The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1890-12-20

z claimed, with a frightened look. "Som
: way, suppose. Anything is better thai
being in that rock. You don't suppose
must go back the same way? ?" she cried il
| quick terror, worse than the thought o
the boiling sea beneath had given her
, "And if l don't they will never let IN,
, in any other way. And if they find out
am gone-T don't know why-I am talking
so-it is unreasonable" and as she looked
for help into the bright face of the youth
"a young giant of the north, strong and
wholesome, with his fair curls, his shining
eyes, his illuminating smile.
'Let me see, he said, swinging himself
up beside her. II don't suppose you
could let yourself down-my boat is of
there in the little blight"
"Oh, no, no, she cried, shrinking back,
her hand over her eyes.
"Then let us see what the cave means, y
he returned. Suppose we fasten this
ball of twine at the outside and pay it out
as we go along. We can come back if it
is too much for us, and he led the way,
she following him with innocent simplicity.
1t no more occurred to her to doubt this
young stranger than if she had seen pair
of seraph's plumes unfolding from his
shoulders.
As they went along he caught the twine
around one point and another of the jagged
rock, and where the way was dark he
struck light and where it was precipitous
he took her hand, and when they emerged
at last, after the dark passage, into clear
light in the fssure, it was all as plain to
her as the walk in an open field. They
rested at last under the overhanging and
projecting crag whose shadow had first
tempted her, and when they parted he
knew as much of her story as she knew
herself, and she knew that his was the
hand upon the organ that made the tim
bers of the old house vibrate and tremble
in response, and he had asked her if he
might climb the steps and meet her there
another morning. and she had given assent
gladly as brook pent in the dark leaps
into the sun and air.
Sometimes now on pleasant mornings
she found young Galbraith in the cleft of
the rock, he, North of Ireland lad, used
to the caves and crevices of the sea; some
times days went past ere she could escape
her sense of surveillance at the appointed
hour, and then, perhaps, she found left
there one missive and another that warmed
and cheered her heart and fed all the pulses
of her life. How sweet it was again then
when she found him there waiting and
eager, his face so bright with expectation
that her own lighted suddenly as a flame
with the Joy of seeing him. She could
not have told herself when they began to
love each other; it seemed to her that that
had always been, there never could have
been time when they were not parts of
each other Once, springing down the
rock that was slippery with the light hoar
frost of the autumn morning, he had held
his arms to meet her, she had thrown her
own about him. Once when they parted
he had bent down and kissed her mouth.
Once in speaking he had said casually:
"When we are married.
$50 YOU believe your mother will be
clad to have me come p she said.
as the thirsty earth glad of the rain p
he returned. "She will make you her own.
She has nothing but Inc. She has asked
me a thousand times when the day would
come that should bring home to her a
daughter, and l have told her when l could
draw one up out of the sea. And | have
done it. my mermaiden. And we will not
lineer too long. Shall | go back with you
today and tell your father who | am, or
shall write and ask p
ssOh, no, no, it would never do" she
cried, shuddering. 81 cannot tell you why.
do not know why. If he knew this |
should see you no more. If you went up
with me perhaps-pcrhaps you would never
come back again. Oh, what must you
think of me for speaking, for thinking ?
Out of what must you suspect | come
Out of what have | come? Indeed, in
deed, the last time that old charwoman
spoke must needs think that either she
or | was mad. or else that strange, dark
doings had their roots, like old fungi, in
the very beams of the house.
"Since this is So" he. said, "there is the
more reason for haste"
sNot Just today" she said. II must
think of it little while.
She did think of it a little while. She
had time to think of it great while too,
She never met her lover under that over
hanging crag again. When she went there
the next time boulder filed the crevice
and a solid wall sealed the opening Of the
narrow cleft beyond.
That she had been doing wrong, that
their meetings were clandestine, that there
was anything immodest in her demeanor,
ANYTHING presumptious in his, had never
once occurred to her. She had no home,
no life, no joy but in this love which three
months AGO had no existence. Hope and
happiness had made her heart light, her
step light. her voice came bubbling to her
lips in song wherever she went, her color
burned upon her cheek, her eyes shown
triumphant, her smiles made perpetual play
about her lips-she was resplendent.
"What does it mean ?" the father asked
himself. And then few days of close
observation and the boulder was in place,
the wall was built The surveillance Of
which she had been half conscious before
was perhaps but mild affair of self-pro
lection, that the counterfeiting of money
the receiving of STOLEN goods, the unloading
of smuggling boats, the doing of HEAVIER
knows what, need not be blundered on ig
norantIy; the high walls, the locekd gates
the absence of visitors from the town, al
, may have no other end, But now, from
/ being negative possibility of harm to b.
f guarded against, she had become positive
e force for harm, idly introducing stranger
f on the scene, and, worse than that, bafiin:
y the schemer that had been plotting in the
dark watches of the night while she slept
e There had come of late to her father
t table a man of middle age, with slight.
a foreign accent; maybe laughing fellow
S who had held Beltran in no awe and ap
peared to hold power over him held b.
t no other. All Heltran's silence did no
e silence him, the sinister sardonic smile di'
not hinder his own laugh, the weight