Taken or left

by Mrs. O. F. Walton

Very soon after this, Bagot had a terrible attack of rheumatic fever, and during his long illness I took entire charge of the garden and hothouse, and then, when Bagot got better, he was very weak and feeble, and could not have managed to keep pace with the work, if he had only had a young, inexperienced boy to help him.

And so it came to pass that I never left Grassbourne, and now Bagot is getting old and infirm; he is seventy-five years old, and he can do no hard work. But I have stepped into his place, and he enjoys helping me, and doing any little job which he can manage without tiring himself.

Dear old Bagot, I believe he loves me as much as if I were really his own son. Ever since his wife died—and she has been dead now more than ten years—he has leaned on me more than ever. He felt her death very much.

"The missus and me always pulled together, Peter," he said, as he cried like a child on the night she died; "it was a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull both together, it was, and the boat went bravely over the waves. But now, my lad, it has landed her on the other shore, it has; and how I shall ever pull on without her, Peter, it beats me to think."

"But the Lord is in the boat, Bagot," I said. "He won't leave you to pull on alone."

"You 're right there, Peter," he sobbed, "you are. I was forgetting that, like an old foolish-headed fellow, I was; but I wish, Peter—I can't help wishing, my lad—that we had both got to the shore together."

I did all I could to cheer him and to comfort him when we were left alone together. And when Kate came, the old man felt he had a daughter as well as a son to take care of him. I never saw any two people take to each other so well as Bagot took to Kate, and Kate took to Bagot. He wanted to go away when he knew I was going to be married, but I would not hear of that, and Kate would not hear it either, and we could not be a happier little family than we are now.

Bagot's great pleasure is in the children. 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. 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.

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; but I can but rejoice for her, if the wilderness way is growing shorter, and the welcomes in the Father's Home are drawing nearer.