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A CHRISTMAS CAROL
by Charles Dickens
Stave 4: The Last of the Spirits - Part 2
`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 an'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.'
`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 them 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 know 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 them 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 them, I dare say.'
`I hope he didn't die of any thing 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 the
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 boarding 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.'
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