University of Virginia Library

8. VIII.
MR. FLINT IS PERFECTLY ASTONISHED, AND MORTIMER
HAS A VISION.

Dryden.

Now that Mortimer Walters had destroyed the
record of poor Snarle's guilt, he determined to be
no longer a subject of Flint's authority. He had
watched for months for an opportunity to become
possessed of the forged cheque; and it was with a
heart as light as a singing bird's that he tripped
up the office stairs an hour before his time the next
morning.

Tim was sweeping out.

Sleep had left no cobwebs in his young eyes; but
when he saw Mortimer throw open the office door,
humming a light-hearted air, he rubbed his eyelids
with the sleeve of his dusty coat, as if it were a
question in his mind whether or not he was dreaming.

“My last day here!” said Mortimer gaily to
himself. “Weary, tiresome old books! my soul has
grown sick over you for the last time.”

He brushed the dust from off the dull-looking
ledger, and went to work. “Won't I astonish him?”
he thought, looking up; and he laughed so pleasantly
that Tim, who was sweeping the rubbish into
a dust-pan, suspended operations, and expressed his
surprise in a somewhat dubious ejaculation:

“I vum!”

When Mr. Flint came in, he saw the same tall
form bending over the accustomed desk that had
met his eyes every morning for the last ten years;
but he did not see the heart that was leaping with
new life. And when, in his usual snarly way, he
gave Mortimer orders to make up certain invoices,
which would have employed the clerk till midnight,
he opened a brief conversation which ended in his
utter amazement.

“You will render Bowen & Cleet their account
current, and make up the pork sale; it has been
standing open long enough. And,” added Mr. Flint,
“fill up bills of lading for the D. D. coffee.”

“I don't think I will,” was the quiet reply.

Mr. Flint did not believe his ears.

“Mr. Walters!”

“Mr. Flint.”

“You will fill up those bills of lading immediately.”

“I wont!” plumply.

This caused Mr. Flint to sink in a chair with
astonishment; and Mortimer went on writing.

“Did you say that you wouldn't?” asked Mr. Flint,
looking at him.

“Yes, sir.”

“You did!”

“My year,” said Mortimer, leisurely, “expires to-day,
and with it, I am happy to state, my connection
with Flint & Snarle.”

Mr. Flint hunted twenty seconds for his lost voice.

“You insolent —”

“Sir!” cried Mortimer, turning to him abruptly,
“until now I have borne your tyranny with meekness.
We are no longer employer and clerk. We are
man and man, with the advantage on my side. If
you apply an insulting epithet to me, I shall pull your
ears!”

O Tim, how you rubbed your hands, you little
villain! How your limbs seemed to be receiving
a series of galvanic shocks from an invisible battery!
How your eyes sparkled, and your proclivity
for fight got uppermost, till you cried out,
“Pitch into him, old boy!”

“Go!” hissed Flint, through his closed teeth;
“go!” that was all the word he could master.

Mortimer passed out of the office.

The genial sunshine slid from the house-tops, and
fell under his feet; a thousand airy forms walked
with him, and he felt their presence, though he could
not see them.

He wandered through the Park. April had
breathed on the cold ground, and the green grass
was springing up to welcome her. The leaves were
unfolding themselves, and the air was full of spring.
The fountain had thrown off its icy manacles, and
leaped up with a sense of freedom.

His dreamy eyes saw it all. The black shadows
had fallen from him; he had left them with Flint;
and a bright day had dawned within him and without
him. Everything was tinged with iridescent light,
for he looked at the world, as it were, through dew-drops.
Happy morning—happy life! when one can
put aside the trailing vines of painful memory,
and let the warm sunshine of Heaven find its
way into the heart.

In this sunny mood he turned his way homeward.
He passed Mrs. Snarle on the stairs with
a smile; he heard Daisy singing in the sitting-room;
and he sat himself down in the yellow light

which streamed through the window of his bed-room,
making a hundred golden fancies on the worn
carpet:
His eyes made pictures; his fancy inverted the
hour glass of his life, and the old sands ran back!
He floated down the stream of time, instead of onward.

The sunshine grew deeper and broader, and filled
the little room. Then it became condensed and
brighter. Gradually it moulded itself into form, and
little Bell, in her golden ringlets, stood at the side of
Mortimer. Her white hand touched his shoulder, and
he looked up—not in surprise, but with tenderness—
with the air of a man who can gaze with unclouded
eyes into the spiritual world and lose himself.

“I knew you were near,” he said, dreamily. “I
thought you would come. You have something to
tell me. What is it, my little Bell? Thus you stood
at my side, thus you looked into my eyes, the day on
which I told Daisy that I loved her. Thus you come
to me whenever the current of my life changes,
to love and advise me. What is it, Bell—dainty
little Bell?”

A sunny lip rested on his for a moment.

“Be strong!” said little Bell.

A cloud of sun-light floated around Mortimer,
slipped down at his feet, and lost itself in the orange
stream which flooded the window.

“He is dreaming of Bell,” said Daisy, as she bent
over him—“dreaming of lost Bell!”

And she closed the door after her softly.

Then Mortimer's vision of sister Bell was a
dream? Perhaps it was not. Perhaps this real
world is linked more closely to the invisible
sphere than in our guesses. It may be an angel's
hand which touches our cheek, when we think
that it is only the breeze. ¿ Quien sabe? Who can
say that in sleep we do not touch hands with the
spirits of another world—the angels of hereafter?
And what may death be but an intellectual dream!—
Who knows?

Nobody knows. “But,” suggests the gentle reader,
“suppose you dispense with your Hamlet-like philosophy,
and go on with your story, like the pleasant
author that you are, instead of putting us to sleep,
as you have your hero.”

Reader, the hint was merited.