THERE IS NO TIME TO LOSE.
I WAS very happy in my new life at Grassbourne. 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. 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. And every one and everything at
Grassbourne seemed to help me forward in this wish and in this effort.
The one thought with which all their hearts seemed to be filled was
this: that Jesus, their Lord, might come at any day, and at any hour,
and that they must be ready at once to go and meet Him. The "Rules for
To-day" were no dead letters to them; they brought them into daily use
in their daily life.
Often have I seen Bagot stop suddenly in the midst of something he was
saying, and glance up at the chimney-piece, and sometimes he would say
aloud to himself:
"Ah, Bagot, you wouldn't like to be saying that when He comes, you
wouldn't."
Or when the clock told that the hour he allowed himself for dinner was
over, he would rise, and, pointing to Rule No. 1, he would read it
aloud:
"'Do nothing that you would not like to be doing when Jesus comes.'"
"Ah, Jem Bagot," he would say, "you hadn't need be caught a-wasting of
your time when your Master comes."
His wife seldom spoke of the rules, but she kept them for all that. I
never heard her but once speak an ill-natured word of any one, and then
she looked up at the chimney-piece, and I saw tears come in her eyes,
as she felt she had broken the third rule on the list.
As for my mistress, I think she lived every day as if it might be the
last day before her Lord came. Her life was one long act of loving
obedience to the Master; she always seemed to try to please Him in
everything she did. The poor people in the cottages round, the sick
folks in the little town near, the children playing by the roadside,
all knew the sound of Bessie's hoofs on the road, and all of them
welcomed the sight of her; for they were sure to get a pleasant word,
or a kind visit, or a bright smile from their dear Mrs. Tremayne.
"The Master may come any day," I heard her say once, when some one was
urging her not to go out in the rain to see a dying woman; "there is no
time to lose."
Over the dining-room chimney-piece there was this verse, which my
mistress had illuminated herself:
"The time is short—how short we cannot tell,
Or clearly understand;
But those who read the King's directions well,
Think it is close at hand!
Lord, is it so? Then grant that we
May lose no time, but work for Thee."
And the same thought which stirred my mistress up to work, was also
her great comfort in her sorrow. There was a beautiful picture of her
husband hanging in her room, and underneath it, on a white scroll, I
read these words:
"O comfort ye your hearts;
If ye could only know
How few the days
Ere that glad day arrives,
Ye could but praise!
Then wipe your weeping eyes, and joyful say,
'It may be that the King will come to-day.'"
My chief pleasure and delight was in drawing Master Reggie out in his
little carriage. Each morning we went together to feed his children,
and he soon became almost as dear to me as my little Salome.
Nearly every day he would ask me the same question:
"Peter," he would say, "do you think Jesus will come to-day?"
And when I answered, "I don't know, Master Reggie; we can't tell," he
would say, "Oh, I do hope He will come to-day!"
"Do you know, Peter," he said once, "when Jesus comes I shall walk as
well as you do, and run and skip and jump! Oh, Peter, won't it be nice?"
And the poor little boy, who had never been able to walk or skip or
jump, had tears in his eyes as he said it.
Often he would bring his new Bible out with him, and ask me to read
aloud to him out of it. He looked out all the stories about St. Peter,
and made me read these to him very often. The story of Peter's walking
on the sea was a great favorite of his; but whenever we read about
Peter's fall, and his denying his Master, he would take hold of my
hand, and say:
"It wasn't you, Peter, you know. You would have called out, 'I do know
Him;' wouldn't you, Peter?"
Sometimes, when the days grew damp and cold, and when he could not go
out so much or so often, he would send for me to come and see him in
his nursery, and would show me his toys and picture-books.
So a whole year passed away, and Salome's birthday came round again,
and my mistress was so kind as to give me a holiday, that I might go
over and see her. Master Reggie did not half like my being away on his
birthday; but he comforted himself with his mother's promise that I
should come up to the nursery the next day to see all his presents, and
to tell him about Salome.
I went over by an early train, and took them all by surprise. They gave
me a warm welcome, and Salome danced for joy, and was delighted with
the present I had brought her, a little rose-bush, covered with tiny
dwarf roses, and a pot of forget-me-nots. Bagot had given them to me
when they were quite young plants, and I had reared them for Salome's
birthday.
There was so much for me to tell, and for them to hear, and for them
to tell, and for me to hear, that the day passed all too quickly. The
parting at night was a little hard to us all, and Salome's tears left
my face quite wet, as I hurried away from her down the street, to catch
the evening train for Calvington.
All this time I had, by God's grace, kept out of crooked paths.
I had a little room of my own over the kitchen in Bagot's cottage, and
I used to get up early, and sit by the window looking out into the
little garden, and read my Bible, and pray to God to help me to please
Him through the day, and to give me grace to keep the three rules
unbroken.
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."
And then I would tumble out of bed, and dress, and only have time to
kneel by my bed for one hasty moment, before it was time for me to go
out to my work.
I mention this fact because it throws light upon what comes next. 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."
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Only don't you ever try it on, Peter, my lad, that's all!"
I thought I knew what he meant, but I did not like to ask him; and for
one or two days after that, I got up rather earlier, and gave myself
more time for prayer. But I soon slipped into the old careless way
again.
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