ROMANCE IN SEAL LIFE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2154, 20 January 1881, Page 3

ROMANCE IN SEAL LIFE.

[" Taranaki News."]

In the early days of the settlement, a young Cornish lad named John fell in love with a Cornish maiden named Margaret, and in process of time the two determinod to be married. Tho Wesleyan missionary tied tho knot in a homely edifice of rushes, and in a very homely sort of way. John could not read, and signed with a cross ; Margaret was no scholar, and signed tho marriage form with a cross ; their two witnesses were illiterate, and also signed with crosses; and the parson forgot to attach his name to the document. The wedded pair went forth and commenced the business of married life. They wore both sober and industrious, but Margaret having by far the most brain power was master. They had a small and fertile £ar"i near the mouth of the Waiwakaiho, now, aluo, covered with sand, where they depastured their cows and pigs, kept their poultry, made their butter, cut their hay, and grew their vegetables and fruits. Carts were luxuries in those doys that only the wealthy could indulge in, but Margaret, nothing daunted, and strong and willing to work and succeed, drove her butter to market in a wheelbarrow, and drove home in the same vehicle goods necessary for her household, whilo John was out earning money and while tho elder children shepherded the babies. The lease of thoir little farm expiring, and having saved a little money, these industrious people removed to Wanganui, and there they became posaeasfld of property which is now worth about £7OOO. We aro sorry to say that tho happiness of this pair did not keep pace with tho increase of their wealth. A few years ago they separated, John returning to Cornwall and Margaret slaying at Wanganui. Recently it came to Margaret's oars that John was comfortably settled near to Bodmin, that he had taken to himself another wife, and that ho was getting around him another family who would probably bo mado the possessors of tho wealth that Margaret had bo diligently labored to help him to obtain. After hearing this newß the onergotio Margaret could not rest. The idea of another woman and another woman's children reaping tho results of her life-long labors to the deprivation of her own children wna more than sho could bear. She accordingly paid a brief visit to New Plymouth to gather together tho scanty proofs of her marriage to John, and departed by the last steamer en route to England. In three months hence what a happy meeting there will be in tho neighborhood of Bodmin,