As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon , it was a knocker again . To say that he was not startled , or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy , would be untrue . But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished , turned it sturdily , walked in , and lighted his candle . He did pause , with a moment 's irresolution , before he shut the door ; and he did look cautiously behind it first , as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley 's pigtail sticking out into the hall . But there was nothing on the back of the door , except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on , so he said , `` Pooh , pooh ! '' and closed it with a bang . The sound resounded through the house like thunder . Every room above , and every cask in the wine merchant 's cellars below , appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own . Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes . He fastened the door , and walked across the hall , and up the stairs : slowly , too : trimming his candle as he went . You may talk vaguely about driving a coach and six up a good old flight of stairs , or through a bad young Act of Parliament ; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase , and taken it broadwise , with the splinter-bar towards the wall , and the door towards the balustrades : and done it easy . There was plenty of width for that , and room to spare ; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom . Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street would n't have lighted the entry too well , so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge 's dip . Up Scrooge went , not caring a button for that . Darkness is cheap , and Scrooge liked it . But , before he shut his heavy door , he walked through his rooms to see that all was right . He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that . Sitting-room , bedroom , lumber-room . All as they should be . Nobody under the table , nobody under the sofa ; a small fire in the grate ; spoon and basin ready ; and the little saucepan of gruel -LRB- Scrooge had a cold in his head -RRB- upon the hob .
Nobody XXXXX the bed ; nobody in the closet ; nobody in his dressing-gown , which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall .
As about above at below on so to under with