A Christmas Carol
By Charles Dickens
Stave 4: The Last of the Spirits
The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it
came, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through
which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.
It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its
head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save
one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult
to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the
darkness by which it was surrounded.
He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him,
and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread.
He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.
`I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.'
said Scrooge.
The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.
`You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not
happened, but will happen in the time before us,' Scrooge pursued.
`Is that so, Spirit.'
The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant
in its 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 pauses 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 purpose 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.'
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 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 of aye 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 skater, 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 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 grey-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 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 they 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.'
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 those 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 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 has 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 faltered 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 seeing that he
looked a little -' just a little down you know,' said Bob, inquired
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 when ever 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.
`Spectre,' said Scrooge,' something informs me that our parting
moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what
man that was whom we saw lying dead.'
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before
-- though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed
no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the
Future -- into the resorts of business men, but showed him not
himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went
straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought
by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.
`This courts,' said Scrooge,' through which we hurry now, is
where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of
time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be, in days
to come.'
The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.
`The house is yonder,' Scrooge exclaimed. `Why do you point
away.'
The inexorable finger underwent no change.
Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in.
It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the
same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom
pointed as before.
He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had
gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused
to look round before entering.
A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had
now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place.
Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth
of vegetation's death, not life; choked up with too much burying;
fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place.
The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One.
He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as
it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn
shape.
`Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,' said
Scrooge, `answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the
things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May
be, only.'
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.
`Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered
in, they must lead,' said Scrooge. `But if the courses be departed
from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show
me.'
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following
the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own
name, Ebenezer Scrooge.
`Am I that man who lay upon the bed.' he cried, upon his knees.
The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.
`No, Spirit. Oh no, no.'
The finger still was there.
`Spirit.' he cried, tight clutching at its robe,' hear me.
I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been
but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all
hope.'
For the first time the hand appeared to shake.
`Good Spirit,' he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell
before it:' Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure
me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by
an altered life.'
The kind hand trembled.
`I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all
the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.
The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not
shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge
away the writing on this stone.'
In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free
itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it.
The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.
Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate aye
reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress.
It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.
Stave 5: The End of It
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