Whoever had made the remark touched Tom’s heart, for he remembered how his poor mother had blessed him when she died, and told him to be an honest boy. It certainly would not be honest to steal money out of the purse, but Tom was so cold and hungry that he half thought he would do so. He took out the purse again and looked at its contents—four shining sovereigns and some silver. Then he put it back in his pocket, and trudged home with his broom under his arm.
Home!—ah, what a dreary, cheerless home it was!—nothing but a garret on the top of an old house—a bare garret, with no table or chairs, but only the sacks upon which Tom slept at night.
He closed the door, and then lighted a little bit of candle he had picked up in the streets with one of the matches from a box given him by a ragged match-seller.
Tom placed the candle on the floor, and, kneeling down, opened the purse to look at the money once more. Oh, how tempted he was to take one of those shillings and buy some food and wood—it would be a merry Christmas for him then! Other people were enjoying their Christmas, and why should he not do the same? The great poet who had dropped the purse had plenty of money, and would never miss this small sum; so Tom, desperate with hunger, took a shilling, and, hiding the purse under his bed, was about to blow out the candle before creeping down-stairs to buy some food, when he heard a soft voice whisper,—
“Don’t go, Tom.”
He turned round, and there was the shadow cast by the reflection of the candle-light on the wall. It was a very black shadow, much blacker than Tom had ever seen before, and as he looked it grew blacker and blacker on the wall, then seemed to grow out of it until it left the wall altogether, and stood by itself in the centre of the floor, a waving, black shadow of a ragged boy. Curiously enough, however, Tom could not see its face, but only the outline of its whole figure, yet it stood there shaking with every flicker of the candle, and Tom could feel that its eyes were looking right into him.
“Don’t go, Tom,” said the shadow, in a voice so like his own that he started. “If you go, you will be lost for ever.”
“Lost?” said Tom, with a laugh; “why, I couldn’t lose myself. I know every street in the city.”
“I don’t mean really lost,” replied the shadow; “but it will be your first step on the downward path.”