Taken or Left by O.F. Walton

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."

"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."