A COLONIAL ENOCH ARDEN.

Evening Star, Issue 3150, 25 March 1873, Page 2

A COLONIAL ENOCH ARDEN.

The name of Abernethy is familiar throughout the globe, ami a romantic incident has happened in youth Australia that will make it prominent amongst the topics of the day, for some time to come. It appears, that last year, a man bearing this name, went out in a small boat on an excursion, leaving his wife an I family to expect him at home in the evening ; but night came, and the anxious wife sat up into the small hours, vainly expecting him home. Days passed, and the melancholy fate of the boatman was the subject of the usual paragraphs in the papers. The boat had been capsised and sunk, and the unfortunate Abernethy had been drowned, leaving the wife and small family to mourn his loss. The bread-winner had been taken away, leaving them in straightened circumstances, so public subscriptions came to the relief of the widow and the fatherless. As months passed on, the weeds were duly laid aside, when another suitor wooed and won the sufferer by the sad accident at sea. The second honeymoon had passed, and the newly wedded pair had settled down into tranquil connubial felicity ; when lo ! the sound of strangely familiar footsteps were heard approaching the cottage door, and Abernethy, the lost and drowned husband stood before her ! Was it his ghost, or had the Spiritists played a trick upon her ? No, it was the real flesh and blood of her first and only legal husband. He had been driven out to sea by the gale in which ho was supposed to have perished, and having been picked up by a merchantman, bound to India, he was carried to Calcutta, where, after enduring several hardships, he managed to work his way to Adelaide, intending to give his wife an agreeable surprise. They wore both surprised, and the curious com [dications of the case can be better imagined than described.