Part 10 (2/2)

”You promise that you will live with her, in sickness as well as health, and nourish, protect, and comfort her as your true and faithful wife; that you will be to her a true and faithful husband; that you will not get drunk, and will clothe yourself and keep clean?”

”So I will.”

”Never mind answering until I get through. You promise to abstain totally from every kind of drink that intoxicates, and treat this woman kindly, affectionately, and love her as a husband should love his wedded wife. Now, all of this will you, here before me as the servant of the Most High,--here, in the sight of G.o.d, in heaven, most faithfully promise, if I give you this woman to be your wedded wife?”

”Yes, I will.”

”And you, Matilda, on your part, will you promise the same, and be a true wife to this man?”

”I will try, sir.”

”But do you promise all this faithfully?”

”Yes, sir, I will.”

It was a woman's ”I will,” spoken right out with a good, hearty emphasis, that told, as it always tells, the faith and truth of woman, when she says, ”I will.”

”Then I p.r.o.nounce you man and wife.”

”Now, Thomas,” says the new wife, after I had made out the certificate and given it to her, with an injunction to keep it safely--”now pay Mr.

Pease, and let us go home and break the bottle.” Thomas felt first in the right pocket, then the left, then back to the right, then he examined the watch fob.

It is probable that the former owner of this princ.i.p.al article of his wardrobe, owned a watch. It is more likely that the present owner had been often in the hands of the watch, than that he had often had a watch in his hands. He was evidently searching for lost treasures.

”Why, where is it?” says she. ”You had two dollars this morning.”

”Yes, I know it; but I have only got two cents this evening. There, Mr.

Pease, take them. It is all I have got in the world--what more can I give?”

Sure enough; what could he do more? He took them and prayed over them, that in parting with the last penny, this couple might have parted with a vice--a wicked, foolish practice, which had reduced them to such a degree of poverty and wretchedness, that the monster power of rum could hardly send its victims lower.

So, by a few words, I hope, words of power to do good, Thomas and Matilda, long known as, drunken Tom and Mag, were transformed into Mr.

and Mrs. Elting, and having grown somewhat more sober while in the house, seemed to fully understand their new position, and all the obligations they had taken upon themselves.

”For a few days,” said Mr. P., ”I thought occasionally of this two-penny marriage, and then it became absorbed with a thousand other scenes of wretchedness which I have witnessed since I have lived in this centre of city misery. Time wore on, and I married many other couples; often those who came in their carriage and left a golden marriage fee--a delicate way of giving to the needy--but among all, I had never performed the rite for a couple quite so low as that of this two-penny fee, and I resolved I never would again. At length, however, I had a call from a full match to them, which I refused.”

”Why do you come to me to be married, my friend?” said I to the man.

”You are both too poor to live separate; and, besides, you are both terrible drunkards, I know you are.”

”That is just what we want to get married for, and take the pledge.”

”Take that first.”

”No; we must take all together--nothing else will save us.”

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