Christmas Classics: Charles Dickens Collection (With Original Illustrations). Charles Dickens

And stop her heart—O God! could this be death?

      Crouching against the iron gate, she laid Her weary head against the bars, and prayed: But nearer footsteps drew, then seemed to wait; And then she heard the opening of the grate, And saw the withered face, on which awoke Pity and sorrow, as the portress spoke, And asked the stranger’s bidding: “Take me in,”

      She faltered, “Sister Monica, from sin, And sorrow, and despair, that will not cease; Oh take me in, and let me die in peace!”

      With soothing words the sister bade her wait, Until she brought the key to unbar the gate.

      The beggar tried to thank her as she lay, And heard the echoing footsteps die away.

      But what soft voice was that which sounded near, And stirred strange trouble in her heart to hear?

      She raised her head; she saw—she seemed to know A face, that came from long, long years ago: Herself; yet not as when she fled away, The young and blooming Novice, fair and gay, But a grave woman, gentle and serene: The outcast knew it—what she might have been.

      But as she gazed and gazed, a radiance bright Filled all the place with strange and sudden light; The nun was there no longer, but instead, A figure with a circle round its head, A ring of glory; and a face, so meek, So soft, so tender. . . . Angela strove to speak, And stretched her hands out, crying, “Mary mild, Mother of mercy, help me!—help your child!”

      And Mary answered, “From thy bitter past, Welcome, my child! oh, welcome home at last!

      I filled thy place. Thy flight is known to none, For all thy daily duties I have done; Gathered thy flowers, and prayed, and sang, and slept; Didst thou not know, poor child, thy place was kept?

      Kind hearts are here; yet would the tenderest one Have limits to its mercy: God has none.

      And man’s forgiveness may be true and sweet, But yet he stoops to give it. More complete Is love that lays forgiveness at thy feet, And pleads with thee to raise it. Only Heaven Means crowned, not vanquished, when it says ‘Forgiven!’ ”

      Back hurried Sister Monica; but where Was the poor beggar she left lying there?

      Gone; and she searched in vain, and sought the place For that wan woman, with the piteous face: But only Angela at the gateway stood, Laden with hawthorn blossoms from the wood.

      And never did a day pass by again, But the old portress, with a sigh of pain, Would sorrow for her loitering: with a prayer That the poor beggar, in her wild despair, Might not have come to any ill; and when She ended, “God forgive her!” humbly then Did Angela bow her head, and say “Amen!”

      How pitiful her heart was! all could trace Something that dimmed the brightness of her face After that day, which none had seen before; Not trouble—but a shadow—nothing more.

      Years passed away. Then, one dark day of dread, Saw all the sisters kneeling round a bed, Where Angela lay dying; every breath Struggling beneath the heavy hand of death.

      But suddenly a flush lit up her cheek, She raised her wan right hand, and strove to speak.

      In sorrowing love they listened; not a sound Or sigh disturbed the utter silence round; The very taper’s flames were scarcely stirred, In such hushed awe the sisters knelt and heard.

      And thro’ that silence Angela told her life: Her sin, her flight; the sorrow and the strife, And the return; and then, clear, low, and calm, “Praise God for me, my sisters;” and the psalm Rang up to heaven, far, and clear, and wide, Again and yet again, then sank and died; While her white face had such a smile of peace, They saw she never heard the music cease; And weeping sisters laid her in her tomb, Crowned with a wreath of perfumed hawthorn bloom.

      And thus the legend ended. It may be Something is hidden in the mystery, Besides the lesson of God’s pardon, shown Never enough believed, or asked, or known.

      Have we not all, amid life’s petty strife, Some pure ideal of a noble life That once seemed possible? Did we not hear The flutter of its wings, and feel it near, And just within our reach? It was. And yet We lost it in this daily jar and fret, And now live idle in a vague regret; But still our place is kept, and it will wait, Ready for us to fill it, soon or late.

      No star is ever lost we once have seen, We always may be what we might have been.

      Since good, tho’ only thought, has life and breath, God’s life can always be redeemed from death; And evil, in its nature, is decay, And any hour can blot it all away; The hopes that, lost, in some far distance seem.

      May be the truer life, and this the dream.

The Ghost in the Cupboard Room

       Table of Contents

      Wilkie Collins

      Mr. Beaver, on being “spoke” (as his friend and ally, Jack Governor, called it), turned out of an imaginary hammock with the greatest promptitude, and went straight on duty. “As it’s Nat Beaver’s watch,” said he, “there shall be no skulking.” Jack looked at me, with an expectant and admiring turn of his eye on Mr. Beaver, full of complimentary implication. I noticed, by the way, that Jack, in a naval absence of mind with which he is greatly troubled at times, had his arm round my sister’s waist. Perhaps this complaint originates in an old nautical requirement of having something to hold on by.

      These were the terms of Mr. Beaver’s revelation to us:

      What I have got to put forward, will not take very long; and I shall beg leave to begin by going back to last night—just about the time when we all parted from one another to go to bed.

      The members of this good company did a very necessary and customary thing, last night—they each took a bedroom candlestick, and lit the candle before they went up-stairs. I wonder whether any one of them noticed that I left my candlestick untouched, and my candle unlighted; and went to bed, in a Haunted House, of all the places in the world, in the dark? I don’t think any one of them did.

      That is, perhaps, rather curious to begin with. It is likewise curious, and just as true, that the bare sight of those candlesticks in the hands of this good company set me in a tremble, and made last night, a night’s bad dream instead of a night’s good sleep. The fact of the matter is—and I give you leave, ladies and gentlemen, to laugh at it as much as you please—that the ghost which haunted me last night, which has haunted me off and on for many years past, and which will go on haunting me till I am a ghost myself (and consequently spirit-proof in all respects), is, nothing more or less than—a bedroom candlestick.

      Yes, a bedroom candlestick and candle, or a flat candlestick and candle—put it which way you like—that is what haunts me. I wish it was something pleasanter and more out of the common way; a beautiful lady, or a mine of gold and silver, or a cellar of wine and a coach and horses, and such-like. But, being what it is, I must take it for what it is, and make the best of it—and I shall thank you all kindly if you will help me out by doing the same.

      I am not a scholar myself; but I make bold to believe that the haunting of any man, with anything under the sun, begins with the frightening of him. At any rate, the haunting of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle began with the frightening of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle—the frightening of me half out of my life, ladies and gentlemen; and, for the time being, the frightening of me altogether out of my wits. That is not a very pleasant thing to confess to you all, before stating the particulars; but perhaps you will be the readier to believe that I am not a downright coward, because you find me bold enough to make a clean breast of it already, to my own great disadvantage, so far.

      These are the particulars, as well as I can put them.

      I was apprenticed to the sea when I was about as tall as my own walking-stick; and I made good enough use of my time to be fit for a mate’s berth at the age of twenty-five years.

      It was in the year eighteen hundred and eighteen, or nineteen,