CHAPTER V.

A Service of Love.

HARRY MAUDE quitted the cottage, and Michael and Martha returned to their occupations, the one digging in the garden, the other mending stockings by the fireside. But the old man bending over his spade, and his good wife over her needle, were both reflecting on what they had heard.

"To think of his taking us to task like that! But he meant it kindly—yes, he meant it kindly," murmured Martha to herself as she darned. "He'd not have us treat our great and merciful God as we would never dare to treat our Queen. We've been a-shutting ourselves out from the feast in church; I pray God He mayn't shut us out from the Feast up above."

But though Michael and Martha thus pondered over the subject, neither of them felt inclined to talk about it.

When Mat came in from the plough, his grandmother told him that "young Master Harry" had come to see them, but not one word did she repeat of the conversation that had taken place, except that part which simply related to the invitation from the Queen. The husband and wife avoided even speaking to each other about that subject which was uppermost in the minds of both.

Evening closed in; the aged couple and their grandson sat down to their simple supper, and, while they ate, chatted about the morrow's wedding, and the sailor's return, and the Queen's invitation, and other topics of the day.

But when the meal was over, and Martha had cleared away the fragments, Michael, from his seat by the hearth, gravely addressed his wife.

"Martha, I've been a-thinking about what you and me was hearing to-day about these same sins of omission—that's the word—leaving undone what ought to be done. You and me—we reads our Bible on Sundays reg'lar enough; but I mind me that the parson told us in church that we should no more do without our daily reading of Scripture than without our daily food. Suppose now you bring the Book. It's late to begin the custom, seeing we're both growing old, but there's the less time for delay, so we'll read a bit o' the Bible to-night afore we go to our rest."

"Ah! Michael, I've often thought of this, but I didn't like to be the first to speak about doing it," said Martha, as, after dusting the large Bible with her apron, she set it on the deal table before her husband, and then pushed the little brass candlestick towards him, that the light from the candle might fall on the Book.

Michael slowly opened the holy volume, slowly turned over page after page, before he found the passage which he sought. Then, in a solemn tone, tracing the lines as he read with his finger, the old cottager began the 22nd chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke.

Mat sat very quiet and attentive at his grandmother's side; the cottage seemed to the lad to have become as holy a place as the church; and though his grandfather certainly could not read like the parson, the lad thought to himself that somehow or other the words went just as straight to the heart.

Michael read on slowly and steadily till he came to the end of the 19th verse, and then his voice faltered, the finger which rested on the page trembled, and, with a deep sigh, the old man closed the Bible.

"Be you not well?" asked Martha, anxiously.

Her husband leant back in his chair, and pressed his hand over his eyes.

"It's not that, wife, it's not that," replied Michael, removing his hand. "It was those words—'twas the bidding us do this 'in remembrance of Me.' I couldn't abide the thought of having so long neglected the dear Saviour's dying wish, let alone it's being the King's command. You see," continued Michael, addressing himself to his grandson, "I have known what it was to receive a dying request, and to treasure it up, and keep it, as if 'twere a bit of my life. Your Granny knows the story well, but, maybe, you han't heard so much about it."

Then, after pushing back his chair from the table, and again passing his hand across his eyes, Michael Garth began his simple tale.

"I had as good and kind a mother as ever lived, and, I take it, never son loved mother more than I did. When I was a lad, not much older than you be, I sickened with the fever which was a-spreading all through the village. My mother she watched me day and night, and would scarce stir from my bedside till the doctor he said as how the worst was over.

"But the worst was not over," continued Michael with feeling, "for she had caught the fever from me, she had, and on the day when I first rose from my bed, my mother lay a-dying upon hers! I was just able to crawl to her side, to get her blessing, and to hear her last words. I half wished in my grief that the fever had taken us both away, so there would have been no sore parting for either. My mother drew from under her pillow my father's silver watch, which she had kept ever since she had lost him. She was so weak she scarcely could hold it, and her voice was so faint that I had to bend down close to catch her last words, 'Keep it for my sake;' they was the last words as ever she spoke. I could not answer, a lump was in my throat, but I vowed in my heart that I'd never part with that watch to my dying day!"

"And you never did!" exclaimed Martha. "So that there old watch is locked up safe in yon box at this moment."

"I treasured that watch, I wore it by day, I put it under my bolster by night, often and often did it bring my mother to my mind, it seemed like a bit of herself. If I was a-tempted to go wrong, the very sound of its ticking when I wound it up at bedtime seemed like a warning voice from her grave. Years passed on, and I married, and a family came—bless 'em—and after that great troubles. You mind that hard winter, wife, when I was ten weeks out of work, and we scarcely knew where to turn to get a crust to keep soul and body together!"

"I can never forget it," said Martha; "we lay down hungry, and we got up hungry, and were well-nigh driven to part with the bed beneath us for rent."

"I was well-nigh driven to part with something else," observed her husband. "Many and many's the time that I thought of my silver watch as the one thing that I could turn into money; but I al'ays shrank back from doing that, I counted it would be a'most like trampling over my mother's grave. One day I was pretty near desperate; there was the rent unpaid, and the little uns crying, and I started off for the town where the pawnbroker lived. When I came nigh the place, in sight of the three gilt balls, I pulled out my watch, it seemed to throb like a living thing in my hand. I stood stock still and looked on it, and all the deathbed scene came back upon me as fresh as if I had just left it, the pale face—the wistful eyes—the faint whisper, 'Keep it for my sake.'

"I turned back, Mat, I couldn't go on; I had had my long trudge for my pains; thinks I, it's rather starve outright I will, than break the last command of my mother."

The voice of Michael sounded husky, and Martha raised her apron to her eyes.

"And better times came," observed Mat.

"Ay, lad, better times came," said Michael; "but I've not finished the story of my watch. It was about seventeen years ago, the very winter when ye was born, lad, and a sharper winter never I knew. I was coming home one evening, a cutting wind was a-blowing, which seemed to pierce to the very marrow. The stream was quite frozen over, I thought it was hard enough to bear me, and to save going round by the bridge, I tried to cross on the ice. The first step I took there was a crack. The next—the ice gave way, and down I splashed into the water."

"The stream ain't very deep," observed Mat.

"Quite deep enough, lad, to make a plunge into it on a bitter cold evening no pleasuring matter," said Michael. "I was any way up to my arm-pits, and a bit cut by the ice besides. I scrambled out with a little trouble, shivering and wet, my teeth chattering with cold, and my hands a-bleeding with the ice. But the first thing as I thought on was my watch, I clapped my hand to the little pocket which your Granny had made in my jacket on purpose to hold it; the pocket was empty, the watch had slipped out into the stream in the struggle and scramble."

"It warn't likely to be worth much after being in the water," said Mat.

"Worth, lad! It warn't the money's worth as I cared for!" exclaimed the old man. "Had it been a brass farthing as had been given me as a keepsake by a dying parent, it would ha' been more to me than a purse of gold! I didn't take much time to think about it, the day was short, 'twas already getting dusk, if I waited, the under-current might drag my watch down where I never should find it again. Back I plunged into the deadly cold water, striking my arms right and left to break the ice, and to keep in the life which was well-nigh frozen out o' me, for a numbness was a-creeping over my body. I searched and searched, feeling about the bottom, now with my feet, now with my hand, and more than once I got right under the ice, and lost my breath, and thought it was all over with me. I've done many a hard day's work in my life, but the toughest job as ever I had was the seeking 'mid the ice for my watch on that piercing night in December."

"But you found it at last," said Martha.

"Ay, ay, I found it at last," rejoined the old man, a gleam of honest pleasure lighting up his weather-worn face; "warn't I glad when I found it warn't a round pebble as I had touched with my foot, as I was afeard at the first! I brought the watch up out of the water, after I'd been a-hunting, gasping and struggling, shivering and freezing, the best part of an hour. It was the thought of the words, 'Keep it for my sake,' as gave me strength to hold on; and though I had to lie in bed for a week, and had rheumatics that I didn't shake off till the summer, all along of that search under the water, there was something as out-matched the trouble and the pain—it was such a comfort to my heart to know that I'd kept the dying request of my mother!"

The tale was not a now one to Mat, but it was one which, by the family of Michael, was always heard with interest, and it had deepened in the minds of his children and grandchildren impressions of filial reverence and love. The old silver watch, thus handed down from generation to generation, was—and was likely long to be—a precious relic in the cottager's home.

When Michael had finished his story, his grandson observed, "I don't see why you should ha' thought about that watch when you was a-reading that chapter just now."

"Do you not see, lad, it's all plain enough to my mind!" exclaimed Martha. "Your grandfather was willing to suffer hunger and hardship, danger and chill, sickness and pain, rather than neglect the last wish of a dear mother who had taken her death from watching over him—"

"And yet," interrupted Michael Garth, finishing the sentence for his wife, "never till this night have I taken to heart the dying wish of One who has loved me better than ever did my mother, and has suffered more for me than ever a mother suffered! I've read His words, and scarce given them a thought—God have mercy upon me, a sinner—for my heart must have been more dead than a stone!"

"Ah! Michael," said old Martha, leaning forward on her chair, and laying her hand on the arm of her husband, "there was something which Master Harry missed out when he spoke to us to-day so anxious and earnest about attending the Holy Communion. He said that the Lord's Supper be a service of obedience, and a service of hope, and he was right enough there; but it's more than that, it's a service of love besides. How the holy angels must wonder that those for whom the loving Lord poured out His very life's blood, can go on year after year as—shame to us we have done, neglecting His dying command—as if He had never spoken, or they had never heard the words—'This do in remembrance of Me!'"