‘It’s humbug still!’ cried Scrooge. But the color left his face when, without stopping, it came straight through the heavy, locked door, and appeared in front of hm. It was Marley’s ghost !
‘Scrooge could see right through its body. Around its middle was a long chain, which had money-boxes, keys, bank books, and heavy purses on it. The ghost’s death-cold eyes stared fixedly At Scrooge.
“Well” said Scrooge, trying to pretend that nothing strange was happening. ‘What do you want? And who are you? ’
‘In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.’
‘It’s humbug, I tell you!’ said Scrooge. ‘There are no ghosts!’ But when he said this, the ghost gave a terrible cry, and shook its chain in a very frightening way. At once Scrooge fell on the ground in great fear, crying, ‘Yes! Yes! You are real! I see that now! Why do ghost come back from the dead? Tell me, Jacob!’
‘The spirit of every man who does not help other people in life has to travel endlessly through the world after his death. We have to carry the chains that we made for ourselves in our lifetime. Do you, Ebenezer Scrooge, recognize my chain? It is very like the one you chain. ‘Jacob,’ he said, ‘please tell me more!’
‘I cannot help you much, Ebenezer! I cannot rest, I cannot stay anywhere for long.
I have been dead for seven years and all that time I have been travelling on the wings of the wind! No peace, no rest for me in death, because I was never good or kind in life! ’
‘But you were always a good man of business, Jacob, said Scrooge, who was now beginning to worry about his own life.