Ladies' Column.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5092, 27 October 1894, Page 3

Ladies' Column.

< » SOME ECCENTRIC HONEVWSOONS. That there should exist a certain aleI msnt ot romance about honeymooning is I only of the tatural ard«r of things; bu'-.iu / some cp.siß, in addition fco the essential poetry of ' the specially happy period following a wedding, there havo occurred eircumstflnceo to render a honeymoon memorable above the average. Tnk<\ for instance, the case of a London omnibus driver, which ocsurred a few months ago. The man's life waa in itaelf intensely, though sadly, romantic. Born of a wealthy family, he had been well educated at a public school and at Oxford, and duly set about living his life as an independent man. But his wealth brought him too much leisure, which he elected to fill in the company of betting men and social blood-suokers. The turf claimed him by day, and the gaming tables by night. He lost money daily, and as ho lost plungad heavier to right himself, with the inevitable result that soon he loßt everything. He was a rained man, and had to give up his house, his horses, and his friends, and look about him for a living. At laat, after some difficulty, he managed, being a good driver, to obtain employment by an omnibus company, and he worked away zealously at his humble but honest labour. But the young lady to whom in his wealthy days he had been engaged, almost broken-hearted at hie ruin and subsequent disappearance (for he had not acquainted her with his new whereabouts), sought him out. She had an interview with him, and like the noble woman she was, told her lover she loved him as passionately as ever, and no adverse circumstances should ever make her give him up. He at first protested, but the upshot was that they were married in a North London churoh. His new wife had been disowned by her parents and wan penniless, and as the happy driver could nob afford to lose more than one day'a work, the few days of their honeymoon were spent on the box, he driving as usual, and she seated beside him on the box seat. At the time when the native tribes were causing our Indian Government some trouble among the Black Mountains, three or four years ago, a young English officer was, in an interval of peace, married to a young lady who had gone out to India with her brother for the purpose. The young officer had obtained a short leave, but two days after hiß wedding, disturbances among the natives broke out anew. Officers were smrce in that particular neighbourhood just at that time, and so, feeling it to be his duty, our hero nobly relinquished his furlough and placed himoelf at the head of his company, and proi ceeded to the thick of the fight. Filled with a terrible anxiety for his safety, hla young wife tore herself away from the house of those in which her husband had left her, and followed him. In one of the numerous skirmishes Fate decreed that he should bo wounded and conveyed to a temporary shelter in the mountains which had been rigged up for the accommodation of the disabled. There his young wife found him, and for days and nights sat by his bed of pain, tending him with infinite love, and gradually nursing him back to health and strength. Surely, a most strange place and means in which to spend a honeymoon. To spend the blissful period following marriage in a coalmine is surely extraordinary enough to chronicle here. Such a case occurred in Durham. A miner named Harvey having taken the opportunity offered by Sunday to get married, found his wife unwilling to pass the subsequent days alone. But a long striko had left his finances at a very low ebb, and he could not afford to lose a day's work. At the same time he was nnwilling for his wife to be tearful during his absence. So, like the honest man he was, he plucked up heart snd asked the foreman of the pit to allow him to take hia wife down the shaft, bo that she might be ne&r him. The permission was given, and for the first week the wife accompanied her husband to his work every day, and remained in the mine till his labour was done. But even more remarkable than the foregoing was the case' of a man who, having married a young lady in Liverpool, was met, on coming from the ohuroh, by two detectivei, who arrested him on a charge of forgery committed Borne years before. In due time his trial c&me off, and he was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. His conduct in the convict prison was extremely good, and at the end of about five years he was presented with a ticket of leave. Then, and not till then, did he take his wife, who was waiting for him with joyful tears at the prison gale, to his arms. His honeymoon was thus spent five years after the wedding had taken place. In the case of a young nobleman of a most retiring disposition, his honeymoon has lasted upwards of five years. Disliking ordinary society, he took his wife abroad, after their marriage in 1889, and has been travelling with her ever since. They have never lived at any one place for many weeks together Bince they were married, so their journeyinga may fairly be said to be a prolonged honeymoon.