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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 hearthstone. What theywanted 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 someone, 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 her 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 herelents,’ 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 tonight 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. ’