CHAPTER VII.

MASTER REGGIE.

THAT evening, about seven o'clock, my mistress sent for me. I was shown into a beautiful room, with a carpet as soft as velvet, and all round the room there were lovely pictures, and photographs, and vases of hothouse flowers, and so many pretty and charming things, that I felt as if it was a strange dream that I was there, and that it could not be true.

Mrs. Tremayne was as beautiful and as good and as kind as Bagot had described her. She was sitting by the fire with her work when I went in, and on the other side of the fire, lying on a spring sofa, was the thinnest, whitest little boy I have ever seen. He looked just like a tiny skeleton dressed up in clothes, but, though his face was so pale and worn, it was a very beautiful little face, for he had large lovely eyes, that seemed as if they saw far more than our eyes see; they seemed to be looking at something very far away.

"Dear mother," he said, in a little, thin, high-pitched voice, "what is that boy's name?"

"It is Peter," said his mother; "he has come to live in Bagot's cottage."

"Oh! Is it Peter?" said the little boy, "Peter who walked on the sea! Oh! I am glad you've come. We read about you in my new Bible yesterday. Weren't you very frightened, Peter, when you began to sink?"

"Oh! It isn't the same Peter," said his mother, smiling; "that Peter lived a long time ago."

"Oh! I'm sorry it isn't the same Peter," said the little voice; "I do wish it was the same Peter."

Mrs. Tremayne talked very kindly to me, and told me she hoped I should be very happy there, and would do my work well, not to please her, but to please God. Then she told me what my work was to be, and how she wished me to divide my time; and she said she hoped I should be very obedient to Bagot, and take his advice in everything, "for he is a good, worthy man," she said.

Then Mrs. Tremayne spoke of the wages she would give me, which were to be increased as I became more useful, and she said she would have me taught to clean the silver, and to wait at table, so that, after I had been with her about three years, she might be able to get me a situation as footman in one of the large houses in the neighborhood.

The little boy had been quite quiet all the time my mistress was talking to me, until she mentioned this, and then he said, suddenly—

"Dear mother."

"What, my darling boy?"

"You said three years."

"Yes, Reggie."

"Won't Jesus come before three years are done, dear mother?"

"I hope so, darling," said his mother, with tears in her eyes; "but we do not know how short a time or how long a time there may be before He comes."

"I hope He will come before three years," said little Reggie.

I glanced up when he said this, and I saw that the "Rules for To-day" were hung up over the chimney-piece. Mrs. Tremayne seemed to think of them at the same time, for she went to her writing-table and took out a copy of them, which she gave to me, and told me to hang it up in my bedroom.

"We are all trying to live by those rules, Peter," she said; "and I hope, by God's grace, you will do so, too; then, I am sure, neither Bagot nor I will have any fault to find with you."

As I was leaving the room, the little boy called me back.

"Peter," he said, "stop a minute, Peter! Dear mother, may Peter take me out to-morrow?"

"Will you be very careful? Can I trust you, Peter?" asked my mistress. "My little boy is very delicate, and needs the greatest care."

"Yes, ma'am," I said; "indeed you may trust me."

"Then be ready at eleven o'clock, in your tidiest clothes, to take Master Reggie out."

"Peter," said the child, "I'll take you to see my children. You didn't know I had any children, did you, Peter? I have sixty-nine children; isn't that a great many? I used to have seventy, but one of them died. Would you like to see my children, Peter?"

"Yes, thank you, Master Reggie," I said, "very much indeed."

"Good-night, Peter," he said.

But before I had shut the door, I heard him say to his mother, "Isn't Peter a nice boy, mother? I like him very much, though he didn't walk on the sea."

The next morning I was very pleased when eleven o'clock came, and it was time to take the little carriage round to the front door. The carriage was made of wicker-work, and was something like a bed inside, so that Master Reggie could lie down the whole time, and there was a handle by which I pulled it along. In a few minutes the door was opened, and his nurse carried him downstairs. He was very pleased to see me, and we went off at once to see his children. As we passed the back door, the cook ran out with a basket, containing a number of parcels.

"That's the children's breakfast!" said the child. "Cook always has it ready for me. My children have a number of nurseries, Peter. Here's the first," he said, as he pointed to a horse-box, at the entrance of a very clean and tidy farm-yard.

[Illustration: EIGHT RING-DOVES CAME FLYING DOWN AS SOON AS THEY SAW US.]

I drew his carriage gently inside, and there we found a white hen and eleven little, soft fluffy chickens. He watched me with great interest while I made a dish of sopped bread for the little ones, and threw down a handful of corn for their mother.

"She's an old child, Peter," he said; "I've had her a long time, since I was quite a little boy."

We next visited an old black hen, who had charge of six tiny yellow ducks, and again he was much pleased to teach me how to mix their breakfast, and how much they ought to have.

Then we came upon an open space in front of the barn, and here eight ring-doves came flying down as soon as they saw us, and perched upon the wicker-work of the little carriage. We fed them with corn, and Master Reggie quite screamed with joy as they picked it off the rug which was thrown over his feet.

The next child was a very strange one—a small monkey, which had a warm, cosey home in one of the out-houses.

"A man with an organ brought him one day," he said, "and he shivered so, and the man was cruel to him and beat him, and that made me cry; so mother bought him for me, and he's so happy and warm now; aren't you, Jacko?"

The monkey certainly looked in the best of spirits, as he put out his hands for biscuits, and nuts, and all the good things we had brought for him, and then scampered away and hid them behind his warm bed of hay, to be devoured after we had gone.

We then went on to visit a hutch of ten rabbits, of all colors and breeds, and for whom we had brought a good supply of cabbage leaves, and two young pigs in the cleanest pig-sty I have ever seen, and a tame squirrel with a broken leg, which Bagot had found dying in the wood, and had brought home to be nursed.

"That child is to go free as soon as he's well enough," said the boy; "he has just come to the hospital for a bit, poor thing! He's like me now, he can't walk!"

Then we turned into the garden, and went into an aviary, opening out of one of the hothouses, where were no less than twenty canaries, and here there was much to be done to supply them all with fresh water and sufficient seed. Some of them were so tame that they flew on the carriage, and took hemp seeds out of Master Reggie's mouth.

Our last visit was to a pet lamb, in a field in front of the house, and for this child, I fetched a bucket of milk from the farm.

"Now you've seen sixty-one of my children," said the little boy; "there are eight more in the house; they had their breakfast before you came. There is a little green parrot, an old pussy-cat and a kitten, four little dormice (it was one of them that died), and my little dog Sandy. Haven't I a great many children?"

He seemed very tired now, and soon his nurse came to carry him in. But before she took him away, he threw his arms round my neck, and said, "Peter, dear Peter, don't forget to come for me to-morrow."

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."

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