Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1904 — HIS STORMY WOOING [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HIS STORMY WOOING

...By... IZOLA L. FORRESTER

Copi/righU ISOS, by T. C. McClure

“Then it Is ‘No’ again?” MacDowell’s voice was reflective and regretful. He did not look at the small, erect figure in brown linen sitting in solitary state on the old fallen log among the pine needles. The serious hazel eyes regarded him with a calm, disinterested independence that was exasperating. “It is always ‘No.’ This is the fourth time.” “Three and a half.” There was a flash of mischief in her quick smile. “You only got as far as a lifetime of devotion last time, and Mr. Tisdale came for his waltz. When will you try again?” “Never!” His voice was quiet. She could not see his face. “I give up the fight I think that even you will grants I have made a hard one for the cause, and since it is hopeless I shall leave Arleigh.” “For the summer?” She dug the point of her parasol a trifle viciously in among the innocent pine needles. “No. Indefinitely. I expect to go to Japan on business and from there

will merely drift anywhere. It does not matter so long as I do not drift into Arleigh harbor and try again—for the fourth time.” She did not answer. There was a new tone in his voice that troubled her, a tone of cynicism and finality. She looked off at the broad half moon of the bay and shivered at the sudden chill In the air since the sun had gone down. The sea looked gray, with long wreaths of swirling white foam where the tide was coming in fulL There was a dull, low roar to the breaking waves on the beach below, and the anchored yachts out in the bay were tugging and straining like restive horses as the swell plunged them to and fro. “We had better go back,” MacDowell ■aid presently, turning to her. “There is a storm coming up.^

“I like a storm.” She took off her hat rebelllously and fastened It with the pins to the log. The wind caught her hair and blew It in a brown veil across her eyes, and she held It back, laughing as she looked up at him. “You may go if you wish.” He frowned and threw himself down on the ground near the edge of the bluff. “I suppose that Is one reason why I love you,” he said bitterly. “You are so charmingly tractable. You always do as I say.” “There is no necessity for sarcasm.” The little square chin tilted higher. Miss Dunderdale felt indignant “You always wish me to do something that I don’t want to do. And you are—are masterful.” She brought out the hateful word solemnly, and he shrugged bis shoulders. There is something most annoying in a person shrugging bis shoulders at you when you want to argue. It Implies mental superiority and an impregnable stand. She closed her lips tightly. She would not say another word. He could go to Japan or the moon. It was a matter of the utmost indifference to her. She turned away from the stalwart figure on the ground and looked off at the storm clouds racing up from the breast of the sea on the horizon, her chin on her palm, one small foot swinging to and fro expressively as she reviewed the case of Hugh MacDowell. There were Just thirty-seven good and excellent reasons why she should marry him. Cecil knew all thirty-sev-en by heart. They were rehearsed to her with faithful exactitude by an anxious bevy of sisters and cousins and aunts. And there was but one reason why she should not. She did not choose to. To Cecil the one reason was sufficient and outweighed all the good and excellent thirty-seven. To the anxious bevy it was a foolish and willful obstacle set up before one of the happiest chances fate ever offered a girl. MacDowell was twenty-nine—a traveled man of the world, with a generous fortune back of him, who had come from his globe trotting cultured, broad minded and cosmopolitan, with his native American point of view still fresh and optimistic. Cecil’s elderly relatives dwelt loving on these points. Her younger ones veered to the outward and visible signs of grace and said the tall, six foot wooer was handsome and altogether desirable. That was just it. He was too desirable. He was faultless. Ever since he had come down to Arleigh, Cecil had felt herself lifted bodily by fate, assisted slightly by the anxious bevy, and thrown at his head and heart. Any other man in his position would have courteously and diplomatically avoided the snare. He had walked into it, eyes open, lips smiling and arms extended to receive fare's girt. tvnerefore the gift, with faithful feminine contrariness, declined being received. There was a~sudden vivid glare that ripped the heavy mass of clouds from end to end and a long crashing peal’ of thunder like cannon. . The sea seemed to swell and leap to meet the sky. The boughs of the pines lashed up and down like fragile breeze blown ferns as the wind swept over them. At the second crash Cecil rose and turned instinctively to the trees for shelter, but the gale caught her, and she would have fallen only for MacDowell’s firm clasp of her arm. Almost instantly the whole world of land and sea and sky seemed on fire, and she shrank back into his arms with a cry of fear as a bolt struck a kingly pine that towered above its brothers a few yards away and left it a blasted, smoking ruin. Before she could recover herself he had lifted her in his arms and gained the path that led down over the face of the bluff. “We can’t get to the shore,” she exclaimed. “The tide is in.” “Put your arms around my neck and keep still,” he answered curtly. “We can’t stay up here.” She obeyed in silence, and he made his way down -the path. What had been a smooth stretch of sand was now a swirling mass of low breakers. MacDowell paused an instant for breath as he reached it and looked down at the face on his shoulder. Her eyes were closed. A wild impulse seized him, and he bent and kissed her. The next Instant he was knee deep in the waves, struggling in the teeth of the gale to where the shore curved and safety lay, and he fancied that the arms around his neck were clasped closer than before, although the eyes were still closed and the face was white and still. The waves leaped and snarled with a hissing roar at his feet like a pair of hungry wolves, and he was forced to stop again and again and lean back against the bluff as the wind beat down on him. The burden in his arms grew heavier with every dragging step, but at length the beach shelved and broadened, and he staggered up the higher ground in safety and laid her down under the shelter of the overhanging rocks. The first wild fury of the storm had passed, and only a faint rumble of distant thunder broke the stillness. She opened her eyes and looked up at him as he knelt beside her. Something new In their hazel depths seemed to answer the cry of his heart, and he raised two small cold bands to his lips. “Cecil,” he asked, “must I go?” The first soft gleam of midsummer moonlight was casting a path of silver scales on the water when they reached the hotel veranda. The soft, delicious music of a mandolin orchestra came through the bright lighted windows, and they paused a moment in the shadow of the clinging vines to look back at the sea. “I knew you would try the fourth time,” she said laughingly as she raised her face to his. “Japan is so far away!”

THE BURDEN IN HIS ARMS GREW HEAVIER WITH EVERT DRAGGING STEP.