A Christmas Carrol

                        '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.'

                        '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 judgment,' 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 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
                        teaspoons, 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 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 took 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.

                        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 that 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 agonised, '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 careworn 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 (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 a 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.

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