A CURIOUS STORY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1906, 31 July 1888, Page 3

A CURIOUS STORY.

An extraordinary atory comes from Stirling. A newly-married oouple recently arrived there from Glasgow on their honeymoon, and tock up their abode In one of the leading hotel?, Two days later the bridegroom went out to post seme Inters and make enquiries about trains, .bat never returned. The police were Informed, and aearohed for him In vain, while the bride's father came and took her baok to hla homo., • Some dsya later Me Christie, the lessee of the shootings surrounding the Abbey Craig, discovered a bad of straw and bashes m a sequestered spot m that locality, which he immediately fancied must be the the resting-place of a mysterious individual iv evidently necessitous clronmatancea, whom he hid lately met frequently In the neighbourhood of the Craig. The next time he met him he charged him with the faot, which he admitted. Ha furred out to be the missing bridegroom, and he said that for nine night 3 running ho had slept m the place referred to, without any covering. He also averred that during the same period he had no food save a biscuit and a bottle of lemonade, which he got at the Wallace monument. He was very dirty, and a ten-shilling Waterbury watch represented the whole of his worldly wealth. On be'ng asked by the chief constable of S'irliog to explain his conduct, he said that he had woniiis bride on the strength of his being cashier at the office of a Glasgow shipbroker, whereas ho was only a clerk with a salary of £1 a week. His father-in law had acted very generously towards him, among other things, furnishIng a house for the yoang couple. To keep up the deception the bridegroom had gone to a firßt-alaaa hotel m Stirling, but being destitute of funds he had slunk off In the manner described. A doctor, who examined him, stated, his utter dlabelief of the fasting part of the story, and said that *;he follow was quite sane, aod probably more rogue than fool. He was allowed to return to Glasgow, and one would like to know what kind of reception ho met with from hia bride, her father, and his fellow clerks. Certainly the two former must have been very confiding persons, to say the least.