Ebeneezer Scroggie
The man in the frock coat and top hat stared at the cemetery gates. It was late and he had been walking for some time in an unfamiliar town, looking for a place just like this. He needed somewhere quiet and atmospheric to think, for he had a vague idea for a new book niggling at the corners of his mind. A different kind of book. An important book. But the story was eluding him.
The man pushed open the cemetery gate. It was not as dark inside as he had expected and a thin layer of Edinburgh's ever present fog lay across the lambent ground. A row of gas lamps cut the graveyard in two, bordering a narrow path that led downhill to the northern wall and lower gate opening onto the Cowgatehead. He ventured further into the cemetery, skirting gravestones, trying to discern bushes from shadows. The place was deserted. Taking off his hat he sat on a low wall and looked up at the stars. The church, a boxy Presbyterian monolith, was in the way.
There was a harsh cough to his left. The gentleman leapt to his feet, his top hat tumbling to the ground and his heart pounding.
From behind a tall gravestone an old man emerged. Though his clothes were dirty and frayed, they had been carefully mended over and over and he held himself erect, his scrawny shoulders flung back. His stubbled face might have once been imposing but now it was gaunt and grey and his thinning hair pushed away from his head like whisps of factory smoke.
"Forgive me sir." The voice of the derelict man was rasping but his accent was not one of a commoner. "I wonder if you could spare a penny or two that I might purchase proper lodgings and perhaps a bath for one night." The old gent looked apologetically down at his shabby and soiled clothes. "I am not used to approaching strangers in this way, but judging by your own attire you seem a man of some means." He shrugged and tried a friendly smile. Two of his front teeth were broken.
The man in the frock coat liked to think himself a charitable sort. He had even written essays arguing that fallen women should be rehabilitated rather than deported. He did not, however, take kindly to being accosted in the street – well, in the graveyard - and panhandled in this way. He stared at the tramp, wondering how best to phrase his concerns and still avoid fisticuffs.
"It's not just for myself, you see." the old man said suddenly. "I have companions who have also experienced the… darker side of life, shall we say."
And there they were. Drifting towards him out of the darkness. A huge man with a matted black beard. A little boy and girl, painfully thin – their dead eyes revealing nothing but incomprehension and hunger. A small thin man, his hands twisted into claws by ill heath, bad breeding or some terrible accident.
The man in the frock coat took an involuntary step back, hairs rising on the back of his neck. But he was a fellow of principles and refused to be weak in his convictions or feeble in his mannerisms. He stared at the ragged group, standing knee deep in the mist. His stove pipe hat stuck out of the smog like a chimney pot on a smoggy roof and his unhappy companions floated next to it.
Behind them, on the other side of the graveyard wall, he could see the thick minarettes of Herriot's Orphanage, erected by the great Victorian philanthropist. To his left, equally close, the workhouse with its dormitories and kitchens was also visible. Beyond that was the Bedlam asylum, overseen by the doctors of Edinburgh.
What more could these wretches expect from a society that was prepared to look after them so?
The man's gaze hardened. He swept his top hat out of the murk and grimly shook his head. The children's' eyes brightened with hatred and the giant started forward with a bitter grin, the glint of a small knife in his hand.
His older companion raised a restraining arm.
"No. Let the Topper go," he said sadly. "We will show him more charity than he has given us."
And they slowly retreated, until shadows, mist, gravestones and the night had merged together to envelop them all.
The man in the frock coat walked unsteadily back to the cemetery gates. He was shaking too badly to immediately present himself on the street, so he sat down on a flat tombstone near the entrance. He had been badly frightened by the experience and, for a moment, had thought he was going to die. And it was true - in a situation so grave a man's whole existence flashed before his eyes. For a second he had believed the great things he hoped to achieve would never happen. How horrible to have one's life end when it was not fully lived! In a nearby tree an owl hooted. A startled cat raced from the bushes and snaked along the base of the wall. The man removed his hat again, took a deep quavering breath, and lowered his head into his hands.
Through his spread fingers he caught sight of the inscription on the tombstone next to him. His eyes narrowed. The darkness made it hard to read the words and he had to bring his face so close to the rough stone that he felt its coldness.
Surely the inscription couldn't be right. And yet… he was reading it with his own eyes.
Ebeneezer Scroggie
Mean man
The man in the frock coat sat back, horrified. What kind of creature would be given an epitaph like that? Who could be so despised that even his last resting place proclaimed him a rogue and a miser? He got unsteadily to his feet and, glancing one more time at the tomb, staggered from the graveyard.
As he left that place of death, destitution and loneliness, and stepped out into the streetlights, he felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his soul. On impulse he gave a quiet little dance, no more than a shuffle really - a gentleman remained a gentleman at all times.
Across the street, at the top of Candlemaker Row, a little boy was watching with a wistful curiosity. Or maybe he just thought the man with the top hat was insane. The child leaned heavily to one side, a home made ash crutch tucked under his skinny oxter.
The gentleman raised an arm in greeting and strode over to him. The boy flinched. The man in the frock coat shook his head kindly and bent down until their heads were level.
"What's your name, boy?" he said softly.
The lad looked at him timidly. "Robert, sir."
The gentleman fished in his pocket and pulled out a pound note. The boy's eyes widened in astonishment as the money was pressed into his small calloused hand. The gentleman winked.
"Merry Christmas Bob."
The boy gave a small choking sound. The toff was obviously drunk or a loon, and he didn't want to get into trouble.
"Beggin pardon sir," he said, gazing longingly at the money in his palm. "It's the middle of July."
The man looked back the way he had come. Fog still covered the graveyard floor, thick as undisturbed snow, vanishing into the darkness like a fairytale. On top of the high iron gate was a small gas lamp that cast a spectral yellow pall across the graveyard entrance. It matched the cheerful glow emanating from the windows of Greyfriars Inn next door. He glanced through the thick whorls of glass at the distorted almost caricatured faces. Patrons were joking and drinking and slapping each other's backs. Laughter drifted out of the door and he heard a rough Scots voice cry out a toast, a drunken variation on the famous words of Robert Burns.
"Good cheer tae us and God bless us, everyone."
Charles Dickens gave a smile and patted the boy on the arm.
"Yes. God bless us every one," he said.
He tilted his top hat at a jaunty angle and set off down the street.
In fact, Dickens, on a short visit to an Edinburgh cemetery, had read the tombstone incorrectly. It actually said Ebeneezer Scroggie: Meal man.
The poor bloke was a corn dealer in the city.
But the rest is history. Two years later Charles Dickens completed the book A Christmas Carol. Not only did it give the world a superb villain in Ebeneezer Scrooge, but a classic supernatural trio in the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. And its popularity ensured that a little observed holiday became a national institution.
Merry Christmas, one and all.
