"Why, you see, we don"t think it is right for us to be living together this way any longer, and we have been talking over the matter to-day, and you see----"
"Yes, yes, I see you have been talking over the matter over the bottle, and have come to a sort of drunken conclusion to get married. When you get sober, you will both repent it, probably."
"No, sir, we are not very drunk now, not so drunk but what we can think, and we don"t think we are doing right--we are not doing as we were brought up to do by pious parents. We have been reading about the good things you have done for just such poor outcasts as we are, and we want you to try and do something for us."
"Read! can you read? Do you read the Bible?"
"Well, not much lately, but we read the newspapers, and sometimes we read something good in them. How can we read the Bible when we are drunk?"
"Do you think getting married will keep you from getting drunk?"
"Yes, for we are going to take the pledge too, and we shall keep it, depend upon that."
"Suppose you take the pledge and try that first, and if you can keep it till you can wash some of the dirt away, and get some clothes on, then I will marry you."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TWO PENNY MARRIAGE COUPLE.--_Page 95._]
"No; that won"t do. I shall get to thinking what a poor, dirty, miserable wretch I am, and how I am living with this woman, who is not a bad woman by nature; and then I will drink, and then she will drink--oh, cursed rum!--and what is to prevent us? But if we were married, my wife, yes, Mr. Pease, my wife, would say, "Thomas"--she would not say, "Tom, you dirty brute,"--"don"t be tempted;" and who knows but we might be somebody yet--somebody that our own mothers would not be ashamed of?"
Here the woman, who had been silent and rather moody, burst into a violent flood of tears, crying, "Mother, mother, I know not whether she is alive or not, and dare not inquire; but if we were married and reformed, I would make her happy once more."
"I could no longer resist the appeal," said Mr. P., "and determined to give them a trial. I have married a good many poor, wretched-looking couples, but none that looked quite so much so as this. The man was hatless and shoeless, without coat or vest, with long hair and beard grimed with dirt. He was by trade a bricklayer, one of the best in the city. The woman wore the last remains of a silk bonnet, and something that might pa.s.s for shoes, and an old, very old dress, once a rich merino, apparently without any under garments."
"Your name is Thomas--Thomas what?"
"Elting, sir. Thomas Elting, a good, true name and true man; that is, shall be, if you marry us."
"Well, well. I am going to marry you."
"Are you? There, Mag, I told you so."
"Don"t call me Mag. If I am going to be married, it shall be by my right name, the one my mother gave me."
"Not Mag? Well, I never knew that."
"Now, Thomas, hold your tongue, you talk too much. What is your name?"
"Matilda. Must I tell you the other? Yes, I will, and I never will disgrace it. I don"t think, I should ever have been as bad if I had kept it. That bad woman who first tempted me to ruin, made me take a false name. They always do that, sir, and so she said I must take another name, I did not know what for then; and so they called me Mag, and that is the name he knows me by, and I never would have told him my right name, only that we are going to get married, and reform."
Could they do it--could beings sunk so low, reform? We shall see.
"It is a bad thing, sir, for a girl to give up her name unless for that of a good husband. Matilda Morgan. n.o.body that is good knows me by any other name in this bad city."
Yes, it is a bad thing for a girl to give up her own name for a fict.i.tious one. I could tell a touching story of an instance of a poor sewing woman, who went to one of these name-changing houses to work, not to sin, who was coaxed to be called Lucy, instead of her own sweet name of Athalia, and how she was accidentally discovered and rescued from the very jaws of ruin by her own uncle. But not now, I must go on with the marriage. The bride and bridegroom are waiting, and the reader for a share of the feast.
"Now I am going to join you two in wedlock; it cannot make you worse, it may better. Look me in the face. Now, Matilda and Thomas, take each other by the right hand, look at me, while I unite you in the holy bonds of marriage by G.o.d"s ordinance. Do you think you are sufficiently sober to comprehend its solemnity?"
"Yes, sir."
"Marriage being one of G.o.d"s holy ordinances, cannot be kept in sin, misery, filth, and drunkenness. Thomas, will you take Matilda to be your lawful, true, only, wedded wife?"
"Yes, sir."
"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."