Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1916 — A FATHER'S RIGHT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A FATHER'S RIGHT

By HAROLD CARTER

(Copyright. 1916. by W. G. Chapman.) The interview was naturally an embarrassing one, but Roger Lewis had never had a moment’s doubt of the result. He was a young lawyer, with a good practice; his antecedents were irreproachable. And old Andrew Bannister was a gentleman. Roger was therefore hardly able to believe his ears when old Andrew curtly refused his permission for the engagement. f “I’ve seen this coming for a long time, sir!” he thundered. “And I knew from the beginning that you had wormed your way into my house in order to steal my only child away from «ae. "But, Mr. Bannister,” protested Roger, “surely it is not stealing to fall in love with —” “Bah! Don’t talk of love to me!” interpolated the old gentleman bitterly. “You shall never marry my daughter, or I cast her adrift. Leave my door, and never darken it again! ” Certainly old Bannister had always been a little queer, but Roger could imagine no reason for this brutal selfishness. Amy listened to his account of the interview in amazement. She went direct to her father. “What have you been saying to Roger?” she asked. “Roger? You mean Lewis, that impudent Jackanapes Chat dared to propose for your hand!” “But, father, I him. What have you against him?” “I will not be bulldozed by you, Amy!” stormed the old man. “I will dbt permit you to think of the scoundrel. He makes love to you without asking my leave. He —” “If he had gone to you first, father, I should have had nothing to do with him,” said Amy firmly. “You will have nothing more to do with him. You can choose between

us. You can marry that young scoundrel, or you can remain at home, instead of bringing your father’s' gray hairs in sorrow to his grave." Amy began to weep. She lekt the room and thought her probleih out. ’And it seemed to her that her first duty was to her father. Roger and she were both young; she was an only child, and her father loved her in his way. He had had a hard life until late years. There had always been unfulfilled hopes which had tormented him He had lived a narrow, straightcut life.. He had made bitter sacrifices to duty. In the end Amy wrote to Roger, telling him that their engagement must be postponed until she was able to bring her father to reason and discover where the trouble lay. But she pined all that summer, and, once or twice, meeting Roger in the street, she was hardly able to resist his entreaties that she consent to an elopement. Her father, too, was growing stranger than ever. At last Roger called at the house again. He went straight into Mr. Bannister’s study. “I am going to marry your daughter, whether you like it or no,” he said. ‘‘lf you have anything against me, let's have it out now.” To his astonishment, he fancied that he saw a look of approval in the old man’s eyes. But it passed instantly, and old Bannister raved and stormed at him. In the -end he found himself outside, with nothing accomplished, and a deeper enmity between hiinself and his future father-in-law. Thp next day a despairing little letter came from Amy. “Roger, help me!” it began. “I am sending this by the cook, who brought me my dinner. Father has gone out of his mind. He induced fne to enter the attic this morning, and then he turned the key on me. He has had bolts put on the door, and I am a prisoner hero —and this is the twentieth century! Save me, and I will marry tyou at once!” Roger read the letter in horror, and

then he understood. Of course, the old man’s mind had been slowly failing. He must be crazy. It would do no good to start habeas corpus proceedings. —He must rescue the girl and take her away. A reconnoitering visit that afternoon disclosed, first, an eager face and a fluttering handkerchief at a top window; next, old Bannister himself, armed with a gnn, and pacing up and down the lawn. Roger waited till dark before putting his plans into effect. His observations had disclosed to him a gardener’s ladder, left by chance in such a way that it reached up toward the “maiden in the tower.” Ascending that unobserved, he believed that he could stretch up his arms and pull Amy down to safety. At dark he started out in his auto. The house was a little way outside the town limits. It was a lonely neighborhood, and this left him more freedom to deal tactfully with the situation. He left the auto at the back of old Bannister’s little garage, and made his way toward the back of the house. The ladder was still there. Unobserved, as he believed. Roger set foot upon the lowest rung, and soon he was tapping at the window pane above. Amy opened the window with a little ery of joy. She was fully dressed, and carried a bag in her hand. “I knew you would come, dearest," she whispered, and her arms clung to his neck. Very carefully he lifted her down to the top rung of the creaking, swaying ladder, and thence, rung by rung, down to the ground. A moment later they were creeping i through the darkness toward the hidJ den auto. Now the girl was inside, and Roger j was desperately cranking when a sud- | den shout rang out behind him. It was old Bannister, and he was rushing toward them. In his hand was the glint of a revolver. Roger leaped into the auto and I started away as the frenzied old man drew near. He sped down the road toward the boundary of the state, ten miles away, where a marriage could be performed without the formality of a license.

But he had hardly left the house behind him when old Bannister’s auto was heard chugging along behind him. Now ensued a weird race through the shadows. Roger let her out to the limit. As he ran his mind revolved about a friend of his, a young minister, who would certainly perform the ceremony, even in his pajamas. But it was hard to throw the old man off the scent. The rattletrap behind never failed to indicate its presence In their neighborhood. Faintly the old man’s cries came to their ears. But now the state line was crossed, and at length Roger, with Amy clinging to him in terror and joy, had thrown the pursuers off the track among the houses and winding streets of the suburban town. Roger dashed toward his friend’s house. He pulled up, left the auto at the doorstep, and hammered vigorously upon the door. It opened, and the Rev. Hugh Hughes—in his pajamas—stood confronting them, while in the distance a rattle, rattle indicated the approach of the enemy. “How soon can you marry us?” demanded Roger. “Instantly,” said the Rev. Hugh Hughes. “Come in.” “And as the blows of Mr. Bannister's fists upon the door reverberated through the house, Amy was saying “f Will” The Rev. Hugh Hughes opened the floor. “You’re too late,” he said to Mr. Banister. The old man strode forward and surveyed the Couple with an intensely self-satisfied smile. “Bless you, then —bless you,” he chuckled, gripping Roger by the hand. “It’s hard to lose an only daughter, but, by heck, I’ve got what every father wants when he lets her go." “What’s that?” demanded Roger in amazement. “Fatherly privileges—stern refusal -—desperate elopement—forgiveness,” answered Bannister in a breath.

Old Bannister Himself, Armed With a Gun.