziewig one vast substantial smile in came the three Miss Vizziwigs beaming and lovable in came the six young followers who hearts they broke

Starting point is 00:25:49 in came all the young men and women employed in the business in came the housemaid with her cousin the baker In came the cook With her brother's particular friend the milkman In came the boy from over the way Who was suspected of not having bored enough from his master Trying to hide himself behind the girl

Starting point is 00:26:11 From next all but one Who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress In they all came one after another Some shyly some boldly some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pudding. In they all came, any how and every how. Away they all went. Twenty couple at once, hands half round and back again the other way, down the middle, up again, round and round, in various stages of affectionate groupie. Old top couple always turning up in the wrong place, new top couple starting off again as soon as they got there.

Starting point is 00:26:51 All top couples at last are not a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought about, old Feziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, Well done! And the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers left, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted on a shutter and he were a brand new man

Starting point is 00:27:23 resolved to beat him out of sight all perish there were more dancers and there were four fits and more dancers and there was cake and there was negus and there was a great piece of cold roast

Starting point is 00:27:36 and there was a great piece of cold boiled and there were mince pies and plenty of beer but the great effect of the evening came after the roast and boiled when the fiddler and artful dog mind the sort of man who knew his business

Starting point is 00:27:50 better than knew or I could have told it to him, struck up Sir Roger de Covely then old Feziewig stood out to dance with Mrs. Feziewig top couple too with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them

Starting point is 00:28:05 three or four and twenty pair of partners people who were not to be trifled with and people who would dance and had no notion of walking But if they had been twice as many, ah, four times, old Fessie Wig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fessie Wig.

Starting point is 00:28:25 As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fessie Wig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted at any time what would have become of them next. And when old Feziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance,

Starting point is 00:28:51 advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow, curtsy, corkscrew, thread and needle, and back again to your place, Fezziwig cut, cut so deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs and came upon his feet again

Starting point is 00:29:07 without a stagger. When the clock struck eleven, the domestic ball broke up, Mr and Mrs. Vessiewig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two prentices, he did the same to them, and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds,

Starting point is 00:29:37 which were under a counter in the back shop. During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man, man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything and underwent the stranger's agitation. It was not until now when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, and that he remembered the ghost and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear. A small matter, said the ghost, to make these silly fools so full of gratitude. Small, echoed Scrooge. The spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring

Starting point is 00:30:27 out their hearts in praise of Fizzywig. And when he had done so said, why, it is not, he has spent a few pounds of your mortal money, three or more perhaps, is that so much that he deserves this praise? It isn't that, said Scrooge, heated by the remark and speaking unconsciously, like his former, not his latter self. It isn't that spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy to make our service light or burdensome, a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks. In things so slight and insignificant that is impossible to add and count him up. What then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune. He felt the spirit's glance and stopped. What is the matter? asked the ghost.

Starting point is 00:31:27 Nothing particular, said Scrooge. Something I think, the ghost insisted. No, said Scrooge. No, I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all. His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish, and Scrooge and the ghost stood side by side in the open air. My time grows short, observed the spirit, quick. This was not addressed to Scrooge or to anyone whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now, a man in the prime of his life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years,

Starting point is 00:32:16 but it had begun to wear the signs and care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye which showed the passion that had taken root and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall. He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a morning dress, who whose eyes were with tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the ghost of Christmas past. It matters little, she said softly, to you very little.

Starting point is 00:32:52 Another idol has displaced me, and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to, I have no just cause to grieve. What idol has displaced you? He rejoined. A golden one, she said. This is the even-handed dealing of the world. he said, there is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty, and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth. You fear the world too much, she answered gently. All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its

Starting point is 00:33:32 sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one until the master passion and gain engrosses you. Have I not? What then? He retorted, even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you. She shook her head. Am I? Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until in good season we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed when it was made you were another man. I was a boy, he said impatiently. Your own feelings tell you that you are not what you are, she returned. I am, that which promised happiness, when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how

Starting point is 00:34:29 keenly have I thought of this? I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it. and can release you. Have I ever sought release? In words no, never. In what then? In a change nature, in an altered spirit, in another atmosphere of life, another hope as its great end, in everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us, said the girl, looking mildly but with steadiness upon him, tell me, would you seek me out and try and win me now? Oh no. He seemed to yield to the justice of this opposition in spite of himself, but he said with a struggle, you think not. I would gladly think otherwise if I could, she answered. Heaven knows, when I have learned a truth like this, I know how strong

Starting point is 00:35:30 and irresistible it must be. But if you were free today, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dourless girl? You, who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by gain, or choosing her, if for a moment you are false enough to your one guiding principle to do so. So I do not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow. I do and I release you

Starting point is 00:36:01 With full heart For the love of him You once were He was about to speak But with her head turned from him She resumed You may The memory of what is past half

Starting point is 00:36:15 Makes me hope you will Have pain in this A very very brief time And you would dismiss the recognition of it Gladly as an unprofitable dream From which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life that you have chosen. She left him and they parted.

Starting point is 00:36:36 Spirit, said Scrooge, show me no more. Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me? One shadow more, exclaimed the ghost. No more, cried Scrooge, no more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more. But the relentless ghost, pinioned him in both arms. and forced him to observe what happened next. They were in another place and seen, a room not very large or handsome, but full of comfort.

Starting point is 00:37:09 Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her. Now a comely matron sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count and like the celebrated heard in the poem that there were not 40 children conducting themselves like one but every child was conducting itself like 40

Starting point is 00:37:44 the consequences were uproar risk beyond belief but no one seemed to care on the contrary the mother and daughter laughed heartily and enjoyed it very much and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I am not given to be one of them? Though I never could have been so rude, no, no, I wouldn't, for the wealth of all the world, have crushed that braided hair and torn it down,

Starting point is 00:38:17 and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off. God bless my soul, to save my life. As to measuring her waist and sport as they did, the old young brood, I couldn't have done it. I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment and never come straight again, and yet I should have dreary liked it. I own to have touched her lips,

Starting point is 00:38:44 to have questioned her that she might have opened them, to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush, to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price. In short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet to have been mad enough to know its value. But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued,

Starting point is 00:39:14 that she with laughing face and plundered dress was born towards it, the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father. who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter. The scaling him with the chairs for ladders to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back and kick his legs in irrepressible affection. the shouts of wonder and delight

Starting point is 00:39:55 with which the development of every package was received the terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying pan into his mouth and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey glued on a wooden platter the immense relief of finding this a false alarm the joy and gratitude and ecstasy

Starting point is 00:40:20 they are all indescribable alike It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlour and by one stare at a time up to the top of the house where they went to bed and so subsided And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever When the master of the house Having his daughter leaning fondly on him Sat down with her and a mother at his own fireside

Starting point is 00:40:49 And when he thought that such another creature quite as graceful and as full of promise might have called him father and been a springtime in the haggard winter of his life his sight grew very dim indeed Bell said the husband turning to his wife with a smile I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon

Starting point is 00:41:10 Who was it? Guess How can I touch, don't I know? She added in the same breath laughing as he left Mr Scrooge Mr Scrooge it was I passed his office window And as it was not shut up And he had a candle inside

Starting point is 00:41:28 I could scarcely help seeing him His partner lies upon the point of death I hear And there he says alone Quiet alone in the world I do believe Spirit said Scrooge in a broken voice Remove me from this place I told you that these were shadows

Starting point is 00:41:47 Of the things that have been said the ghost, but they are what they are. Do not blame me. Remove me, Scrooge exclaimed, I cannot bear it. He turned upon the ghost and seeing that it looked upon him

Starting point is 00:42:03 with a face in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces they had shown him, wrestled with it. Leave me, take me back, haunt me no longer.

Starting point is 00:42:16 In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle, in which the ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary. Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright and dimly connecting with its influence over him. He seized the extinguisher cap and by all sudden action pressed it down upon its head.

Starting point is 00:42:42 The spirit dropped beneath it so that the extinguisher covered its whole form but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force he could not hide their light which streamed from under it in an unbroken flood upon the ground he was conscious of being exhausted and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness

Starting point is 00:43:03 and further of being in his own bedroom he gave the cap a parting squeeze in which his hand relaxed and he had barely timed to reel to bed before he sank into a heavy sleep Thank you.

Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - A Christmas Carol by the Fireside - part two

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