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Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his last mention of his seven-years'-dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change not a knocker, but Marley's face. Marley's face.
He was being led as by Marley's ghost to one new vision of life after another. He saw love with death grinning over love's shoulder; he was to be given a taste of fatherhood, the grave at his feet. "Do you ever hear from the people back home?" he asked abruptly. "Not very often," she answered. "After the old folks went I sorter got out of tech with the others." "What became of the homestead?"
"O, do ye ken Elsie Marley, honey The wife that sells the barley, honey? For Elsie Marley's grown sae fine, She winna get up to feed the swine. O, do ye ken " Here in mid career was the songster interrupted by the stern gripe of his master, who threatened to baton him to death if he brought the city-watch upon them by his ill-timed melody.
Marley'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, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, "Was it a dream or not?"
But the grandmother prevailed upon the little boy to spare her, and she presented herself at Elsie Marley's seat smiling in her irresistible way with the big dimples indented, and looking as if she would like to hug her as she had hugged the little girl outside. And Elsie Marley had a curious intimation that she shouldn't have minded greatly.
Thus, when everything was quiet in the crowded assembly, and when the ringing applause that always welcomed his appearance, but which he never by any chance acknowledged, had subsided when he began: "A Christmas Carol, in four staves. Stave one, Marley's Ghost. Marley was dead to begin with."
By this time the loud voices and talking at the door had brought the remainder of the men upon the scene. Those who had already passed into the shaft left their work and came up behind Talbot in the tunnel; those in front pressed a little nearer. Talbot stood now completely surrounded by the crowd of rough working men. Marley's adherents were in full force. He was quite alone.
Is it that the cool snow is grateful after the fervours of their torrid zone, where even the pyrometer would fail to record the temperature? Is it that Dickens is responsible for the season, and that Marley's ghost has set the fashion among the younger spooks? The ghost of Hamlet's father was not so timed: he walked in all weathers.
The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.
So he wiped the sweat from his brow several times at the third-story landing only to find as often that the expected vacancy was not yet. Meanwhile the tropical days slipped idly by and Marley's "standin" with the owners of I. C. C. hotel-books began to strain and threaten to break away, and everything sort of gave up the ghost and died. Everything, that is, except the winning smile.
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