Read Online Tim Cratchit's Christmas Carol by Jim Piecuch - Free Book Online

found himself at King’s Cross Station, waiting for the train that would take him to Oxford. His parents, brothers and sisters, and Mr. Scrooge were all in attendance, with Mrs. Cratchit setting an example of stoicism in order to minimize the sadness they all felt at Tim’s departure.
    The two years Tim spent at Oxford were both painful and productive. Although he enjoyed and excelled at his studies, being away from his family for the first time filled him with an overwhelming loneliness. The university’s rigid class structure made his situation worse. Because Scrooge paid for his education, Tim’s place in Oxford’s social hierarchy was a step above the scholarship students—“servitors” in the university’s distinctive language but “commoners” to the sons of the nobility. Nevertheless, the students from noble families never accepted Tim. He did become friends with several students from poor families who were attending the university on scholarship, and together they weathered the storms of disdain from those who claimed to be their betters.
    When his time at Oxford came to an end, Tim chose to study surgery in Edinburgh, the only place in Britain where proper professional training could be had. Then it was back to Oxford, with some reluctance, to train as a physician.
    Tim never forgot the day that he received his license to practice from the Royal College of Physicians. After rushing home to tell his family, he hurried over to Mr. Scrooge’s house to give him the news. One of Tim’s fondest memories of the kind old man was of that day. Ill, frail, and much advanced in age, Scrooge sat wrapped in blankets like a mummy, took the document in a shaking hand, and read it carefully. He had to hold it within an inch of his nose to make out the words, and he began to weep with joy, tears flowing down his withered cheeks. Tim’s first reaction was to worry that Scrooge’s tears would stain the document, but he pushed the thought aside as his own eyes misted over.
    â€œTim,” Scrooge said in a hoarse voice, “I never had children—that was my own fault for spurning love—but I have tried to be like a father to you. Much that I did in my life I am not proud of, but in these latter years I have tried to make amends. I am not sure it was enough to erase the wrongs I have done. You remember what Shakespeare said?”
    â€œ ‘The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,’ ” Tim answered, quoting from the play Julius Caesar .
    Scrooge nodded. “So true. Shakespeare understood human nature. And his words leave me fearful of how I will be remembered. Will ‘Scrooge’ become simply another word for ‘miser’? For someone who knows no emotion but greed?”
    Before Tim could offer him any reassurance, Scrooge, having taken a wheezing breath, resumed speaking.
    â€œYou don’t need to say anything, Tim,” he said, his voice fading as he grew more tired. “It is not what you say now that matters. It is what you will do later. You are my legacy. In your achievements, in the good that you do, people will remember me. That is the thought that eases my mind now.”
    The old man died a week later, as if he had awaited the completion of Tim’s studies, and the opportunity to give those final words of counsel, before departing.
    During his first years as a doctor, Tim had done old Scrooge proud. Tim’s outstanding record as a student had marked him for a prosperous private practice on Harley Street, but the young physician-surgeon had shunned offers of partnership from several prominent medical practitioners. Instead, he had used the independence given him by an inheritance from Scrooge to work without pay among the poor of London. Renting a small office not far from his childhood home in Camden Town, Tim spent every morning treating the sick who lined up outside his door.