"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!"