Chapter III

It must be confessed that for a moment Mr. Broadstreet felt slightly annoyed. Why should that Thing be constantly starting up and darkening his cheerful mood? It was bad enough that the Shadow should exist, without intruding its melancholy length upon people who were enjoying Christmas Eve. He might have indulged in still further discontent, when he noticed the head of the Shadow-figure droop as in sadness. He remembered the kind Ghost’s grief, and upbraided himself for his hardness of heart.

“Forgive me,” he said, half aloud. “I was wrong. I forgot. I will, please God, brighten this spot and turn away the Shadow!”

Without further delay he advanced through the gloomy space until he reached the box, upon which a large lot of holly wreaths and crosses were displayed. He soon completed the purchase of a fine thick fir, and sent it, together with a roll of evergreens, to the toy-shop, directed like the parcel to the conductor.

The owner of the stand was a jovial, bright-faced young fellow, and it was evident that to him Christmas meant only gladness and jollity. But the Shadow still rested upon Mr. Broadstreet and all the snowy sidewalk about him. He was thoroughly puzzled to find its object, and had almost begun to consider the whole affair a delusion, when his eyes fell upon an odd little man, standing in the shelter of the trees, and visibly shaking with the cold, although his coat was tightly buttoned about his meager form, and his old hat pulled down over his ears. As he saw the portly lawyer looking at him he advanced timidly and touched his hat.

“Can I carry a bundle for you, sir?” he asked, his teeth chattering as he spoke.

“Why, I’m afraid not,” said Mr. Broadstreet. “I’ve just sent away all my goods.”

The man’s face fell. He touched his hat again and was humbly turning away, when the other laid his hand lightly on his shoulder.

“You seem to be really suffering with the cold, my friend,” he said in such gentle tones that his “learned brothers upon the other side” would not have recognized it; “and that’s a little too bad for Christmas Eve.”

“Christmas! Christmas!” shivered the man with a little moan, wringing his thin hands, “what is that to me! What is that to a man whose wife is dying for want of tender nursing and wholesome food? whose children are growing up to a life of misery and degradation? whose own happiness is gone, gone, so long ago that he has forgotten the feeling of it?”

Mr. Broadstreet patted the shoulder gently. “Come, come,” he said, trying to speak cheerily; “it isn’t so bad as that, you know. Times are better, and there’s plenty of work.”

“Work!” cried the man bitterly. “Yes, for the friends of the rich; for the young and strong; for the hopeful, but not for me. I tell you, sir,” he continued, raising his clenched fist until the ragged sleeve fell back and left his long, gaunt wrist bare in the biting wind, “I’ve walked from end to end of Boston, day after day, answering every advertisement, applying for any kind of honorable employment; but not even the city will take me to shovel snow in the streets, and I’m discouraged, discouraged.”

To Mr. Broadstreet’s dismay, the poor fellow suddenly hid his face in his hands, and broke down in a tempest of sobs.

Ah, how dark the Shadow was then! The storm had ceased, but the keen northwest wind still swept the streets, filling the air with fine, icy particles of snow, and driving to their warm homes those who had remained down town to make their last purchases.

The man shivered and sobbed by turns, and was quite the sport of the wind, which was buffeting him with its soft, cruel paws; when suddenly the world seemed to grow warmer. He felt something heavy and soft upon his back and around his neck. Mechanically thrusting his arms through the sleeves which opened to meet them, and looking up in amazement, he beheld his new friend standing upon the sidewalk in his dressing-gown, a genial smile upon his beaming face, and his hand outstretched. The lawyer laughed gleefully at his consternation.

“It’s all right,” he said, as the Discouraged Man tried to pull off the ulster and return it to its owner. “I’m warmer than ever. Come on, let’s go home and see your wife and children. Don’t stop to talk!” and seizing the other by the hand, or rather the cuff of his sleeve, which was much too long for him, he hurried him off, snatching a couple of wreaths from the stand as he went by, and dropping a half-dollar in their place.

It was a strange experience for the proud lawyer, that walk through the dark streets, floundering among snow-drifts, slipping, tumbling, scrambling along over icy sidewalks and buried crossings, the long-skirted gown flapping about his heels in the most ridiculous way. He kept his eyes steadily fixed on the Shadow, which was always before him, now turning down a side street, now doubling on itself, ever growing more and more distinct, and drawing its two followers farther and farther into the lowest quarter of the city. The stars were out now, and seemed to flicker in the fierce wind like the gas lights upon the street corners. Mr. Broadstreet felt curiously warm without his ulster and as light-hearted as a boy.

As they passed through the most brilliantly-lighted streets, however, he saw much that filled him for the moment with sadness. For the Shadow now grew enormously large, and rested upon many places. It brooded darkly over the brilliant saloons that lined the way, and that clothed themselves in the very garments of Christmas to attract the innocent and foolish, so that, drawn by the sheen of holly and evergreen, and the show of festivities and good cheer, they might enter and find their own destruction. Oftentimes, too, the Shadow flitted along the street in company with some man or woman who to all outward appearance was calm and content with life; perhaps even happy, one would have said. In the black folds of the Shadow, brutal-faced ruffians hid their bleared eyes; houses were draped as in some time of national mourning; once, the slight, pretty figure of a young girl came up, wearing the Shadow flauntingly about her neck, like a scarf; she stopped, and seemed about to address Mr. Broadstreet with bold words. As she met his kind, pitying glance, however, her own eyes fell, her lips quivered, she drew the Shadow about her face and fled. Alas! he could do nothing for such as her, unless that gentle, fatherly face should come before her again, in her solitude, and, by its silent eloquence, lead her to better things.

While Mr. Broadstreet was peering about for the Shadow, and taking into his heart the lessons it taught, he had not been idle, giving a kind word or a bit of money or a pleasant glance wherever the chance offered.

The Shadow now paused before a narrow doorway in a crooked little street, and the two, or rather the three, for the Shadow went before them, entered and mounted the stairway. Mr. Broadstreet stumbled several times, but the Discouraged Man went up like one who was well used to the premises. As they reached the third landing, a voice somewhere near them commenced to sing feebly, and they stopped to listen.

“It’s Annette,” whispered the Discouraged Man; “she’s singing for me. It was a way she had when we were first married, and I used to like it, coming home from a hard day’s work; so she’s tried to keep it up ever since. Do you hear her, sir?”

Yes, Mr. Broadstreet heard her. Poor, poor little thin voice, trembling weakly on the high notes and avoiding the low ones altogether. It was more like a child’s than a woman’s, and so tired--so tired! He fumbled in his dressing-gown pocket and turned his head away; quite needlessly, for it was very dark.

The two men remained silent for a moment, listening to the echo of the gay young voice with which the little bride used to greet her husband; she, so tender, and loving, and true; he, so strong, and brave, and hopeful for the future! And as they listened, they caught the words:

“Christ was born on Christmas Day,
Wreathe the holly, twine the bay,
Carol Christmas joyfully,
The Babe, the Son, the Holy One of Mary.”

“That’s a new one,” whispered the Discouraged Man again, delightedly. “She never sang it before. She must have learned it on purpose for to-night!”

There was a weary little pause within the room; she wondering, perhaps, why he didn’t come in. Presently she began again, and her voice had grown strangely weak, so that they could hardly hear it, in the rush of the wind outside the building:

“Let the bright red berries glow,
Everywhere--in goodly show”--

It died away into a mere whisper, and then ceased entirely.

Mr. Broadstreet hesitated no longer, but touched his companion’s arm, and they both entered.

She was lying on a rude bed in the corner of the room, her eyes closed, and her hands folded upon her breast. A look of agony swept across the face of her husband as he knelt beside her, taking her cold hands--ah, so thin! in his own, chafing and kissing them by turns.

Above his head on the whitewashed wall was the word “_John_,” in large, bright letters. It was his name; she had crept from her bed and traced it with her finger-tip upon the frosty window-pane, so that the light from a far-off street lamp shone through the clear lines, and thus reproduced them upon the opposite wall. Just beneath was “_Merry Christmas_.” She thought it would please him, and seem like a sort of decoration, hung there above her bed. And now he was kneeling by her side, and holding her thin hands. Perhaps he was more discouraged than ever, just then. O Shadow, Shadow, could you not have spared him this?

Mr. Broadstreet hung the wreaths he had brought upon the bed-post, and waited helplessly. A mist gathered in his eyes, so that he could not see; the walls of the little dismal chamber wavered to and fro, the Shadow grew more and more dense until it seemed to assume definite shape, the shape of Christmas Present, sitting as before, enthroned amidst plenty and good cheer; the deep-toned bells in a neighboring church-tower slowly and solemnly tolled twelve strokes, answered by the silver chime of a clock; the flames of the open fire rose and fell fitfully, in mute answer to the blasts of wind that roared about the chimney top. The Ghost dwindled rapidly, the Discouraged Man assumed the proportions and appearance of a marble figure under the mantel, and Mr. Broadstreet, starting up in affright, found himself standing in his own warm room, the Christmas Carol still open at the wonderful picture in his hand. The air still vibrated with the last echoes of the midnight-bell. It was Christmas morning.

Not many hours later, the glad sun was shining brightly over the white-robed city, sprinkling the streets and housetops with diamond-dust, gleaming upon the golden spires of churches, seeking out every dark and unwholesome corner with its noiseless step, and dispensing with open hand its bounty of purity and warmth. Yet the shadow was there, even on that fairest of Christmas Days,--and Mr. Broadstreet knew it.

Throughout the day he was thoughtful and abstracted, and during the following weeks he was observed to act in the most unaccountable manner. On snowy evenings he would dodge out of the house without the slightest warning, and return shortly after with damp boots and a defeated air.

Upon the street-cars Mr. Broadstreet became famous that winter for his obliging manner and pleasant ways with the employees. Indeed, he more than once persisted in remaining on the platform with the conductor at the imminent risk of freezing his ears and nose, until he was fairly driven within doors.

Down town he behaved still more queerly, leaving the office long before dark, and being discovered in the oddest places imaginable; now diving into narrow courts, and up steep staircases, now plunging into alleyways and no thoroughfares; and returning home late to dinner, greatly exhausted, with little or no money in his pockets. In these days, too, he began to talk about the sufferings of the poor, the abuses of the liquor law, the need of strong, pure women to go among the outcasts of our great, troubled city and perform Christlike deeds.

One bitter cold night he was much later than usual. It had been snowing heavily, and his wife had begun to worry a little over the absence of her husband, when she heard the click of his key in the front door. When Mr. Broadstreet entered, sprinkled with snow from head to foot, what was her amazement to see him standing there with fur cap and gloves, and a glowing face, but no ulster!

“Alonzo, Alonzo,” she cried, from the head of the stairs, “what will you forget next? Where have you left it?”

“Why,” said he simply, “I’ve found the Discouraged Man. And the doctor at the hospital says she’ll get well, after all.”