The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-08-05

records of nearly 10000 Gretna marri-
ages. now scarcely more than a mass of
shreds. but still quite leCible. and on in
mum berable occasions worth in Scottish
and English courts, far more than their
weight IN gold Then the transcript
records were examined. These place at
. glance in chronological order every mar
rIaEe recorded IS performed by old Paisley
and the three Lalngs, down TO the present
time.
Entirely aside from my professional
zeal IN our clients cause, what an inter-
est and fascination were there in these
silent reminders of the romances, the
Weu-nlgh tragedies of the past. And be-
sides, what mOmentOus pages were here
written in the lives of not only the lowly,
but Of the proud aristOcracy of England
and scotland,
rom the first romantic Gretna marriage
of the lovelorn Cumberland couple, John
Edgar and Jean Scott. who barely es-
capped with their lives, from their Zero
clous pursuers across the tempest
tossed Solway, in l77l, down 10 the Cum
berlaHd couple who had been married by
the old rascal before me only the day pre-
Ce1lng my visit, there danced before my
aStOnished eyes the names of the noble
and great, in their own handwriting, set
where they had so strangely sealed the
fates of such as Thomas. Lord Erskine
with Sarah Buck; Edward COnroy with
Lady Alacia Parsons, daughter of the Earl
of Ross; John George Hampton. grand
father of the present Lord Durham. with
Miss Cholmundley; Edward Gibbon,
Lord Wakefield, with Ellen Turner, for
which Lord Wakefield suffered two years
Imprisonment, his hasty made spouse
being way of the chancery court,
which brought the noble wooer within
punishable contempt; Lord William CO.
ventry with Mary Beaucliare and hun
dreds OF other couples, ancestors of the
best blood of Britain TO-DAY
soon found | was dealing with the
very incarnation of drunken thrift, saw
age ignorance, aggressive avarice and in
sensate brutality; all in the person of one
who never permitted eyes to rest on those
records save for both ''siller'' and gold:
who was cunning itself in all conceivable
mean eXpediencies to make my investiga-
tons the source of utmost DELAY and
profit, and who added to the unbeara bic
ness of my situation by compelling me to
witness such bnllyings and exquisitely
outrageous tormenting of his poor old
help-meet as rendered the memorable
Quiip a model of propriety in comparison.
In the first instance, | met cunning with
cunning, and eventually trimmed the
spurs of his venalIty by insisting that the
desired names were others than they
really were; that the marriage, whose
record | sought had probably occurred at
CoIdstream or some other harder town,
and that there could be no further object
In taxing his episcopal patience and my
own purse.
This threw the old ogre into fever of
fear least further profit should be lost.
Making oaths that he had seen the al
legged names among the records, l thus
east upon him the burden of anxiety and
leisurely followed him in his exciting
SearchlngS, until my own success had
been secretly established.
My resentment became more and more
intense. Besides, my compassion for the
victim of his endless brutalities was
fast taking on the nature of a personal
cause.
Her pitiful hopelessness sickened me
What, this side of death, could change
the wretched' husbands nature, or give
that helpless. desolate soul, who had min
istered her life long TO fiend without a
single tender response, one ray of tins
worlds light and brightness?
To a stranger the brutalities of the
wretch were as various as they were
blood curdling.
From morning until night he would
shrek out to her vituperative commands
and indignities, as if to merely give vent to
the raging excess of his own evil spirit.
She would start, pale, smile, and endeavor
In her feeble way to merit at least cessa-
tion of his maledictions. But her very
meekness and patience seemed to madden
him.
"Ye auld bodybuilding he would
shout with the face of demon. Mend
yer ways, or I'll let We grafel (grovel) as
fand ye" AS though the poor thing
would not have given her chance of
heaven to have been again, safe from his
clutches, the humble lassie that she once
was.
"Hoot !-iabbering body Who can un-
derstan' ye2" was as a loving endearment
to many of his outbursts and when the
broken life would pant and pause and
murmur I'm dee! I'll dee-Faith,
William, I'll dee!' he would roar as if
with savage anticipation and delight:
''Weel-dee! Gin yer gaun tae heaven,
We can tell EN- that we're all well at
Gretna,"
Sometimes out of the desperation of her
life she would seem to catch at the half
forgotten hope in prayer. Driven 10 this
extremity By his badgerings, she would
cry gut,
But maun just gaze doom tae tn gar
den, an say a bit wordies her suppli-
cation to the Father whose merciful ear
such pitiful pleadings must somehow
reach
This always threw the Bishop of
Gretna" into a momentary frenzy Bound
ing from the table like a nimble and spite
full gnome, he would seize her shake her.
tweak her, and leaves her, unless | was
quick enough to prevent this action. an
exhausted heap of gurgling despair, out
of which would brokenly and moanlngly
come;
''Ye ken, an ken, William; but Laird
God kens too"
Whereupon the broken life would creep
into The tiny kail-yard and mutter her
'bit wordies," reappearing at last a
groveling and smiling slave
If 1 would demonstrate with the old
reprobate, he would regard me at first
with savage effrontery But my stern
looks and real indignation would at last
effect response,
"Hootr' he would hoarsely whisper
with vicious leer. "'When l gat her
for my wife, l gat nae beauty Her
frieus ken gat nae siller. TIL mair
idiot I'd be if ha' ma grouk (watchful
care DER tn auld boho,"
must confess that my hatred of despi-
cable nature and the hopelessness of miti-
eating his wife's condition of living death.
prompted on my part many impulses of
petty revenge. I had been compelled to
yield to his direct demands for drink: to
his downright robberies to countless
ignorant, rufhanly insults, and TO the
more repulsive degradation of tolerating
his endless iendishness to his feeble old