University of Virginia Library

5. V.
DAISY SNARLE.

R. H. Stoddard.

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.