Mrs. O. F. Walton

“ Like Peter in the Gospels, as I sat in that quiet sickroom, I wept bitterly.
And then came comfort; I could pray now. That look of the Lord Jesus had taken away the wall. I could call on Him now and ask Him to forgive me, and never to let me leave Him again.
If I had not come back to the Lord Jesus that night, and had the comfort of feeling His presence very near me, I do not know how I should have gone through the next terrible week. Sickness and sorrow had been in our home before; but now the angel of death drew near.
I had felt sure from the very first that Salome would die. ”

“ Little Jude and the tiny Kitty are his constant playmates, and they follow him about wherever he goes. Little Kitty is wild with joy whenever she hears Bagot's step coming in from his work, and she toddles to meet him, and climbs up into his arms, saying, "Dear daddy Baggy, dear daddy Baggy."
My mistress has aged very much since I first came to Grassbourne. Her hair is growing white now, and her face has lost much of the beauty which made her so much admired when she was younger; but sometimes I think she looks more like an angel now than even when first I saw her. ”

“ I didn't know, till they were gone, how much I should miss them all. God forgive me if I ever grumbled at having to work for them!"
It was a very different home now—so quiet and still, with so many empty beds and silent rooms, with so much space at the large dinner-table, which used to be so well filled, with so many vacant chairs, and with a row of caps hanging on the pegs in the passage, which were never taken down from their places, but which mother seemed as if she could not take away. Every one who came to the house must have noticed the difference in our once merry, noisy home. ”

“ If we broke anything, or tore anything, or lost anything, he always punished us very severely. And yet I could not bear the thought of the disgrace and humiliation of having to go back to school, and confess my loss to my master. He would never trust me again, and I should be filled with shame and confusion if I had to acknowledge my carelessness before my companions.
What was to be done? My conscience told me that I ought to tell my mother about it when I got in; but I did not want to spoil Salome's birthday, and there she was at the shop door looking out for me. ”

“ One night—I think it was the night after Simon and Thomas had been laid in the grave—we were sitting in Salome's room. She was conscious now, and the fever had quite left her; but she was very weak—so weak that I was afraid to let her talk; so weak that she was as helpless as a little baby. Matthew was much better; he had not had the fever so badly as the others, and he was sitting up in bed.
"There seems nothing to do," said mother that night, as she sat by the fire in her black dress; and for the very first time since little Jude had died she burst into tears. ”

“ Then he put his hand on my shoulder, and said:
"Spoken like a man, Peter. Keep out of crooked paths, my lad."
Then he left me to take down the shutters, and I crept upstairs again, feeling much happier than I had done before.
It was that very Monday morning, that, as I came in from Betson's to get my dinner, I found a man whom I had never seen before talking to my father in the shop. He was a hearty man, stout and rosy, and had a pleasant, cheerful way of speaking, which had the same effect on me as a fresh, bracing wind has; it stirred me up, and made me feel in good spirits. ”

“ It is dreadful to have a secret sin, which will come to your mind in the dark hours; it is very terrible to have to fight away an uneasy, troubled thought, to have to drown the voice of an accusing conscience. ”

“ If I told him in the morning of my loss, he would be obliged to give me a shilling, and if I took this one, it would come to just the same thing.
So I carried the shilling upstairs, and wrapped it up in the bill with the four shillings the master had given me. And the next morning I paid Betson, and handed the receipt to my master.
"Thank you, Peter," he said; "I knew you were a lad to be trusted!"
Oh, how those words hurt me! A lad to be trusted; so he thought; but I knew that I was a thief. Yes, a thief!
I had stolen a shilling—conscience showed me that very plainly now. ”

“ They will be brought from all kinds of places, the mother from her home, the servant from her kitchen, the sailor from the ship, the collier from the mine, the farmer from his field, the tradesman from his shop. They will be found at all kinds of work, some will be asleep and some awake, some will be busy and some will be idle. Some of you, children, will be hard at work, some will be playing in the garden behind the house, some will be walking idly down the street. But all who love Jesus will be taken, taken by the angels, taken to live with Him in glory. ”

“ Idle folks are always in bad spirits.
Every one was so kind to me, that I should indeed have been ungrateful if I had not loved them and tried to please them. Bagot and his wife were father and mother to me. Their cottage was a merry, cheerful place to live in, and it was a great help to me to be with such good Christian people.
Ever since the night of Salome's fifth birthday, when I had brought my sins to Jesus, I had taken Him for my Master, and had longed and tried to live as He would like me to live. ”

“ Bagot haven't got no olive-branches of our own, we haven't; so you'll have to be son and daughter all in one, you will, Peter," said Bagot, as we went into the neat, cosey kitchen. "And now come your way and get your tea; you'll be hungry, you will. Here's the missus' best ham, and the missus' freshest eggs, and the missus' primest cakes! We'll get to work at once, old wife; maybe our lady will be wanting to see the lad when she's had her dinner. So pour away, old woman; we'll waste no time, we won't." ”

“ She is twenty years nearer the end of the journey now, and the twenty years of patient waiting, the twenty years of busy working, the twenty years of discipline in the Lord's school of sorrow, the twenty years of learning daily more and more of His love, have all left their mark upon her, and have made her even more beautiful in the eyes of those who know her best, than she was in those by-gone years. ”

“ But soon after Salome's sixth birthday had gone by, I began to get very careless about my daily reading and prayer. A lazy fit came over me, and I would lie in bed half awake, until I heard Bagot coming out of the opposite room. He would rap at my door, and call out—
"Only ten minutes, Peter, my lad; you must look sharp, you must." ”

“ I can scarcely bring myself to believe that I have lived so many years in this pretty cottage with my dear old friend, Jem Bagot. Our life here has been so peaceful, so far removed from the bustle and constant stir of the busy town, so little has happened to mark the time, or to make any break in our quiet lives, that the days and weeks and months and years have gone by as swiftly as I think days and weeks and months and years could possibly go.
When I had been three years at Grassbourne, my mistress offered to keep her promise, and to find me a situation as footman ”

“ I am quite sure of this, that we are never safe when we are prayerless, and that if, for a single day, Satan can catch us going forth to the day's work without prayer, he catches us at the best possible time for him, and the worst possible time for us.
I think Bagot had some idea that all was not right with me, for he said, suddenly, one morning, as we were walking together to our work in the garden:
"He's a bad soldier, Peter, who goes into the battle with no armor on; he'll come off badly, he will." ”

“ I took Salome on my knee, and told her to listen when the sermon began, and I can see now her little earnest face, as she fixed her eyes on the clergyman. She had brought her Testament with her, for she would not part with it at all that day, and I turned to the text when the clergyman gave it out—Matthew xxiv. 40.
How Salome looked up at me when she saw what it was!
"One shall be taken, and the other left."
"Taken where?" said the clergyman. "And left where?"
"That's just what we want to know!" whispered Salome to me.
"What is the greatest sight you have ever seen?" the clergyman went on. ”

“ He was so thin and light that the nurse carried him upstairs as if he were a little baby.
"Do you think he will ever live to grow up?" I said to Bagot, when I went back to help him in the garden; "he looks so very ill and white and thin."
"God knows," said Bagot, with tears in his eyes; "God knows, Peter. That's all we can say about it, God knows. And, perhaps, Peter," he said with a sigh, as he stooped to pull up a weed, "perhaps it's just as well that we don't know."
CHAPTER VIII. THERE IS NO TIME TO LOSE.
I WAS very happy in my new life at Grassbourne. ”

“ The policeman will be pacing up and down the empty street, the gamekeeper will be watching in the lonely wood, the night watchman will be keeping guard in the deserted warehouse. But nearly all in that part of the world will be fast asleep, little dreaming of what is coming. ”

“ I sometimes think the waiting time may not be much longer for her now; it seems, at times, as if a gleam of glory from the Heavenly City were shining on her face, and I tremble as I think that the gates may even now be opening to let her in. I tremble for ourselves, and for all those whom she helps, and teaches, and comforts ”

“ I was looking forward to taking Master Reggie, as usual, to give his children their breakfast. But my mistress came to the door, which was standing open, with a letter in her hand.
"Peter," she said, "Master Reggie is not at all well; he seems to have taken cold; he will not be able to go out to-day. I want you, instead, to take this letter for me. You are a good walker, are you not?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said, "very good."
"It is to the doctor, Peter," she said; "he lives, as you know, at Calvington. Have you ever seen his house?" ”

“ Bagot wrote in great distress, and he said my poor mistress was very ill, and very much broken down. She wished him to say that she would be glad if I could come back whenever the doctor thought it was safe for me to do so. She sent me her kindest sympathy in my trouble, and she wished me to tell my poor mother how often she had thought of her, and had prayed that the Lord would be her Comforter.
I felt leaving home very much, for they all seemed to cling to me and to lean on me after that time of sorrow. My father had aged a great deal, and had turned in a few weeks into an elderly man. ”

“ I took up her Testament and read aloud:
"The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
"Wherefore comfort one another with these words."
"Don't you wish Jesus would come to-night, father," said Salome, "and bring Simon, and Thomas, and Bartholomew, and Jude with Him? We would all go flying up to meet them then ”

“ And the blessed hope of the Lord's appearing still stirs us up to live very near to Him, and to keep very far from sin, and still comforts and cheers us in all the sorrows and anxieties of our every-day life.
My old home has been broken up a long time now. My poor mother died the same year as Mrs. Bagot, and she rests from her labors in that Home where the weary are at rest. My brothers are all doing well for themselves, and have wives and families of their own.
My father gave up the business when Salome married, and went to live with her. ”

“ If it had not been for the parting from Salome, I do not think I could have been happier.
I had a very busy life, for there was plenty to do both indoors and out-of-doors; but I am sure we are always happier when our time is filled up with useful work. ”

“ There was not much variety in our life, nor in our poor mother's work. We were always hungry, always noisy, and always wearing out our clothes. There was always some one ill, or some one naughty, or some one in mischief. ”

“ He wants us to sin, but he covers the sin over with a pretty covering, and tries to persuade us that he is asking us to do a very harmless thing. But when once we have done it, he takes off the covering, and we see the sin in all its ugliness. ”

“ People will stand at their doors and talk, and gossip, and make mischief, just as you see them every day of your life.
"The other half of the world will be asleep when Jesus comes. The children will be in their little cots, and the fathers and mothers will be sleeping too. Here and there will be a light burning, where a sick one is tossing on his bed, or a baby is keeping its mother awake. ”

“ We had a pew of our own, quite at the end of the large church, and here we sat in a row, always in the same order, first James, then John, then myself, then Andrew, then Philip, then our father at the door of the pew. We sat pretty quietly while service went on; but it always seemed a very long and dull time to me. The old clergyman's voice sounded very far away, and I scarcely heard or cared to hear what he said. I was always glad when the last prayer came, and the blessing was pronounced, and the organ began to play, and we could go home again. ”