Marriage a Failure.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 341, 9 February 1889, Page 5

Marriage a Failure.

Wjs were winding down one of the mountain toads of Tennessee iv a carb drawn by a mule. The land was barren, the cabins no better than hovels, and it was a query how people made a bare living or were content i o stay. By-and-by we came to a turn in the road where there was a trough to water horses and mule?, and the cabin'of a settler. This cabin was the poorest of all, and nothing around it indicated that the owner made an attempt to cultivate the soil. We reached the place just in time to witness a tableau. A woman, poorly dressed, and her face bearing the look ot one who had seen worry and suffering, .^tood near the trough, and a satchel filled wish clothing lay on the ground beside her. Five feefc away stood her husband, a burly, toughfaced mountaineer, and he held a switch in his hand. Neither minded us as we drove up, and it was a full minute before the husband said — ' Mary, 1 11 wallop ye.' ' Jim, ye dasn't,' she replied. ' Mary, yecarn't leave me nohow.' ' Jim, I'm gwine to do it. I've starved and suffered till I'm clean gone. I'm going home.' 'AJary, ifye don't take up that satche and march in I'll wallop ye eood and stout.' There were two of us beside the diiver. The woman looked up and scanned our faces, as if to judge how far she might count onour help, and the diner said— ' 'Taint rulable for strangers to mix in, Mary, and Jim's gob a knife and would kill s-omebody. Better go in.' ' Never,' she hitsed. ' It you don't,' said the husband, as he came a step nearer, c I'll make the fur fly. Take that.' J With a swish he brought the switch down across her shoulders and raised ib again. She siood stock still for a minute and looked him in the eye, and then walked into the ho\el. 'Rayther peart, but the gad will cure her,' grinned tho husband as he drew the switch through his fingers. His triumph was phort-lived. In sixty seconds JVJary re-appeared. She had the mountaineer's heavy rifle in her hands, and as she came out she raised it on a line with the man's heart. 1 Jim, 1 want ye to git.' ' No-o. ' 1 Sartin.' 'Shoo. Can't do it.' 'Click, click.' ' Mary, what yer gwine to do ?' 'Kill ye like a wolf in yer tracks if ye don t walk away.' ' Whar' ta ?' 'Nobody keers. Go sum what* I—keep1 — keep goin 11 — don't never come back. Hurry up for I'm goin' down on the catr.' He looked into her eyes and saw the change. Poverty and brutality had come to an end. Love had turned to disgust, and in place ot fear was such bravery as he would not lu-ue looked for in any on the load. He saw 'shoot 'in her eye's, but he still hesitated. ' Mary, drop that rifle,' he whispered. • Jim, git. If you are here when I've finished counting t\\ enty I'll kill you as sure as there's a God in Heaven.' He had begun packing away. When he had gone a hundred he halted, wheeled about, and after a long look muttered - ' Wall, by j.osh, Maiy, let's make up.' 'Keep a-gittin', Jim,' she replied, as she btill coveied him with the rifle. In five minutes he was out of sight up the toad. The woman placed the gun and satchel in the cart, walked into the hovel to be gone two minutes, and when she came back to the carb and took a seat with us, flames were creeping through a hundred crevices between the dry logs. Without a word she climbed in, and only once during the five-mile ride did .^he utter a word. At a bend in the road she looked back at the pi i amid of smoke and flame wrought by her hands, and said, as if to herself— 'Jim didn't know Mary, Jim didn't.'

Mmphy, the light- weight boxer from Auckhind, has again been distinguishing himself in the South. Murphy and T. Williams, of Christchurch, met in a glove tight in the Princess Theatre, Dunedin, la?t Saturday evening. A considerable sum of money depended on it From the start Murphy foiced the fighting, and had all the best of it, Williams being unable to stand against him, and allowing h mself to be rushed on to the ropes. Claims of iouls weie made several times for Murphy hitting his man on the rooes, and in the fourth round the referee, "named Fannin, gave the tight against Murphy. A scene of great concision ensued. Murphy struck the referee, and the crowd rushed the stage. The stakeholder paid over the money"to William", and afterwards applied for police protection against Murphy. The "Pall Mall Budget" says :— " Here are the b'nal figures of the municipal elections, as given by the Liberal 'Daily News' and the Tory 'Times' respectively : — Liberal gains : ' Daily News,' 81 ; ' Times,' 74. Tory gains : ' Daily News,' 63 : ' Times,' 71. Net Liberal gains : ' Daily News,' 18 ; ' Times,' 3. The very bes', theiefoie, that can be 'made out for the Tories is that they have only lost three seats. Does Mr Balfour still think that his party ' ha* e\ery reason,' on the Fcore of these icsull.?, 'to congratulate itself on thq. way it is making ip the countiy ? "