VILLAGE IDYLL ENDED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17889, 17 September 1921, Page 2 (Supplement)

VILLAGE IDYLL ENDED.

BOY AND Glß|» LOVERS. 1 A NIGHT IN THE BAIN. The boy and girl lovers who ran away together from their homes at Weybridge, England,'were discovered after a week's absence. For most of the time the lovers had been staying with the boy's uncle and aunt in a thatched cottage in the pretty little Wiltshire village of Slanghterford. There, on returning with water from the village pump, the boy and girl found their fathers waiting for them. A week previously, Nora Kathleen Neal, aged 14 years and eight months, and Sydney Frank Tilbury, nearing 18, left Weybridge together. Nora was an only child. She was attending St. James' school, and lived in the same street as Tilbury. It was said that she tried twice previously to leave home, but was ordered back to bed. The two young lovers turned up the following morning at the Slaughterford cottage occupied by Tilbury's uncle and aunt, and Mr. and Mrs. Hand. Sydney said they had come down for a short holiday. They appeared to enjoy their stay, and were often seen walking through the country lanes arm-in-arm. Mrs. Hand suspected nothing amiss* until she learnt from the boy that they had both run away from home. She at once wrote to her sister, Mrs. Tilbury, at Weybridge, and,informed her that the young couple were staying with her.

Two days later, Sydney and his sweetheart left the village, saying they would return to Weybridge. But they started to walk to Bristol, and spent the night in the open air. To Mrs. Hand's great astonishment they reappeared at Slaughterford about 10 o'clock the following morning, their clothes soaking wet from the rain that fell durng the night. Later in the day, the fathers of the runaways came in a taxicab from Chippenham. The boy and girl were then away drawing water from the village pump. A few minutes later they walked' up the cottage path carrying a bucket of water, unaware that their parents were awaiting them. They looked the picture of health, both being very sunburnt, Sydney with his long dark hair blowing in the breeze, stud Nora with her dark brown bobbed hair.