`` They have no consciousness of us . '' The jocund travellers came on ; and as they came , Scrooge knew and named them every one . Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them ? Why did his cold eye glisten , and his heart leap up as they went past ? Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas , as they parted at cross-roads and by-ways for their several homes ? What was merry Christmas to Scrooge ? Out upon merry Christmas ! What good had it ever done to him ? `` The school is not quite deserted , '' said the Ghost . `` A solitary child , neglected by his friends , is left there still . '' Scrooge said he knew it . And he sobbed . They left the high-road by a well-remembered lane , and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick , with a little weather-cock surmounted cupola on the roof and a bell hanging in it . It was a large house , but one of broken fortunes : for the spacious offices were little used , their walls were damp and mossy , their windows broken , and their gates decayed . Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables ; and the coach-houses and sheds were overrun with grass . Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state within ; for , entering the dreary hall , and glancing through the open doors of many rooms , they found them poorly furnished , cold , and vast . There was an earthly savour in the air , a chilly bareness in the place , which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light , and not too much to eat . They went , the Ghost and Scrooge , across the hall , to a door at the back of the house . It opened before them , and disclosed a long , bare , melancholy room , made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks . At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire ; and Scrooge sat down upon a form , and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had used to be .
Not a latent echo XXXXX the house , not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling , not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind , not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar , not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door , no , not a clicking in the fire , but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening influence , and gave a freer passage to his tears .
At across as beyond in near of through with within