THE MIDDY'S BRIDE.

Patea Mail, Volume I, Issue 2, 27 October 1887, Page 4

THE MIDDY'S BRIDE.

Sir W. Scott use 1 to relate the following curious anecdote : My cousan, WTty Scclt, sa d he, was u midshipman some forty years ago in a ship at Portsmouth. He and two oil er companions had gone on shore oTerstaycti their len-re, spent a‘l their money, and rnn up mi iraturnsc bill at a tavern on the Point, The ship made the signal for sailing, but their landlady said, ‘No gentlemen, you shall not escape wiiliout paying your reckoiiinj,’ and she accompanied her words by appropriate actions and placed them outer the tender keej ing of a sufficient party of bailiff*. They felt they were in a scrape, and petitioned very hard to be released. * No, no,' said Mrs Quickly, ‘I must be satisfied one way or t’other ; you must b* well aware, gentlemen, that you will be totally ruined if you don’t get on board in lime.’ They made long faces, and confissed that it was but to tmo. ‘W\ 11, : said she, ‘l’ll give yon one chanec. I am so circumstanced here that I cannot cany on my business «s a single woman, and I must contrive somahow to have a husband, or, at all events, I must be able to prodme a marriage certificate ; and, therefore, the only terms on which you shall all three go on board to-morrow is that oao of you consents to many me. 1 d*u’t cats a pin which it is, but, by all that’s holy, ons of you I will have, or else you three go to gaol, and your ship sails without yon ’ “ The virago was not to be pacified ; and the poor youths, left to themselves, agreed after a time to draw lots, and it happened to fall on my cousin. No lime was lost, and off they inarched to church, and uiy poor relative was forthwith spliced. Till bride on returning gave them a good substantial dinner and several bottles of wine apiece, and having tumbled them into a wherry, sent them off. The ship sailed, and the young men religiously adhered to the oath «f secrecy they hail taken prev’ous to drawing lots. The bride, I should have said, merely wanted to be married,and was the first to propose an eternal separation. Some months alter at jamaica a file of papers reached the midshipmen’s berth, and Watty, who was observed to be looking over them carelessly, reading an account of a robbery and murder at Portsmouth, suddenly jumped np in an ccslacy and cried out, ’Thanks to god, my wife is hanged.’’’—Fr*m Tales of Travellers, January 1883.