CHAPTER XIII.
GREAT SORROW.
SALOME grew stronger every day, and the doctor was astonished at her recovery.
How good God has been to spare her to me! I said to myself again and again. It seemed almost like getting her back from the dead.
But just as things at home grew a little brighter, and I was rejoicing over Salome's first going downstairs, I got a letter from Bagot, which filled me with sorrow and grief. For it told me that little Master Reggie, whom we all loved so dearly, had been taken away from us. The Master had come, and had called for him, and the child had heard His voice, and had gladly hastened to meet Him. It was another severe attack of croup which had carried him off, and a few hours after he was taken ill, the call had come.
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.
My poor mother said over and over again that she had nothing to do.
"Oh, Peter," she said one day, "I used to grumble, and to think I had a hard time of it, with so many to cook for, and so many clothes to mend, and so many stockings to darn, and such lots of things to wash and to iron, and so much to see after. But now, God knows, I would give all I have to have one of those busy days back again. 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.
Yet it was a different home in another way, for now both father and mother were leading their children in the way to heaven.
It was a great effort to my father to open the Bible and begin family prayer, but he made it. It was a great effort for my mother to put on her bonnet, and, in the face of astonished neighbors, to go to church again, but she made it. And when I left them, I had the joy of knowing that whenever the cry was heard:
"Behold the Bridegroom cometh: go ye out to meet Him!"
We should, as a family, be all ready to obey the summons; for in that great day when the King shall gather together His own, every one of us would be taken—none of us would be left behind.
I went to Calvington by the early train, and walked from the station to Grassbourne. Mrs. Bagot gave me a warm welcome when I arrived at the cottage.
"I'm glad to see you, my lad," she said; "I am, indeed. The master and me have been awful lonesome without you, we have, indeed. What with our lady's trouble, and the loss of that dear boy, we've been very dull and low altogether."
She told me I should find Bagot in the garden, and I went to look for him.
[Illustration: I MET MY MISTRESS COMING OUT OF THE HOUSE.]
On my way there I met my mistress coming out of the house with a large basket on her arm. I knew what basket it was, and guessed at once where she was going. She spoke very kindly to me, and she said, "Peter, you and I have both had great sorrow since I saw you last; but we must never forget God sends it in love; we must never doubt for a moment that God is good.
"'He doeth all things well, We say it now with tears; But we shall sing it with those we love, Through bright eternal years.'"
My mistress let me carry the basket for her, and we went together to feed Master Reggie's children. We both of us felt it very much, and we scarcely spoke a word the whole time.
"He would be so pleased if he knew we were taking care of them," my mistress said, with tears in her eyes, when our work was done, and we were walking towards the house. "He missed you very much, Peter, and asked many times when you were coming back. He was able to get out again after that bad attack that he had the day before you went home, and he seemed so much better and stronger that I felt very hopeful about him. But he took cold again, and the croup came back, and nothing could be done to save him.
"Only that last afternoon, as he lay on the sofa beside me, he was talking of you. He said:
"'Dear mother, is Peter sorry that the Lord Jesus came for his little brothers?'
"I told him you were very sorry, for you would miss them very much.
"'But it's very nice for the little brothers, dear mother; isn't it?' he said.
"And that very night the Lord Jesus came for him; and now I must try to remember what he said, that it's 'very nice' for him. And, Peter," she said, "I shall go to him, though he will not return to me."
My poor mistress could say no more, but hastened into the house, and I went away to look for Bagot.
From this time, it was part of my daily work to carry the basket for my mistress when she went to feed Master Reggie's children, and she often, at these times, talked to me about him. She never spoke of him as dead, but as living—living in the Father's home, happy and well attended, but still loving her as much as ever, and ready at the King's call to go in the King's train to meet her, and to welcome her when her waiting time should be done.
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