The Ogre and the Girl

• 1915
• Other, Drama

This Ogre was not he of the fairy tales, but a kindly wealthy man of forbidding face to whom those who did not know him gave the name. Tiring of loneliness he decided to marry, and wooed the Girl who lived at the foot of the hill. On account of his great wealth the Girl's parents encouraged his suit, but she shrank from him and sought the solitude of her beloved glens and brooksides. Here she encountered her ideal lover in the person of a young surveyor and to these two came love at first sight. Their wooing, however, was soon interrupted by one long discarded, who had come back from afar again to press his suit. A fight ensued between the two young men, in which the surveyor was seriously injured and the Girl had him taken to her home. A forest fire is started by the carelessly thrown matches of the Discarded One and the flames soon spread to the Girl's home. The Girl attempts to carry her lover to safety but fails. The Discarded One saves the Girl, but leaves his helpless rival to die, apparently. The lover is saved, but the Ogre discovers that it is his rival. He decides to destroy that life, and mixes in a glass all of the powders of a dangerous sleeping draught instead of one. The Girl, entering the room to resume her vigil at the bedside, the Ogre instructs her how to administer the draught. Just as she lifted the glass the Ogre repented and brushed the glass aside. When the lover recovered, he learned that the Girl was already preparing to fulfill her promise to wed the Ogre. The wedding day came and the guests were assembled in the great drawing room to witness the ceremony, when from the garden outside there came the discordant pandemonium of a mob, led by the Discarded One, who had organized a "shivaree." Stung to the soul by this untimely insult, the Ogre delayed the ceremony, rushed out into the garden, fired into the crowd and wounded the Discarded One. Then, when he submitted to arrest, returning to the drawing room, he placed the hand of the Girl in that of her lover and passed out into the night a prisoner. There was no ceremony that night, but two days later the Lover and the Girl were man and wife and the Ogre deeded to them his beautiful Castle as a wedding gift.