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60 A CHRISTMAS CAROL. |
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"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 gaius 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 hot 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, |
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