CHAPTER VI.

MY FIRST PLACE.

I WENT back to Betson's that afternoon with no further information about what was going to happen to me; but at night, when I was getting my supper, my mother told me that I was going to be "the boy" at a Mrs. Tremayne's, somewhere in the country, at a place called Grassbourne. I was to clean the boots and shoes and knives, and make myself generally useful in the house; and I was also to work in the garden, and look after the pony. The hearty man, my mother told me, was Mrs. Tremayne's gardener, and lived in a cottage close to her house. He had been one of my father's schoolfellows; but he had not seen him for a long time. More than this my mother could not tell me.

Those last days at home were very hard ones for my poor mother. She looked more overdone and depressed than before. There was so much mending to be done to jackets and socks; there were two new shirts to be made, and a good pile of things to be washed and ironed, and everything must be finished and ready before Monday afternoon, when I was to set forth for my new home.

Salome clung to me very much that last week; she could not bear the idea of my going away, and cried so much that the boys laughed at her, and even my mother told her "she need not make that fuss; Peter would come back again some day, no doubt!"

I felt very much saying good-by to them all; they stood at the door and watched me go, and Salome waved her pocket-handkerchief, and sobbed out:

"Good-by, Peter, dear, dear Peter."

And I saw mother turning away, wiping her eyes with her apron, and I am not ashamed to say that I shed a few tears too.

But when I was in the train my spirits revived, and I began to look out for Calvington station, where my father had told me to be sure and get out.

The hearty man, or as I must now call him Mr. Bagot, was there to meet me, and I soon found myself sitting beside him in a light spring-cart, driving six miles to my new home.

"Nice pony this is!" said Bagot. "We've had her it will be three years now, and she goes like a house on fire, Bessie does! She never needs the whip, she don't. Bless her!"

After a pleasant drive down country lanes, and past country cottages, up hill and down hill, by the side of a river, through a beautiful copse wood, and over an ancient bridge, we came in sight of Mrs. Tremayne's house.

It was a tall white house, standing on the side of a hill, with a pretty little avenue of beeches and oaks leading up to it. We drove a short way up this carriage-drive, and then we turned off to the right, and stopped before a cottage, covered all over with a lovely creeper, which was a mass of bright scarlet flowers, and standing in a small garden, full of pansies, and fuchsias, and holly-hocks, and sweet-williams, and all kinds of country flowers. Here I was to live with Bagot and his wife; and I thought myself a very fortunate boy.

Mrs. Bagot gave me a warm welcome. She was a comfortable rosy woman, as cheery and hearty as her husband, though perhaps she did not talk quite so much.

"Me and Mrs. 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."

I did full justice to Mrs. Bagot's ham and eggs and cakes, and then we drew our chairs near the fire, and Bagot smoked his pipe and talked to me, while Mrs. Bagot cleared away the tea-things, and washed them up in the little pantry opening out of the kitchen.

"Do you see that, Peter?" said Bagot, pointing to a card over the chimney-piece, in a pretty Oxford frame. "That's our motto, that is! All in this place have to try to walk after them there rules. The lady gave them to us; she has them up in her room, too. She'll give you them, I shouldn't wonder, when she sees you. Dear me! I wouldn't be without them for a sight of money, I wouldn't. You read them, and see what you think of them."

[Illustration: RULES FOR TO-DAY. Do nothing that you would not like to be doing when Jesus comes. Go to no place where you would not like to be found when Jesus comes. Say nothing that you would not like to be saying when Jesus comes. THE LORD IS AT HAND!]

"I like them very much," I said, when I had read them, and I thought of the sermon I had heard the Sunday before, and of Salome's text.

"Ay! They're good rules, them are," he said. "The missus and me reads them every morning, for we never know, Peter," he said, in a solemn voice, "which day He may come."

"Peter, have you any sort of an idea what an angel's like?"' he said, turning round on me suddenly.

I thought of the Christmas card, and of Salome, and said I wasn't sure.

"You'll be sure to-night then," he said, "as sure as your name's Peter, you will."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Why," he said, "wait till you've seen our lady, and you'll know what an angel's like, and no mistake."

"Is she so beautiful?" I asked.

"Beautiful!" he repeated. "You never saw such a face in your life, you never did. Misses," he called out to his wife, who was busy in the pantry, "is our lady beautiful? What do you say?"

"Ay, you're right there, Jem; she's beautiful, if anybody ever was beautiful!"

"And is she good, old woman?" asked her husband.

"Ay, Jem, you're right again; she's good, sure enough!"

"And kind?" asked her husband. "Come, old woman, is she kind?"

"Ay, Jem, I wouldn't be the one to say she isn't kind," said his wife; "she's been that to you and me, Jem, and the times can't be counted!"

"Well, then!" said Bagot, with an air of triumph, as if he were collecting evidence for the county court, "if she's beautiful and good and kind, my lad, it stands to reason that she's an angel, she is, and so I always have said she was, and always will say."

"Has she any children?" I asked.

"Only one," he said, sadly; "it's a sorrowful story, hers is. She has been through deep waters, she has; but the Lord has been with her!"

I waited for him to go on, and presently he did.

"She was only a wife for one year," he said, "and then her husband died; he was only ill a few days. Poor lady, it nearly broke her heart, it did, for it was just wrapped up in him. And then, only a few weeks after that, her baby was born, and then she wrapped up her heart in him, she did. She just lived for her baby. But when Master Reggie (that's what we call him) was only a few months old, a careless servant girl let him fall, and injured his back, and he'll never be able to walk, the doctor says. Ay, but he's the dearest lamb that ever was, he is!"

"How old is he?" I asked.

"Five years old," said Bagot. "It was his birthday last Sunday, it was, and his mother gave him a Bible, and he sent for me up to see it. Bless him, he's mighty fond of me. You'll maybe see him this evening; and if you're a good lad, and careful, our lady will let you take him out in his carriage, I shouldn't wonder."

"Poor lady, she has had trouble!" I said.

"Ay, a big heap of it," he answered; "but it's the trouble that drove her to the Lord. She didn't love Him before, so she says. And folks say she was proud and cold in those days. I didn't know her then, and I don't know if I can bring myself to believe it. She isn't cold and hard now, that I know; but it makes a vast change when a body comes to the Lord, it does; so there's no saying!"

"Will she get married again, do you think?" I asked.

"Married again!" says Bagot, starting from his seat, and looking at me quite fiercely. "Married again! If our lady gets married again, Peter, I shall look for the sun to fall from the sky, and yon big hill to tumble into the valley, and my old woman to run away from me!"

Which last, of all impossible things, seemed to him the most impossible.

"She loved her husband so much, then," I said.

"Loved him," repeated Bagot, "she loves him, loves him now. She does not think of him as dead, but as living—living with the Lord, and any day the Lord may come and bring him to meet her. That's the hope she lives on, that is!"

I felt very anxious after hearing this to see my mistress and the little crippled boy, who was just the same age, and had the very same birthday, as our little Salome.

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