Short Story.

Lake County Press, Issue 906, 12 April 1900, Page 7

Short Story.

I7ia£da!en vViimoPs's Love Story.

—-«►. Bv A. J. DAWSON, In the "Weekly Sun."

Now. the heart of the girl was pure and wiiite. though its range of vision was narrow. .\nd this was the whole of her love story. All through the long. Iml dazzling cummer months, when the sea. was so bine, and tin 1 crests id' the breakers so white, ifJhi one could hardly bear to look. or»t at them from the sandy beach. Magdalen W'ihnore ami the tall, fair man had been together. Hadyn Yalyard. His very name frightened her. when she whispered it to herself in the night time, sitting at the little open window, through which blended oddly, there panne the smell of the creamy breakers, and the faint perfume of great, glossy magnolias. The name seemed to Magdalen, like the man. so much a thing of another world than hers. It seemed suggestive of some life strangely different from the quiet, decorous Puritanism in which she bad grown from babyhood to girlish beauty, and from that, to more beautiful budding womanhood Fvcii during this summer which, for her health's sake, she had spent so far from tiie quiet Xew York home, and its even round of unchanging insignificance : even here she had been disinclined to allow any one to see that portion of her life spent by the sea. which was really till the summer had mean! to her. She had felt instinctively that the <dear. while light, which tilled the little house of the friends with whom she lived, was not the light to throw upon Hadyn Yalyard. or her friendship with him—the friendship which had tiegun, site hardly knew how. on the beach ami which had been solely of the beach and ihe sunshine. In imagination she saw the raised eyebrows and the frigid distrust with which these rjuief, one-minded friends of her quiet, one-minded family would receive Hadyn Valyard if she brought him to their home. So always, when she had entered the little house for the night she had spoken of the sandy bench, the sea. and the sunshine, and le>r that day's enjoyment of them all : but of Hadyn Yalyard she had said nothing. Yet the beach and sunshine would have seemed very little things to Magdalen without this golden-bearded man. with his wild, blue eyes, :i \ which she dared not look. But with it all. she was afraid of him. and had said. " Xo" when he knelt at her feet under the waving palms that, fringed the white beach. and prayed her. with tears in his strong voice, to be bis wife. His fascination she had strongly felt, but at tin's question of marriage she had told herself that there was someMilng in him wanting to make him really of her life : and she had refused. He had sworn that he would make himself of her life—that he would remove that difference—hut she had sighed, incredulous, though, to soothe him. promising to meet him on the beach once more when a week had passed. And now she sat in the shade of the great rock they had called "our rock." waiting for hini. Afterwards, she could nere-r any whether. In the shade of the rock, she ha.' slept ami dreamed, or whether she had really lived ; * all. but it seemed to Magdalen that the golden-bearded man came and sat bv her side under the surf-beaten reek, it seemed that as they sat there she said. " Hadvn. tell me a store !" Thmi she t'ioi:~T)t she felt the blue eves, with their .w ! ld, untamed light.!urn towards her as Hadvn Valvard said "There is ,-, store, but - - Xo. I ,1-,-e net !" And she ■■.;,!, "Yes. please ! Please. Hadvn. !•->]' me that sfory !'* Then she tVmgh* Hadyn Vnlvard h-i'l raised hi« .»lhow fro-m the hollow it had made In the sand. and. laying one of his strong hands on her arm. had said : "Child, there was once a merman, living wilh other mermen and m'ermaids under the blue water out yonder, where the sun catches crest of the outside breaker." II: seemed fo Magdalen that the sun was within an hour of setting.

"The merman lived very happily. Magdalen—very happily—as mermen and mermaidens mosflv do. They have no little laws of must and must not. and appearances count for nothing under the sea. To be happy is to be good out yonder. Magdalen, so benighted are the children of the sea ! And pleasure there 1« not counted a sin. "On a foundation of love and happiness fliey regulate their own lives, but. tihey do not. seek to regulate each other's lives ; and if one does not understand another he regrets his o-wn want of wisdom rather than the other's lack of anything. The mermen and women have no culture, you see. "Well, as T said, this merman lived Very happily, loved by. and loving many, and holding that life was a thing to enjoy. One little mermaid. Magdalen, he loved more than all the others: and this little golden-haired sea girl loved him as she loved no other. There came a morning when the surge of the green water seemed to whisper some "new story : and the rainbow light on the spray, that flies from crest to crest on the surface, suggested fo the merman thoughts which had never before been his.

"The little golden-haired mermaid laughed happily at him as thev swam about together beyond the breakers ; but he felt In some strange, new wav removed from her. and the fe.ding' hurt him. So strongly did if grow upon him that, as the morning wore on. he drifted away from the golden-haired mermaid, and his other friends, and swam on and on till lie was closer fo the shore than he had ever before ventured. "Then, as he lay idly floating in the surf, he saw standing on the white beach before him a girl—a beautiful girl of the world which was then a closed book to him. He raised himself in the water, and. gazing admiringly at the beautiful girl, he realised for' the first time in his life that—that he was a merman. The girl seemed to 'him more beautiful than anything his eyes had ever seen, and as he watched \u>v from his place in the surf there came over him a great wave of desire—-longing—-to be something better, nobler, higher than a merman. 110 longed to become one of the same creation as this beautiful girl. and. being of her order, to woo her. and win her. for his love, his wife. "This was what he longed for. and, as the girl turned and walked away from the beach, he put his longing to one side, establishing in place of it determination. Acting on his determination, he swam along the sea-front for some distance, and then, stepping out ot the creamy surf on to the white beach, he became a man. and. in appearance. of the same order of creation as the beautiful girl whose name—was Madeline !" Magdalen Wilmore shivered in thp

shadow of the great rock as Hadyn Valyard said this. " In a little while he found the beautiful girl, and became known to her, having first spent some time in studying the ways of her world in order that it might not appear how strange to him was her life. " Madeline, the beautiful girl, though phe did not understand it, yet saw the difference, the something which made her life strange to the merman ; aVI, lest others who were of her life should sec the same strangeness, she hid carefully ihis friendship she had formed, hardly confessing, even to herself, that it was to her a delight. "She found the merman, who was outwardly a man of her life, full of knowledge of a world she know not of, and rich in strange lore of the great white-crested sea, across which she locked longinglv but unknowingly. She found his most ordinary thoughts were of things with which she was all unfamiliar : and tin* frightened her. she rearing what she lid not know. Hut the man fascinated her. perhaps because he loved her so. " Tlnm there came a day when, ill the warm sunshine of the beach, the man suddenly full: that he could no longer hide his heart, and. kneeling at beautiful Madeline's feet, he told her of his love. and praved her to be bis wife. Madeline trembled, for she loved the man. but all in her .thai- did not know rose in her heart, struggling against love, and made her whisper, ' No : glamour is evanescent, and love is eternal ! This is glamour. He is not of my life, so that there must be something in him lacking, or something that "should not be there. No !' "The man from the sea felt sick at heart. h\V he said. ' Madeline. I will be of your life ; am! there shall be in me nntiiing that is strange to you! Madeline, let me sec you again in a little while ami ask of you something (hen ! " For a moment love triumphed in Madeline's heart, over that which did not know: and. acceding to the man s request she bowed her head. So they parted for a while, the merman vowin- to himself that he wouW crush into the narrow limit of the life familiar to her ail the wide freedom the sprayscented brightness, which had made his life hanpv.'in order to obtain the someThing \vliich made her different from '" U l>av succeeded day. and the man found'how muifli the merman must lose --ive up- to come within the beautiful clri's compass, lie shivered sometimes, but lie loved her. and he swore to pay ■the m-ice. no matter what, to woo her nnd win her for his own. "When the time of separation rwas nearly ended, the merman sat 'in the evening at an open window overlooking the surf that bubbles between the inshle breaker and the white beach. Tie was Watching the sun sink into the sea, nnd he was faint ami weary with the effort he had made to exchange his free mermanhood for a man's; superiority. \s be sat there, resting, and dreaming of the beautiful Madeline he had sworn •to win for his own. certain sounds came softly floating In at the window, and fell upon 'his reefing mind like sweet rain upon a parched green thing. His eyelids fell, and he sat listening in a dream. "Other wieii of Madeline's world sat by him there : but. they heard nothing. for the sounds were of strange, sweet music floating in from the blue water out beyond the farthest breaker—the music of a 'life unknown to them. The sweetness of it made the merman faint, 'in his dream: lost suddenly he started from'his seat wirh ryes 0:1 fire, and his *wo hands flew to his throat, as lie leaned, listening, through the window. hmi tin 11s the salrness of the spray. •• Amongst ihe sounds that floated to him from over i'he surf was i>ue and more far away than the others, and that, he told him- If. was the vice of the little, golden-haired mermaid who. in that other life, had been all in all to him. She had never gazed as though seeing in him strangeness, but only with j happy, trust-ins eyes of sunny bloc : and she had pleaded, never saying him nay. ami happy with him. always. "As the merman leaned, listening. Ihrousrh the window, and drawing d-ep breaths from the sea, a little. Hying, rainbow-tinted cloud of spray flew up from fhe surf through the rays of the ■sinking sun. and spinsiied across his hot face. ( ling, but blinding him. Then. speaking no word, the merman stopped out through fne open window, down across the smooth. White beach, and to 'the edge of the creamy surf-line. There, as he paused, the music floating to the shore was clearer and sweeter in his cars than before, and even the fainter voice of the little golden-haired mermaid, with its plaintive ring of sadness, seemed closer clinging round his heart, as it was actually nearer to his body. " H<> turned from the sea and looked towards the place where he had Bat wirh beautiful Madeline ; nnd then, in him, his first great longing took the place of his determination. When he looked he saw only a little group, -standins by the open window he had left, of the men who were of Madeline's world. And on their faces he seemed to see Tittle smiles, half of wonder at his strangeness, and half of conscious superiority. As he watched them the great longing -in the man gave place to another greater longing in the merman—for the sounds of music were more clear and sweet—and so lie turned again, and stepped into the creamy surf. " Then he pause*! a moment, and as lie paused it seeimed to him that from the shore came softly the 'sound of a sigh—a sigh from beautiful Madeline. But the hesitating sound of the sigh died doubtfully away in a pleading strain of sweetness from beyond the breakers ; and the merman gave a little cry of weariness and hunger as he plunged headlong into the fide, which was running out—out to the blue surface and the green depths from which the music floated."

Magdalen mored uneasily in her seat beside the great rock, and her eyes wandered up and down fhe white beaioh, as In search of something. Then she Started to her feet, I'iistoning. with her golden head bent towards the sea. Ft seemed to her that she could hear sounds of music, faintly stealing in towards the shore ; and 'then—a little cry of weariness. Iladyn Yalyard she oould not see, and he did not come aga'in !