"ENOCH ARDEN"-NEW STYLE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 66, 18 March 1905, Page 13

"ENOCH ARDEN"-NEW STYLE.

LONDON, February 10.The most "casual" individual -I have heard of for a long time is Mr John Root, sawyer and sailor, who used to live In the little village of Rayue, in Essex. Just nineteen years ago John bade his wife pack up some lunch for him, casually wished her "good morning," aud weut his way. He never returned; day's, months, and years went by, and nothing was seen or heard of him. His name, was forgot ton in the village, and even his wife had leafued t« think of him as one who was dead. But on Sunday last there arrived in too village "a great heavy-benrded man, with riugs in his ears, aud v strange, roll about who spoke mystciiously of foreign lands ho h;id visited, and of wondrous sights he had seen."' Needless to say. this was .louu Root, the absentee of nineteen long years. Almost the flrsi persuii he met was his wife, who had stayed ou with her children in the cottage wnere they lived when the husband disappeared. "Morning." he said to her. "Could you tell mc where Mrs Root lives?" "I am Mrs Root,' she replied, "aud live in the cottage yonder. What do you want, and who ace you?" "Oh," he replied, *I am John Root, your husband, whom you have not seen for twenty years." Here, surely, were all the elements for an affecting reunion, in keeping with the best traditions or melodrama. But truth is stranger thau the stage. John Root—for he it undoubtedly was—reinainel perfectly unmoved. "His manner," said his wife, "was just the same as ever, and ho might never have been away at all for all tie emotion he showed. I asked him into the house aud gave him some food. He ate heartily, and seemed mightily pleased with himself." Such was the home-coming: but the sequel is equally remarkable. John was introduced to his grown-up family, called on his mother-in-law, and explained that he had "been away. Been on the water a bit. Travelled a lot In ships." When his wife asked where he had been for the last nineteen years, all he said was "on the water round the coast and Main Asylum." Suddenly h <? ffot up, put on his cap. aud walked down the garden path into the load "Good-bye, Polly," he said, pleasantly to his wife, and then disappeared, casual to th_. last. Perhaps he went back to Main Asylum. At any rate be lias vanished, and deserted once more the unfortunate woman who is bound by law to recognise him as her husbaud.