Passing through the wall of mud and stone , they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire . An old , old man and woman , with their children and their children 's children , and another generation beyond that , all decked out gaily in their holiday attire . The old man , in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste , was singing them a Christmas song ; it had been a very old song when he was a boy ; and from time to time they all joined in the chorus . So surely as they raised their voices , the old man got quite blithe and loud ; and , so surely as they stopped , his vigour sank again . The Spirit did not tarry here , but bade Scrooge hold his robe , and , passing on above the moor , sped whither ? Not to sea ? To sea . To Scrooge 's horror , looking back , he saw the last of the land , a frightful range of rocks , behind them ; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water , as it rolled and roared , and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn , and fiercely tried to undermine the earth . Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks , some league or so from shore , on which the waters chafed and dashed , the wild year through , there stood a solitary lighthouse . Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base , and storm-birds -- born of the wind , one might suppose , as seaweed of the water -- rose and fell about it , like the waves they skimmed . But , even here , two men who watched the light had made a fire that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea . Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat , they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog ; and one of them , the elder too , with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather , as the figure-head of an old ship might be , struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself . Again the Ghost sped on , above the black and heaving sea -- on , on -- until , being far away , as he told Scrooge , from any shore , they lighted on a ship . They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel , the look-out in the bow , the officers who had the watch ; dark , ghostly figures in their several stations ; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune , or had a Christmas thought , or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas-day , with homeward hopes belonging to it . And every man on board , waking or sleeping , good or bad , had had a kinder word for one another on that day than on any day in the year ; and had shared to some extent in its festivities ; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance , and had known that they delighted to remember him . It was a great surprise to Scrooge , while listening to the moaning of the wind , and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss , whose depths were secrets as profound as death : it was a great surprise to Scrooge , while thus engaged , to hear a hearty laugh . It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew 's , and to find himself in a bright , dry , gleaming room , with the Spirit standing smiling by his side , and looking at that same nephew with approving affability ! `` Ha , ha ! '' laughed Scrooge 's nephew . `` Ha , ha , ha ! ''
If you should happen , by any unlikely chance , XXXXX know a man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge 's nephew , all I can say is , I should like to know him too .
among as at beside beyond by of to until with