folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only
answer he received.
Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the
silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found
that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit
paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to
recover.
But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague
uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud there were
ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched
his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one
great heap of black.
"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any Spectre
I have seen. But, as I know your promise is to do me good, and as I
hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear
you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to
me?"
It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.
"Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is
precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!"
[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 49.]
The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in
the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried
him along.
They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to
spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there
they were, in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants; who
hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and
conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled
thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had
seen them often.
The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing
that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their
talk.
"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "I don't know much
about it, either way. I only know he's dead."
"When did he die?" inquired another.
"Last night, I believe."
"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third, taking a vast
quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. "I thought he'd never
die."
"God knows," said the first, with a yawn.
"What has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced gentleman with a
pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the
gills of a turkey-cock.
"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, yawning again.
"Left it to his Company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to _me_. That's
all _I_ know."
This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.
"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same speaker; "for
upon my life I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a
party and volunteer?"
"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the gentleman
with the excrescence on his nose. "But I must be fed, if I make one."
Another laugh.
"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all," said the
first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch.
But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of
it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for
we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!"
Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups.
Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an
explanation.
The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons
meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might
lie here.
He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men
[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 50.]
of business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a
point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point of
view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.
"How are you?" said one.
"How are you?" returned the other.
"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?"
"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn't it?"
"Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skaiter, I suppose?"
"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!"
Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and
their parting.
Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should
attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling
assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to
consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to
have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was
Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of
any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply
them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had
some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up
every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe
the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that
the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and
would render the solution of these riddles easy.
He looked about in that very place for his own image; but another man
stood in his accustomed corner, and though the clock pointed to his
usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among
the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little
surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of
life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried
out in this.
Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched
hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied
from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself,
that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder,
and feel very cold.
They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town,
where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its
situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the
shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod,
ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their
offences of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets;
and the whole quarter
[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 51.]
reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.
Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling
shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones,
and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor within, were piled up
heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights,
and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to
scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses
of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares
he dealt in, by a charcoal-stove, made of old bricks, was a
gray-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened
himself from the cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of
miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all
the luxury of calm retirement.
Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a
woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely
entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she was
closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by
the sight of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each
other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old
man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh.
"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who had entered
first. "Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the
undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a
chance! If we haven't all three met here without meaning it!"
"You couldn't have met in a better place," said old Joe, removing his
pipe from his mouth. "Come into the parlour. You were made free of it
long ago, you know; and the other two ain't strangers. Stop till I
shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks! There an't such a rusty
bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure
there's no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We're all suitable to
our calling, we're well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the
parlour."
The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked
the fire together with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky
lamp (for it was night), with the stem of his pipe, put it in his
mouth again.
While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle
on the floor and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing
her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other
two.
"What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said the woman. "Every
person has a right to take care of themselves. _He_ always did!"
"That's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No man more so."
"Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman; who's the
wiser? We're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I
suppose?"
"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. "We should hope
not."
[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 52.]
"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's enough. Who's the worse
for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose."
"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.
"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw,"
pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had
been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with
Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself."
"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. Dilber. "It's a
judgment on him."
"I wish it was a little heavier one," replied the woman; "and it
should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my
hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the
value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor
afraid for them to see it. We knew pretty well that we were helping
ourselves, before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the
bundle, Joe."
But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man
in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced _his plunder_. It
was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of
sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were
severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he
was disposed to give for each upon the wall, and added them up into a
total when he found that there was nothing more to come.
"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give another
sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's next?"
Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two
old-fashioned silver tea-spoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few
boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.
"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's
the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That's your account. If you
asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent
of being so liberal, and knock off half-a-crown."
"And now undo _my_ bundle, Joe," said the first woman.
Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it,
and having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large and
heavy roll of some dark stuff.
"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains!"
"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed
arms. "Bed-curtains!"
"You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and all, with him
lying there?" said Joe.
"Yes I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"
"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and you'll certainly
do it."
"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by
reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He was, I promise you,
Joe," returned the woman coolly. "Don't drop that oil
[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 53.]
upon the blankets, now."
"His blankets?" asked Joe.
"Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "He isn't likely to
take cold without 'em, I dare say."
"I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?" said old Joe,
stopping in his work, and looking up.
"Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I an't so fond of
his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah!
You may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't
find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a
fine one too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me."
"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.
"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied the woman
with a laugh. "Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off
again. If calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good
enough for anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look
uglier than he did in that one."
Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about
their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he
viewed them with a detestation and disgust, which could hardly have
been greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing the
corpse itself.
"Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel
bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground.
"This is the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him
when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!"
"Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. "I see, I see.
The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way,
now. Merciful Heaven, what is this!"
He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost
touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged
sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb,
announced itself in awful language.
The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy,
though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse,
anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the
outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and
bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.
Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to
the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest
raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have
disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do,
and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than
to dismiss the spectre at his side.
[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 54.]
Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and
dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is
thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst
not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious.
It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it
is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open,
generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a
man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from
the wound, to sow the world with life immortal!
No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard
them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be
raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard
dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly!
He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child,
to say he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one
kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and
there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What
_they_ wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and
disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.
"Spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall
not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!"
Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head.
"I understand you," Scrooge returned, "and I would do it, if I could.
But I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power."
Again it seemed to look upon him.
"If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this
man's death," said Scrooge quite agonized, "show that person to me,
Spirit, I beseech you!"
The phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing;
and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and
her children were.
She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked
up and down the room; started at every sound; looked out from the
window; glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her
needle; and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their
play.
At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door,
and met her husband; a man whose face was care-worn and depressed,
though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now; a
kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he
struggled to repress.
He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire;
and when she asked him faintly what news
[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 55.]
(which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed
how to answer.
"Is it good," she said, "or bad?"--to help him.
"Bad," he answered.
"We are quite ruined?"
"No. There is hope yet, Caroline."
"If _he_ relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Nothing is past hope,
if such a miracle has happened."
"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead."
She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth; but she
was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped
hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the
first was the emotion of her heart.
"What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to
me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay; and what I
thought was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite
true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then."
"To whom will our debt be transferred?"
"I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money;
and even though we were not, it would be bad fortune indeed to find so
merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with
light hearts, Caroline!"
Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The
children's faces hushed, and clustered round to hear what they so
little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this
man's death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by
the event, was one of pleasure.
"Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said Scrooge; "or
that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever
present to me."
The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet;
and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself,
but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house;
the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and the
children seated round the fire.
Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues
in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him.
The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they
were very quiet!
"'And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them.'"
Where had Scrooge heard these words? He had not dreamed them. The boy
must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold.
Why did he not go on?
The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her
face.
"The colour hurts my eyes," she said.
The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!
"They're better now again," said Cratchit's wife. "It makes them
[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 56.]
weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father
when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time."
"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book. "But I think
he's walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings,
mother."
They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady cheerful
voice, that only faultered once:
"I have known him walk with--I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon
his shoulder, very fast indeed."
"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often."
"And so have I!" exclaimed another. So had all.
"But he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent upon her work,
"and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble--no trouble. And
there is your father at the door!"
She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter--he had
need of it, poor fellow--came in. His tea was ready for him on the
hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two
young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each child a little
cheek, against his face, as if they said, "Don't mind it father. Don't
be grieved!"
Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the
family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry
and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long
before Sunday he said.
"Sunday! You went to-day then, Robert?" said his wife.
"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have gone. It would
have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it
often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little,
little child!" cried Bob. "My little child!"
He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have
helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart perhaps than
they were.
He left the room, and went up stairs into the room above, which was
lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set
close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been
there, lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a
little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was
reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy.
They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working
still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's
nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in
the street that day, and
[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 57.]
seeing that he looked a little--"just a little down you know" said
Bob, enquired what had happened to distress him. "On which," said Bob,
"for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told
him. 'I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,' he said, 'and
heartily sorry for your good wife.' By the bye, how he ever knew
_that_, I don't know."
"Knew what, my dear?"
"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob.
"Everybody knows that!" said Peter.
"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope they do. 'Heartily
sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in
any way,' he said, giving me his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come
to me.' Now, it wasn't," cried Bob, "for the sake of anything he might
be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite
delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt
with us."
"I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit.
"You would be surer of it, my dear," returned Bob, "if you saw and
spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised, mark what I say, if he
got Peter a better situation."
"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit.
"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be keeping company
with some one, and setting up for himself."
"Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning.
"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these days; though
there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But however and whenever we
part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny
Tim--shall we--or this first parting that there was among us?"
"Never, father!" cried they all.
"And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that when we recollect how
patient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child;
we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim
in doing it."
"No never, father!" they all cried again.
"I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am very happy!"
Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young
Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of
Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God!