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A down-town clock strikes the hour of two so gently, that it sounds like the tinkling of sheep-bells coming through the misty twilight air from the green meadows. With which felicitous simile we will give our hero a little sleep, after having kept him up two hours after midnight.

Slumber touches his eyelids gently; but Daisy lies awake for hours; at last, falling into a trouble sleep, she dreams that she is an heiress.

Oh, Daisy Snarle!

V

 
The bitter cups of Death are mixed,
And we must drink and drink again.
 

R. H. Stoddard.

V.
DAISY SNARLE

Sunday Morning – Harvey Snarle and Mortimer – A Tale of Sorrow – The Snow-child – Mortimer takes Daisy's hand – Snarle's death.

Six months previous to the commencement of the last chapter, Mr. Harvey Snarle lay dying, slowly, in a front room of the little house in Marion-street.

It was Sunday morning.

The church bells were ringing – speaking with musical lips to "ye goode folk," and chiming a sermon to the pomp and pride of the city. As Mortimer sat by the window, the houses opposite melted before his vision; and again he saw the old homestead buried in a world of leaves – heard the lapping of the sea, and a pleasant chime of bells from the humble church at Ivytown. And more beautiful than all, was a child with clouds of golden hair, wandering up and down the sea-shore.

"Mortimer?" said the sick man.

Then the dream melted, and the common-looking brick buildings came back again.

"The doctor thought I could not live?" said the man, inquiringly.

"He thought there was little hope," replied Mortimer. "But doctors are not fortune-tellers," he added, cheerfully.

"I feel that he is right – little hope. Where is Daisy?"

"She has lain down for a moment. Shall I call her?"

"Wearied! Poor angel; she watched me last night. I did not sleep much. I closed my eyes, and she smiled to think that I was slumbering quietly. No; do not call her."

After a pause, the sick man said:

"Wet my lips, I have something to tell you."

Mortimer moistened his feverish lips, and sat on the bed-side.

"It comes over me," said the consumptive.

"What? That pain?"

"No; my life. There is something drearier than death in the world."

"Sometimes life," thought Mortimer, half aloud.

The sick man looked at him.

"Why did you say that?"

"I thought it. Life is a bitter gift sometimes. An ambition or a passion possess us, flatters and mocks us. Death is not so dreary a thing as life then."

"He felt that."

"Who?"

"The devil."

"His mind is wandering," murmured Mortimer – "wandering."

"It isn't," said Snarle, slowly. "A passion, a love, made Flint's life bitter."

"Flint! Did he ever love anything but gold?"

"Yes; but it was long ago! We are cousins. We were schoolmates and friends, sharing our boyish sports and troubles with that confiding friendship which leaves us in our teens. We lived together. I can see the old white frame house at Hampton Falls!" and the man passed his emaciated hand over his eyes, as if to wipe out some unpleasant picture. "A niece of my father's came to spend a winter with us. Young men's thoughts run to love. I could but love her, she was so beautiful and good; and while she did a thousand kind things to win my affection, she took a strange aversion to my cousin Flint, who grew rude and impetuous. We were married. But long before that, Flint packed up his little trunk, and, without a word of farewell, left us one night for a neighboring city. Years went by, and from time to time tidings reached us of his prosperity and growing wealth. We were proud of his industry, and thought of him kindly. We, too, were prospering. But the tide of our fortune changed. My father's affairs and mine became complicated. He died, and the farm was sold. One day I stood at Flint's office door, and asked for employment. Evil day! better for me if I had toiled in the fields from morning till night, wringing a reluctant livelihood from the earth, which is even more human than Flint. Wet my lips, boy, and come near to me, that I may tell you how I became his slave; softly, so the air may not hear me."

Mortimer drew nearer to him.

"It was a hard winter for the poor. My darling wife was suffering from the mere want of proper medicines and food. I asked Flint for a little more than the pitiable salary which he allowed me. He smiled, and said that I was extravagant. We had not clothes enough to shield us from the cold! I told him that my wife was sick; and he replied, bitterly, 'poor men should not have wives.' Wet my lips again. Can you love me, boy, after what I shall tell you? I forged a check for a trivial amount!" and Snarle's voice sunk to a hoarse whisper. "Can you love me?"

"Can I love you?" cried Mortimer. He could not see the sick man for his tears. "Can I forget all your kindness. Years ago, when I was a mere child, toiling early and late in Flint's office, did you not take me to your home, a poor hope-broken boy? Have I not grown up with Daisy, like your own child? Not love you?"

Mortimer laid his face on the same pillow with the sick man's.

"I was not sent to prison," continued Snarle, with a shudder; "only my own mind, and soul, and actions were prisoners. I was Flint's! Flint owned me! That little paper which he guards so carefully is the title-deed. O, Mortimer, as you hold my memory dear, destroy that paper – tear it, burn it, trample it out of the world!"

With these words Snarle sank back upon the pillow, from which he had half risen. He went on speaking in a lower tone:

"I have suffered so much that I am sure God will forgive me. Never let the world know – never let my wife and Daisy know that I was a – "

"O, I will promise you, dear father," cried Mortimer, before he could finish the dreadful word. "I will destroy the paper, though twenty Flints guarded it. The man who steals a loaf of bread for famishing lips, is not such a criminal in God's sight as he who steals a million times its value by law to feed his avarice. Think no more of it. The angel who records in his book, has written a hundred good deeds over that unfortunate one. The world's frown is not God's frown, and His heart is open when man's is barred with unforgiveness."

"Thank you, thank you," said Snarle, brightening up a little. "Your words give me comfort. I have not much more to tell. Flint took me into the firm, but I was the same slave. I worked, and worked, and the reapings were his. You have seen it – you know it. And this was his revenge. His wounded love and pride have wrecked themselves on me. He has never crossed the threshold of our door – never laid his eyes on my wife since the time when we were thoughtless boys together. O, how cruel he has been to me! Evening after evening, in midwinter, he has made me bring the last editions of the Express to his house, and never asked me in!"

This was said with such a ludicrous expression, that Mortimer would have laughed if it had been anybody but poor Snarle. Exhausted with talking, the sick man sank into a quiet slumber.

Mortimer sat by his bed-side for an hour, watching the change of expressions in the sleeper's face – the shadow of his dreams coming and going! Then his head drooped upon his bosom, and he slept so soundly that he did not know that Daisy came in the room, and stood beside him, looking in his face with her fond, quiet eyes.

When he awoke, one long dark shadow from the houses opposite slanted into the apartment.

Snarle was looking at him.

"I have been asleep," said Snarle, "and have had such pleasant thoughts that it is painful to find myself in this poor little world again. Ah, me, what will wife and Daisy do in it all alone?"

"Not alone," said Mortimer. "I will watch over them – love them." Then, after a pause: "Father, I love Daisy – I would make her my wife."

"Ah, I wished that; but I did not think it: " and Snarle paused a moment. "Have you told Daisy so?"

"Yes – but – "

"Well," said Snarle, waiting.

"But she does not love me; and that is why I said love would make life bitter."

"Perhaps she does."

"No."

"What did Daisy say?"

"She said there were clouds in the morning of her life – (these were her own words) – which had no sunshine in them. Then she called me brother and kissed me, and told me that I must never think of her as my wife. She would be my sister always. And when I speak to her of this, she turns away or hums a pleasant air to mock me."

"She is not our child, Mortimer."

"What?"

"No, I am not wandering," said Snarle, in reply to Mortimer's look. "She is not our child. We adopted her under strange circumstances. I have not told you this before. Daisy did not wish me to; but it is right that you should know it now. Sit nearer to me."

Mortimer obeyed mechanically.

"One stormy night we were sitting, my wife and I, in the room below. I remember as if it were yesterday, how the wind slammed the window-blinds, and blew out the street-lamps. It was just a year ago that night we lost our little Maye, and we were very sad. We sat in silence, while without the storm increased. The hail and snow dashed against the window-panes, and down the chimney. Every now and then the wind lulled, and everything was still."

Heaven knows why Mr. Snarle ceased speaking just then; but he did, and seemed lost in reverie.

"What was I saying?"

"You were speaking of the storm."

"Yes, yes. It was in one of those pauses of the wind that we heard a low sob under our windows. We did not heed it at first, for sometimes a storm moans like a human voice. It came again so distinctly as to leave no doubt. I opened the hall-door, and groped about in the snow. When I returned to the sitting-room, I held little Daisy in my arms. She was no larger than our Maye who died – our little three-year-old. The child was half frozen, and nothing but a coarse cloak thrown over her night-dress, had saved her from perishing. I reported the circumstance at the police-station, but such things were of too common occurrence to excite much interest. Weeks passed, and then months, and no one answered the advertisements. At last we had learned to love the child so dearly, that we dreaded the thought of parting with it. I asked and obtained permission to adopt the pet, and so Daisy became ours. She is very proud, and the mystery of her birth troubles her; and this – "

Before Snarle could finish the sentence, Daisy herself opened the room door, and came tripping up to the bed-side.

Mortimer took her hand very quietly.

"Daisy," he said, "I love you."

Daisy hid her face in the pillow.

"He has told me everything, and I love you, Daisy!"

Daisy looked up with the tears and sunshine of April in her eyes.

"Do you love me?" he asked.

The girl was silent for a moment, then a sweet little "yes" budded on her lips.

Then Mortimer kissed Daisy, and poor Snarle died happy; for that evening his life-stream ebbed with the tide, and mingled with that ocean which is forever and forever.

REQUIESCAT IN PACE

VI

 
A lone ship sailing on the sea:
Before the north 'twas driven like a cloud;
High on the poop a man sat mournfully:
The wind was whistling through mast and shroud,
And to the whistling wind thus did he sing aloud.
 

Smith's "Barbara."

VI.
THE PHANTOM AT SEA

A Storm in the Tropics – The Lone Ship – The Man at the Wheel – How he sang strange Songs – The Apparition – The Drifting Bark.

The blood-red sun had gone down into the Atlantic. Faint purple streaks streamed up the western horizon, like the fingers of some great shadowy hand clutching at the world.

Huge masses of dark, agate-looking clouds were gathering in the zenith, and the heavy, close atmosphere told the coming of a storm. Now and then the snaky lightning darted across the heavens and coiled itself away in a cloud.

A lone ship stood almost motionless in the twilight.

The sails were close-reefed. Here and there on the forecastle were groups of lazy-looking seamen; and a man walked the quarter-deck, glancing anxiously aloft. The sea was as smooth as a mirror, and that dreadful stillness was in the air which so often preludes a terrific storm in the tropics. A rumbling was heard in the sky like the sound of distant artillery, or heavy bodies of water falling from immense heights.

Then the surface of the sea was broken by mimic waves tipped with froth, and the vast expanse seemed like a prairie in a snow fall.

The lightning became more frequent and vivid, and the thunder seemed breaking on the very topmasts of the vessel. Then the starless night sunk down on the ocean, and the sea raved in the gathering darkness. The storm was at its height: the wind,

 
"Through unseen sluices of the air,"
 

tore the shrouds to strings, and bent the dizzy, tapering masts till they threatened to snap. But the bark bore bravely through it, while the huge waves seemed bearing her down to those coral labyrinths, where nothing goes

 
"But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."
 

The thunder sent forth peal after peal, and the heaven was like "a looming bastion fringed with fire." On through the slanting rain sped the ship, creaking and groaning, with its ribs warped and its great oaken spine trembling. The sailors on deck clung to the bulwarks; and below not a soul could sleep, for the thunder and the creaking of cordage filled their ears.

At midnight the storm abated; but the sea still ran dangerously high, and the wind sobbed through the rigging mournfully. The heaven was spangled with tremulous stars, and at the horizon the clouds hung down in gossamer folds – God's robe trailing in the sea!

Toward morning the waves grew suddenly calm, as if they had again heard that voice which of old said, "Peace, be still!" There was no one above decks, save the man at the wheel, who ever and anon muttered to himself, or hummed bits of poetry. He was a man in the mellow of life, in the Indian summer of manhood, which comes a little while before one falls "into the sere and yellow leaf." Once he must have been eminently handsome; but there were furrows on his intellectual forehead not traced by time's fingers. His eyes were peculiarly wild and restless.

The slightest tinge of red fringed the East, and as the man watched it grow deeper and deeper, he sang snatches of those odd sea-songs which Shakespeare scatters through his plays:

 
"The master, the swabber, the boatswain and I,
The gunner and his mate,
Loved Mall, Meg, and Marian and Margary,
But none of us cared for Kate.
For she had a tongue with a twang,
Would cry to a sailor, go hang!
She loved not the savor of tar or of pitch, —
Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!"
 

Then his sonorous voice rang out these quaint words to the night:

 
"Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade – "
 

He abruptly broke off, and commenced:

 
"Break, break, break
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
 
 
O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
 
 
And the stately ships go on,
To the haven under the hill;
But oh, for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
 
 
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me."
 

Suddenly he paused, while a paleness like death overspread his face; the spokes of the wheel slipped from his hold, and he called for help; but the wind went moaning through the shrouds, and drowned his voice. The sea moaned and the ship drifted with the wind.

"It comes again!" he cried; "the graveyard face! Go! I cannot bear those sad, reproachful eyes – those arms outstretched, asking mercy! Send foul fiends to torture me, and make my dreams hideous nightmares, but not this beautiful form to mock me with its purity, and kill me with its mild reproach. It has gone. But it will come again! It steals on me in the awful hours of night, when the air seems supernatural, and the mind is accessible to fear. It stood by my hammock last night; my conscious soul looked through my closed eyelids, and sleep felt its dreadful presence. If it comes again I will throw myself into the sea! Hush!" he whispered, "it stands by the cabin door, so pale! so pale! Come not near me, pensive ghost. Give me help, somebody! help! help!"

He sunk down by the wheel.

The stars, at the approach of morning, had grown as white as pond-lilies, and the wind had died away; but the same moan came up from the sea. On in the morning twilight drifted the ship for an hour, without a helmsman, save that unseen hand which guides all things – which balances with equal love and tenderness a dew-drop or a world.

VII

I was not always a man of woe.

Walter Scott.

VII.
IN WHICH THERE IS A MADMAN

Mr. Flint sips vino d'oro – The Stranger – The Letter – Mr. Flint Outwitted – Mr. Flint's Photograph – The Madman's Story – The wrecked Soul – How Mr. Flint is troubled by his Conscience, and dreams of a Pair of Eyes.

The same night on which Mortimer was writing in the books of Flint & Snarle, Mr. Flint sat in the library of his bachelor home, sipping a glass of vino d'oro; and as the bells of Trinity Church fell faintly on his ear, he drew a massive gold watch from his fob, and, patting it complacently on the back, scrutinized its face as if he would look it out of countenance. Then he yawned a couple of times and thought of bed.

"There's a gintleman without, sur," said Michel, putting his comical head in at the library door, "there's a gintleman without, sur," and he emphasized the 'gintleman.'

"What sort of a person, Michel?"

"A very quare one indade. 'Is Mr. Flint in?' sez he. 'He is sur,' sez I. 'I want to see him,' sez he. 'Your kard, sur,' sez I. He stared at me a minit, and laughed. Then, sez he, without the least riverence for your worship, 'Give this to owld Flint!'" And Michel, exploding with laughter, handed Flint a knave of clubs very much soiled.

"Michel!" said Mr. Flint, drawing himself up to his full altitude, "kick him down the steps!"

"Thanks!" said a voice directly behind Michel, who had retreated to the doorway. The voice was so near and unexpected that Michel's crisp hair stood on end with fright.

The door was thrown wide open, and a fine looking man, with the bearing of a sailor, stood between them. Mr. Flint turned as white as his immaculate shirt-bosom; and Michel, whose love of fun had got the better of his scare, regarded the intruder with a quizzical, inquiring air, peculiarly Irish.

"Michel," said Mr. Flint, "you may go."

That gentleman, not expecting such an order, hesitated.

"Yes, sur."

"Michel," said the stranger, "your master speaks to you."

"Sure I heard him, sur."

Michel left the room and carefully closed the door after him; but Flint, who knew his inquiring proclivities, opened it suddenly, and found Michel on all fours with his ear to the key-hole. The door was opened so unexpectedly that the listener did not discover the fact for the space of ten seconds. When he looked up and beheld his master, the intense expression of his face was superbly ludicrous. To say that he shot to the subterranean regions of the kitchen like a flash of lightning, does not border on fiction.

The man laughed – it was a low, peculiar laugh, sadder than some men's tears.

"Flint!"

"Well."

"Are you glad to see me?" and the man repeated his laugh.

"No: you are a devil!"

"I have been away three years, as I promised you."

"Well, what do you want?"

"Money."

"Have I ever seen you when you did not?"

"No, Flint, you never did. But you saw me once when I had an unstained soul – when I could have looked up to Heaven and said, 'I am poor, Father, but I am honest.' Have you enough money to pay for a lost soul? Oh Flint, I am a wrecked man! If it had only been murder – if I had killed a man in the heat of passion – but a poor innocent babe in the cold snow! The child! the little babe! Ah, Flint, I never see the white snow coming down but I think of it. Those eyes are always with me. They follow me out to sea. They haunt me in the long watches. One night, when a storm had torn our rigging to tatters, and we heard the breakers on the lee-shore, I saw her standing by the binnacle light, and, so help me Heaven! she had grown to be a woman. I fainted at the wheel. You heard of the shipwreck. How could a ship keep clear of the rocks and the helmsman in a trance? Forty souls went down, down! Hist! who said that? Not I. No, not I! I am a maniac!"

"Don't go on that way," pleaded Flint, giving uneasy looks toward the door, which he regretted having locked.

"Why?"

"It is not pleasant."

"What isn't?"

"Your eyes – your words. What can I do for you?"

The man's excitement lulled for a moment. He replied, carelessly:

"I am not a chameleon; I cannot live on air; I can earn no money. The elements are against me – storms and shipwrecks follow me… I have not found him yet," he said, abruptly.

"Who?"

"My boy."

Flint turned aside his head, and laughed quietly.

"I am tired of searching for him," said the man, sorrowfully. "I am not going to sea any more." After a pause – "I wish to live among the fishermen off Nantucket. You ask me what I want?"

"Yes."

"I want two or three hundred dollars to fit up a fishing-smack. Give me this, and I will not trouble you again. God knows I don't want to look on your face!"

"And the letter – will you give me the letter?"

"Yes; when I take the money."

The man drew from his bosom several letters, and selected one more worn and crumpled than the rest.

Flint's eyes fed upon it.

"Of course," said Flint, "I have not such an amount in the house. I have a hundred dollars up stairs, and will give you a check for the remainder. Will that do?"

"No and yes; but get the money, and I'll see."

Flint left him alone. From a safe in his bed-chamber he took a small bag of gold, and caressed it for a moment very much as one's grandmother would a pet cat; then he filled up a check, and called Michel.

"Run to the police station, Michel, and tell Captain L. – to send me three or four men."

Michel shot down stairs, and his master followed him leisurely, patting the gold-bag lovingly at every other step.

"Does he think," said Flint's visitor to himself, as the library door closed – "can he think I would part with this paper? He, so full of worldly shrewdness, so simple?"

After awhile the door opened.

"There!" gasped Flint, placing the bag on the table before the man; "the letter! the letter!"

The stranger carelessly threw a rumpled paper toward Flint, who grasped it convulsively. His hand touched a bell-rope, and before the bell had ceased tinkling, a heavy measured tramp came through the entry. Four policemen entered the room in single file, with Michel behind them making comical efforts to keep step.

"Arrest him!" cried Flint, hoarse with passion and triumph, "he has extorted money from me!"

"Flint," said the man, walking toward him, "you know that's a lie!"

Mr. Flint retreated behind the policeman.

"This person," he cried, "is a stranger to me; he forced his way into my house and has threatened my life. Arrest him quickly, for he is no doubt armed!"

"Gentlemen," said the stranger, turning to the officers, "Mr. Flint, I fear, has given you useless trouble. Michel, more glasses!"

At this, that astonished individual went off like a rocket.

"For the love you bear your good name, Mr. Flint", he continued, "look at the paper which you so innocently put in your pocket."

An idea struck Flint, which caused him to turn pale. He tore open the letter; but it was not the one for which he would have given half his fortune. Oh! sagacious, wily, clear-sighted Mr. Flint!

"You had better tell these gentlemen that you have made a mistake, Flint. But, before they go, they must have a glass of wine."

Michel had failed to appear with the extra glasses; but the want of them was elegantly supplied by three silver goblets which stood on the beaufait. And poor, collapsed Flint! he could only bid the officers go, with a wave of his hand.

They were alone.

The sailor, with a scornful curl in his lip, stood by the chair of the merchant, whose dejected countenance, taken in connection with his white cravat, was delightfully comical.

"Flint," commenced the man, "your verdancy is refreshing. Your sweet and child-like simplicity is like a draught of your old wine – it's rare, it's rare."

If anything touched Flint, it was sarcasm. He stood in dread of ridicule, as most men do whose foibles and vices deserve lashing.

"Edward Walters!" he cried, springing to his feet, "you have outwitted me. Well, you are a knave; it is your pride to be one. Your companions will shout to-night, in some obscure den of this city, as you tell them of your ingenuity, and you will be a hero among – "

"Stop, John Flint! For sixteen years to-night my life has been as pure as a child's. The vices of passion and avarice have not touched me. I have borne a sorrow in my heart which shrunk instinctively from sin. During these years I have been poor, very poor." The man paused. "There is a link lost somewhere in my life – was I an age in a madhouse? Let it go. I have loved my fellow-man; I have lingered at the hammock of a sick mess-mate, and closed his eyes kindly when he died; I have spoken words of cheer when my heart was bitterness. I do not say this boastfully, for God's eyes are upon us all. I have done these things to atone for the one great sin of my life, which has stalked through memory like a plague. John Flint, I have had the misfortune to know you for twenty years, and during that time you never have, to my knowledge, performed a single act worthy of being remembered. You have a narrow, malicious mind; you have been tyrannical when you should have been generous; you have been the devil's emissary under the cant of religion. You call Jesus master, but you crucify him daily! There is your photograph, John Flint!"

"You flatter me," remarked that personage, sarcastically; "but go on."

"It is seldom that a rich man has the truth spoken to him plainly – the poor man hears it often enough. Consider yourself favored. You have called me a knave. I will draw some pictures, and I wish you to look at them:

"Many years ago, a seafaring man who had just lost his ship in which his little fortune had been invested, returned to this city sick at heart, and weak from a wound which he had received in the wreck. He had battled many a year against misfortune, and his utmost exertions had barely found bread for his children. He owed money to a heartless and exacting man. He stood before his creditor and said, 'I am beggared, but I will work for you.' The merchant replied, 'Come to my house to-night, and I will find means by which this debt can be liquidated.' The sailor expected reproaches and hard words; so he was surprised at the softness of this speech, and his heart was full of gratitude.

"That night he sat in the parlor of the merchant, who plied him with rare wines, until his mind went from him. Then he made a proposal to the sailor, who, if he had had his senses, would have felled him to the floor. The merchant had been appointed guardian to a motherless babe, which his brother, dying, begged him to love and educate. His ship on the sea, and the bales of merchandize in his warehouses, were not enough to feed his hungry avarice. He needs must have the little inheritance of the babe. Well, while he was speaking, making artful pictures in the eyes of his drugged dupe, the child ran into the room, and twined her arms around the neck of him who should have worshiped her. But he coldly unclasped the little hands and pushed her from him. John Flint, when that man, on Judgment Day, shall cringe before the throne of God, the Evil Angel will trample him down!"

Flint was as white as the marble mantel-piece on which he leaned. Edward Walters stood a short distance in front of him; his eyes were fixed, and he spoke like one who sees what he is describing.

"Then the man – the merchant – wrapped the child in the sailor's cloak. In a few minutes the sailor stood in the stormy street, with a frightened little heart throbbing against his own. The cutting sleet and snow beat in his face, and the wine made a veil before his eyes. It was a fearful night. Not a human form was to be seen; the street lamps were blown out, and the poor mariner drifted to and fro like a deserted ship. He had become mad; the strange events had eaten into his brain. He wrapped the babe closer in his cloak, and placed her in a doorway, out of the cold. He wandered from street to street, then he sank down in the snow. When his senses came to him he had been in a madhouse – God, how many years! Was it ten? The June wind broke through the barred window; it touched his forehead, and it was like a human hand rousing one from a dreamless sleep. One evening soon after, he stood before the merchant, who was sipping his choice cordials, as you were to-night, Flint, and the sailor asked for the child. The man replied: 'The child is dead; you left it in the cold, and it died, or you threw it into the river. I saw a body at the dead-house, weeks afterward, which looked like the child. You committed murder; it was your own act. Suppose you were to be hung for it!' Have I a good memory, John Flint?"

And the man turned his wild eyes on Mr. Flint, who gave no other evidence of not being a statue than a slight tremor of his upper lip.

"What did the madman say to the merchant? He took the cool, calculating villain by the throat, and cried, 'Write me out, in your round, clerkly hand, a full avowal of your guilt in this matter, or I'll strangle you!' The merchant knew he would, so he wrote this document with trembling fingers, and he signed it John Flint!"

Then the sailor drew from his pocket an old stained letter, and held it up to the light. He looked at it sadly, and then his mind seemed to wander off through a gloomy mist of memories, for his eyes grew gentle and dreamy.

He spoke softly, almost tenderly:

"John Flint, you never saw me weep. Look at me, then. I am thinking of an old country-house which stood in a cluster of trees near a sea-shore. It once held everything that was dear to me – my children. Three years ago I stood with my hand on the gate, and looked into the little garden. It had gone to waste; the wind had beaten down the flower frames; the honeysuckle vines were running wild, and there was the moss of ten years' growth on the broken chimney-pots. The rain had washed the paint off the house, and the windows were boarded up. There was something in the ruin and stillness of the place which spoke to me. Twilight added a gloomy background to the picture. I broke the rusty fastenings of a side door, and entered the deserted building. It may have been fancy, but I saw two forms wandering from room to room, and through the darkened entries; now they would pause, as if listening for foot-steps, then they would move on again, sorrowfully, sorrowfully. In the bedroom over the front door, I saw the shadow of a little coffin! She used to sleep there. Where were my children? Where was trustful old Nanny, that she did not come to me? The house was full of strange shadows, and I fled from it. I did not dare go to the village hard by. There were too many who might have known me. I sat down in the quiet church-yard where my wife had slept many a long year. I sat by a little mound on which a wreath of flowers had been laid – nothing remained of them but stems and the rotting string that had bound them. It had a peaceful look, the grave, and I wished that I had died when my mound would not have been made longer than the one at my side. What did the simple head-stone say? It said: 'Little Bell!' – that was all!"