“Hullo! Here is Squib without his satellite. Will wonders never cease?”
Squib looked up with a start as this voice reached him, and found himself face to face with Uncle Ronald. He had been looking very serious as he came up the hill towards the chalet, but now his face beamed all over.
“Uncle Ronald! You have got back.”
“Yes; got back an hour ago, a few days before we expected. We’ve had a grand time of it. We’ll tell you all about it in good time. But what are you doing without Czar? He has not deserted you surely?”
The tears sprang suddenly to the child’s eyes.
“Czar is dead,” he answered slowly.
“Dead!” echoed Uncle Ronald, drawing his lips together in a low whistle. “You don’t mean it, Squib! What took him off?”
“He was killed by lightning in the storm,” answered Squib, turning his face away as he spoke.
222“Killed by lightning! Good gracious! What a frightful thing! And where were you at the time, Squib?”
“Close by,” he answered, and then was silent a long time. The young uncle did not like to ask any more questions; but Squib suddenly broke out in his impetuous fashion,—
“We were trying to get to the hut. Seppi said it would be a dreadful storm. Czar was a little in front, and the goats had run down far ahead. There had been one awful flash, and everything was dark and smelt as if the giant had been mixing his chemicals down in his cavern and had had an explosion; and then just as we got nearly down to the bridge there came another worse one, and such a clap of thunder! It made me hide my eyes, and when I looked up Czar was just tumbling over. Seppi said he had been struck—he had seen it. He has seen things like that before. He was dead in a moment. Seppi said it did not hurt him.”
“Poor old fellow!” said Uncle Ronald softly. But whether he meant the dog or the boy he did not explain.
Squib was silent for several moments, and then burst out again,—
“We buried him with military honours. I took my flag, and there was a gun in the cottage, and Seppi’s mother let Peter fire it over his grave. Seppi has made a headstone, and Ann-Katherin has planted 223some flowers on it. I’ll take you to see it some day.”
“All right, old chap; I’ll go and drop a tear for our faithful old friend Czar. But you must have had rather a narrow shave yourself, youngster. How far off were you when this happened?”
“Not very far. Czar always kept near me. Seppi thinks about twenty metres. That’s what mother said. She cried when I told her, and I thought she was crying for Czar; but she said they were partly tears of joy, because I hadn’t been hurt—nor Seppi.”
Uncle Ronald’s face was grave as he drew the child towards him. He, too, felt that he had come very near to losing his small nephew.
“I think I might have been killed but for Seppi,” pursued Squib. “He made me come back with him when he knew the storm would be bad; and it was worse up the hill where I should have gone if he hadn’t said I must come with him. Lots of trees were struck. They are lying about still right across the path. I shouldn’t have known what to do; but Seppi did. Seppi knows a great deal about the mountains. He is a very nice boy. We are great friends.”
At this moment Colonel Rutland appeared, and his greeting to Squib showed that he, too, had heard the story of the boy’s narrow escape, and was feeling some considerable emotion at the thought of it.
Squib soon found himself telling the story of the 224adventure in detail, and how kind Seppi’s mother had been in drying his clothes and keeping him warm by the stove all the time; and how Peter had set off in the pouring rain, directly it was safe to leave the hut, to take word to the chalet that he was safe, and to bring him down some dry garments, for his own were not fit to put on till the next day.
“I knew mother would be afraid about me,” said Squib; “but I didn’t mean Peter to go. I wanted to go myself as soon as the thunder and lightning stopped, but Seppi’s mother wouldn’t let me. Peter went instead. Peter is a very nice, brave boy—although Seppi is really my friend.”
He was silent for a short time, and then began again,—
“Father, I wish I might do something for them!”
“For your friends in your favourite valley? Well, Squib, what do you want to do?”
“I don’t quite know. I have so many plans. Father, haven’t I a lot of money in the bank? You know my godfathers and godmother always send me sovereigns on my birthday, and mother puts it in the bank. I think I must have a lot there now; haven’t I?”
“Well, according to your ideas, I daresay you have. Twelve or fifteen pounds, perhaps.”
To Squib that seemed a perfect fortune. His eyes shone brightly.
“Father, would that be enough to buy a cow? or 225enough to send Seppi to a school where he could be taught drawing and wood-carving, so that he could make his living? You know he is lame, and he is very delicate, too. He got a bad cold in the storm, and he has coughed ever since. I think if he could be sent to some warmer place in the winter, and be taught a sort of trade, it would be a very good thing. Do you think my money would do that? And do you think I might give it to him?”
“We will think about it seriously,” answered Colonel Rutland smiling, “since it does seem as if Seppi’s promptitude and presence of mind had saved you from possible danger. What is the name of this family in which you are so much interested?”
“Ernsthausen,” answered Squib at once; “and Lisa knows all about them. They have lived here a long time.”
But Squib suddenly found that his father was not listening any longer, but had turned to Uncle Ronald.
“Ernsthausen! Can it possibly be the same?”
“It may be; but one doesn’t know how far the name may be a common one in these parts. I think Lorimer, who talked with him so much, said that he hailed from these parts.”
“What is it, father?” asked Squib earnestly. “What are you talking of?”
“Why, we had a guide called Ernsthausen—an uncommonly good fellow he was, too; and, though I said nothing about it to your mother in my letters, 226we were once in a nasty predicament, and things might have gone badly with us but for Ernsthausen, who showed great presence of mind and courage. He would not take anything beyond his ordinary fee and small gratuity, saying he had only done his duty. But we thought very well of the man, and were talking about trying to find some way of helping him. Mr. Lorimer used to have long conversations with him that we did not understand. He may have found out something about him. Run and call him, Squib; let us take him into counsel.”
Squib, quite excited by the prospect of a council over his friends, at once jumped to his feet.
“I expect it’s the same!” he cried eagerly. “Seppi’s father is a guide, I know; and a very good one. That’s partly what makes them afraid when he goes away for the summer, and when storms come on. Gentlemen going long and dangerous ascents always try to get him, because he can be trusted. He gets well paid, of course; but they are always afraid lest some harm should happen to him.”
“Sounds rather like the same man, doesn’t it?” said Uncle Ronald. “Well, we’ll see what Lorimer has to say about it.”
Mr. Lorimer was soon there, and could tell them many things he had gleaned from the guide Ernsthausen. It very soon seemed almost certain that he was none other than Seppi’s father, for he had spoken of having his home in a valley not far from the 227chalet whither his gentlemen travellers were bound at the conclusion of their mountaineering trip, and he had certainly spoken more than once of a little lame son at home.
That quite settled the matter in Squib’s mind, and he was quite excited to know what was to follow.
“I know what Ernsthausen has really set his heart upon,” said Mr. Lorimer. “It has been a project of his for years, and he is saving money for it; but he is still some way from having sufficient to start it.”
“What is that?” asked Colonel Rutland with interest.
“Well, I don’t know whether you know how things are done in this country, but I will tell you something of it in brief. I may not be very accurate in detail, but the substance is true. If a man wants to undertake any big bit of work—build a hotel or pleasure resort, or even get himself a large farm, he scrapes together a certain sum, and then applies to the government for a loan sufficient to enable him to carry it out. He pays a modest rate of interest for this when the thing is started, and gradually pays off the debt as well if he is thrifty and careful; but the government has what we should call a mortgage, I suppose, on the place all the while; and if the man is a ne’er-do-well, or idle, or extravagant, and does not keep his pledges, government simply steps in and ousts him, and takes the place over bodily. I suppose he gets his own capital back; but I don’t know the details, as I say. 228I only know that that is the sort of thing that goes on, and explains the ease with which small men build and set going these monster hotels, which in England would ruin the first two or three proprietors very likely.”
“Sounds a simple and Arcadian method,” remarked Uncle Ronald; “but what has all this got to do with Ernsthausen?”
“Why, just this. He is very anxious to have a small hotel of his own for mountaineers; just in that spot we have so often spoken of as needing one so badly—where all those valleys converge, and so many ascents can be made. It has been an idea of his for a long while, and he has been saving up all he can. His wife would manage the kitchen department, and his son would help in many ways, and he would still do a certain amount of his old work for the gentlemen he knew, but gradually grow independent of it as his strength diminished. He has been thinking of the scheme for years, always afraid lest somebody should be beforehand with him; but he does not think he has yet quite sufficient to get the advance from government. He told me that in two or three years he hoped to make a start. But often some calamity in the winter to his home, or some failure in the crops, has obliged him to draw upon his savings. I thought, then, that it would be a happy notion to make over to him the balance he needs; but, with a man of free, independent character, it is not easy to 229tender help. He is proud, this Ernsthausen, with all his poverty.”
“And a good thing, too,” breathed Uncle Ronald softly. “That is a complaint I wish more poor people suffered from in these days!”
But Squib, who had been listening breathlessly all this time, now burst into excited speech.
“Oh, father, do let me give my pounds to Seppi! and let me tell him all about it I don’t think he knows; but I believe he would be glad, because they are always so sad when their father goes away. It would be beautiful if they all lived together always, and had a place of their own, and took in travellers, and were not so poor. I don’t think they mind being poor. I think they are wonderfully good; but it would be nice for them not to have to be afraid about their father any more, and to be with him all the year.”
“Well, we will think about it,” answered Colonel Rutland. “I shall make inquiries, and see what I think can be done. We must first make sure that the family is the same: and then we will see how we can go to work. I should like to help them very well, I confess; but we must not be in a hurry.”
Squib always was in a hurry; and he found all this very exciting. He wanted to talk it over with Seppi at once, but he resolved not to do so till things were more settled.
But he was off early next morning to the valley, 230and to his surprise and pleasure found Seppi on his old knoll by the fir-trees, with his sketch-book and chalks beside him. He was looking eagerly out for Squib, to hail him as he passed, fearing lest he should plunge straight down to the bridge.
Moor, too, was on the lookout on his own account, and came bounding up to him, pushing his black nose into his hand, and soliciting notice. Moor had been very affectionate to Squib ever since the death of Czar. It seemed as if he recognized the child’s loss, and tried to show sympathy in his own way. Squib repaid this affection warmly, and thought Moor, next to Czar, the nicest dog in the world. He followed him willingly enough to Seppi’s knoll.
“You are up here again, Seppi! That is nice!”
“Yes; I wanted to come again,” said Seppi with a wistful look round him. “I do so love the mountains; and I cannot see them properly from the other side.”
Squib sat silent a little while thinking, and then asked,—
“Do you think these mountains are so much better than any other mountains? Would you be very sorry to go away and leave them?”
There was a strange look in Seppi’s eyes as he looked straight out before him.
“I—I—don’t quite know,” he said softly, almost more to himself than to his companion. “Sometimes I think—perhaps—it would be better there.”
Squib shot a little glance at him from under his 231brows. Seppi’s face wore the sort of look one sees on the face of a person who is looking on things from which he is soon rather likely to have to part. And the younger boy recognized this look at a glance.
“He does know something about it,” he said to himself. “Perhaps his father doesn’t want it talked about, and so he keeps it to himself. But he has heard something, I am sure. I hope he does not mind very much.”
There was silence a while between the children, and then Squib asked in a tentative fashion,—
“You are not unhappy, Seppi?”
The dark eyes were turned full upon him, and Seppi smiled.
“No,” he answered softly, “I don’t think I am unhappy, little Herr; I have thought about it so often. I think it will be better really, perhaps; only—only—well, I suppose it is always rather hard to go away when one loves everything so much.”
“Yes,” answered Squib with sympathy, “I think that is the hard part of it—and you love your valley so much. But you know it will be just as beautiful there—perhaps it may even be more beautiful. We don’t know because we have never seen it.”
Seppi gently shook his head, and smiled.
“That’s always what I try to think—that it will be so much more beautiful than this that I shan’t want ever to come back. I don’t suppose people 232ever do really. Only sometimes one can hardly help thinking one would.”
“No, of course not,” answered Squib eagerly, “and you especially, because you are so fond of your valley and mountains; but I think the other will be better. I really do.”
“I think so too—really,” answered Seppi softly. “I’m glad you know about it, little Herr. I didn’t know whether I could talk to you about it.”
“Oh yes, you can—if you like,” answered Squib eagerly; “I didn’t know you knew anything about it yourself. I shouldn’t have said anything if you hadn’t. But I do like to know what you think about it. Will you mind going very much?—and will Ann-Katherin mind?”
Seppi’s face looked very grave and rather sad.
“Ann-Katherin does not know,” he answered very softly. “I couldn’t tell her; she would cry so. I don’t speak about it to any one: but I am sure mother knows. She cries often, but she doesn’t talk about it.”
Squib felt a little puzzled.
“But isn’t she rather glad too? Doesn’t she like to think of having your father always there, and his not going so much up the dangerous mountains?”
It was Seppi’s turn to look puzzled now.
“I don’t quite understand you, little Herr.”
Squib turned a bright look upon him.
“Why, about the hotel, you know, which your father wants to have down in that other valley where 233there isn’t one. Weren’t you talking of that all the time? I thought he had told you all about it, only it was a secret.”
Seppi’s bewildered face astonished Squib not a little.
“I don’t know what you mean, little Herr.”
“Didn’t he ever tell you about it, then?—or your mother?”
Seppi shook his head.
“I’ve never heard anything about it.”
“Then what did you mean about going away?”
The children looked into each other’s eyes, and Squib felt a sudden stab of pain somewhere which he did not understand.
“Tell me what you meant,” said Seppi after a pause. “Why did you think I was going away? And what do you mean about a hotel?”
Squib looked eager, yet doubtful.
“I’m not quite sure if I ought to tell. If I do, it must be a great secret, Seppi.”
“Oh, I won’t tell; but I should like to know. It would be something to think about when I am thinking of them all. Will you please tell me, little Herr?”
“Do you know what a hotel is, Seppi?”
“Yes, father talks about them sometimes. People stop there and have their food and beds. Father once said that he should like to keep one himself. It paid very well when it was well managed, and he should 234like the life. But mother said it was no use thinking of it, because they should never have the money.”
“Oh, then you do know!” cried Squib eagerly. “I’m so glad; because I think perhaps your father will have the money quite soon; and then he’ll begin to build, and perhaps by next spring you will all go and live there. It would not be your own valley, of course, but Uncle Ronald says it’s one of the most beautiful valleys in all Switzerland.”
Seppi’s eyes were shining now with excitement.
“Oh, how wonderful! Would they really! Oh, how do you know about it? Mother doesn’t know, I’m sure; I should know if she did. How can father get the money?—and how do you know, little Herr?”
Squib nodded his head sagely. He wasn’t going to be betrayed into any premature disclosures, nor did he quite know how people were going to manage matters; but he knew that what his father took in hand always was carried through somehow, and so he had no doubts at all.
“My father told me,” he answered proudly. “My father is a very good man, and he knows a great deal. Your father was his guide, and he saved his life; and mother and they all think that you saved me from being hurt in the storm. That’s what makes them all so interested in it. When my father means a thing to be done, it always is done,” concluded Squib rather grandly, though without any assumption. “He has been a soldier, you know, and has always had people 235obeying him. Things always come right when he takes them in hand. Everybody says that.”
The lame boy’s eyes were shining brightly.
“Oh, I am so glad! I am so glad!” he whispered. “I didn’t know how to think of leaving mother and Ann-Katherin before; but if they go away somewhere else, and if they have a different home and a different valley, they will not miss me the same way. How good God is to us!” added the boy with sudden vehemence. “Just as Herr Adler says. He does everything we ask Him, and ever so much that we should never have thought of asking. He is good and kind!”
Squib was looking rather disturbed.
“I don’t quite understand you, Seppi. Why do you talk about going away, except to the new home?”
Seppi turned his eyes over towards the mountains, and Squib saw how pinched and thin his face had grown. He began to apprehend the meaning of the words, though he did not fully comprehend them.
“I think I shan’t be here in the spring to go with them,” said the lame boy quietly. “The doctor said last time that another cold would make an end of me. There’s been something wrong here,” touching his chest, “ever since I was all those hours in the ice-cave. Every winter they think it will be then; but I’m sure it’s coming now.”
Squib looked very much awed, but not afraid. 236The thought of death is not in itself terrible to children. Their hold upon life is not very strong, and their simple faith carries them over all perplexities and misgivings.
“Do you mean you will not get better?” he asked softly.
“I don’t think I can. I feel so very weak, and at night I can’t breathe, and I have to sit up and pant. I am best out on the mountains; but soon I can’t be there any longer. If it were not for mother and Ann-Katherin I think I should be glad. It isn’t good being weak and lame, and not able to do anything like other boys and men. In God’s garden it will not matter. I shall be like the others there.”
“God’s garden!” repeated Squib quickly.
“Yes; I once had a dream about being in God’s garden. I can’t explain how it was; but there was a beautiful garden with mountains all round it, and flowers growing everywhere. And I was one of them; and I knew that the others had been live people once, and had died and been taken there to rest and sleep until the resurrection. And we were all so happy. And presently a whisper ran through that the Lord was coming, and that we were to be ready for Him; and that made me so glad and happy that I awoke before He had come. But I always remember my dream; and once I told it to Herr Adler, and he told me that he knew many good men who had dreamed something very much the same. 237So when I think of being dead, I never feel as if I should be in a narrow grave in the cold and the dark, but be a flower in God’s garden, just waiting for the Lord to come.”
Squib’s eyes were bright with interest and sympathy.
“That was a nice dream,” he said. “I shall think about that often. I am glad you told it me.”
“I’m glad I’ve talked to you,” said Seppi. “I was feeling rather unhappy before you came, and now I am quite happy again. I think mother and Ann-Katherin would have missed me so if they had stayed always here; but if they go to another place, it will be quite different. They will have a lot of nice things to think of, and that will keep them happy.”
“Will Ann-Katherin mind leaving the valley?”
“I don’t think so if I’m not there. I think she will be glad to go. Ann-Katherin loves the mountains and the goats and everything here, but she likes change too. If there are mountains and pretty things where she is going, I think she would like it better. She would like to see a lot of people; and Peter will be very happy.”
Seppi had so much to talk of and think about that his face quite beamed, and lost its pinched, wistful expression.
“Perhaps he will get better,” thought Squib to himself, as at last he rose and made his way home.
That was the last time that Seppi and Squib sat together upon the knoll beside the fir trees, looking out across the valley at the great range of snow-peaks opposite.
When next Squib found his way there, no Seppi was to be seen. Three days had passed since they had held their talk together about leaving the green valley they both loved, and those three days had been full of interest to the little boy.
For Mr. Lorimer and his father had been making inquiries about the Ernsthausen family, and had established the identity of Seppi’s father with the guide who had served them so faithfully, and had saved Colonel Rutland’s life at the risk of his own. Squib’s story of little Seppi and his patience and goodness touched the heart of his mother very much. Lady Mary had heard much of Seppi during the past weeks; and ever since the storm, when she had been so alarmed for a couple of hours about her son, she had felt great gratitude to the little goat-herd who 239had so promptly taken him into shelter, and to the whole household in the humble home who had cared for him, and had sent to relieve her anxiety. She entered with much sympathy into Squib’s eager desire to help the family to set up for themselves in the way the father had long desired; and she told Squib that since his father had taken up the matter she was very sure it would all come right in the end.
“May I tell Seppi so?” asked Squib eagerly, and his mother said she thought he might, if Seppi could be trusted to keep the secret for a little while till things were more settled.
“Thank you,” said Squib, “I should like Seppi to have the pleasure of knowing about it and thinking about it beforehand. Mother dear, don’t you think a clever doctor might make Seppi well again? Uncle Ronald was soon made quite well when he came home ill.”
Lady Mary shook her head sorrowfully.
“I am afraid, my darling, from what I hear that poor little Seppi’s days are numbered. But you know that his crippled life here could not be such a very happy one. He would feel his lameness more and more as he grew older, and the Loving Shepherd knows what is best and happiest for His lambs.”
The tears sprang to Squib’s eyes as he heard those words, and he pressed up to his mother’s side.
“Did you feel like that, mother,” he whispered, “about my little brother when he died?”
240For that little brother whom he could not remember had always seemed to Squib to belong especially to himself, and his mother’s arms pressed him very close as she answered,—
“That is how I try to think of it now, darling. It was very hard to give him up at the time, but I am quite willing to believe that the Lord knows best, and by-and-by we shall understand all those things which seem so hard to bear now.”
“Yes,” answered Squib quickly and earnestly, “when the Lord comes to make all things new, and His Kingdom begins to come. Oh, how I wish it would come quickly!”
The mother looked earnestly into her child’s face and saw that the boy’s eyes were fixed intently upon the blue distance before them. Some new thought was struggling in his mind.
“Mother,” he said, “do you know that there is a little bit of this earth in glory now? I don’t quite know how to say it, but that’s just what it is. One little bit has been glorified and has its resurrection life already. Did you know?”
Lady Mary slightly shook her head.
“I do not quite know what you mean, dear child. I suppose it is something Herr Adler told you?”
“Seppi drew Squib’s hand down upon the head of Moor.”
Page 254.
241“Yes,” answered Squib; “it’s so beautiful and so interesting. Mother, it’s the Lord Himself who has been glorified. You know He rose out of the grave with the same body as He had on earth, which was made of the earth—only in resurrection it was different. But it was the same body, for there were the marks of the nails and the spear; and that body has been taken up to heaven and glorified, so that just a little bit of our earth is glorified in Heaven now. Mother, Herr Adler says that when the Lord has begun a promised work, it is a sure and certain pledge that He will finish it when the right time has come. And so we know that by-and-by we shall have resurrection bodies given us, and shall be glorified too. He says that that is what David meant when he said: ‘When I awake after Thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with it.’ You see he knew about it somehow, even though Jesus hadn’t come then.”
Lady Mary kissed her child lovingly.
“I am glad you had so many beautiful talks with Herr Adler,” she said. “Always try to remember what he taught you, dear.”
“I will,” answered Squib earnestly; “I think he is the goodest man I have ever seen.”
And having kissed his mother, Squib went off to find Seppi, but the knoll was not occupied to-day.
“He will be nearer home,” said Squib, preparing to descend, and sure enough he came upon his companion lower down the valley, but on the far side of the bridge.
The face raised to greet him was bright, although it looked very sharp and worn; and there was creeping over it, under the brown, a curious grey look.
242“Little Herr, I thought you would come to me. I tried to get to our knoll, but I couldn’t.”
“Why couldn’t you?” asked Squib with solicitude.
“I felt so queer, and all my breath went away. I had to sit down; but I thought if you came you would come down. I don’t seem to have any room to breathe if I go uphill.”
“Poor Seppi!” said Squib pitifully; “does it hurt much?”
“Oh no! I don’t have any pain. And I’m used to it at night. Generally I am pretty comfortable by day. Little Herr, we had a visit yesterday from a friend of father’s.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, and he says father is rather disturbed, because he has heard that somebody has been talking about buying the piece of ground he wants so much for the hotel he has been thinking of so long. He has heard that a gentleman has been inquiring about it.”
Squib’s face beamed all over.
“That’s my father,” he said in an important whisper. “My father has such good ideas. He set somebody to ask about the land before he came back here. I suppose that is what your father has heard of. But he need not really mind; for if my father buys the bit of land, he will give it to your father, I know.”
“O little Herr! It seems too good to be true!”
“Oh no; only one of those nice things that grown-up people can do. That’s what I should 243like to be grown-up for—I should have so many nice plans.”
The boys sat thinking each his own thoughts, and then Squib said,—
“I suppose your mother told you about it, then, because you didn’t know much the other day.”
“Yes, she told me in the night, when I couldn’t go to sleep. We had a nice long talk about lots of things. She talked about father’s plan; but I didn’t tell her what you had told me. I thought it was a secret.”
“I think it is just now, till something has been settled. O Seppi! I wish you and I could go together to see the valley, and make plans about your new home there.”
Seppi looked all round him, up and down his own valley, and away towards the Silent Watchers guarding it on either hand, and said,—
“I think I like this one best. I don’t think I want to go to the other, though I like to think of them there. Little Herr, will you ever go to see it some day, when you are a man?”
“Oh yes!” cried Squib eagerly. “When I’m a man I shall do lots and lots of things. I mean to be a mountaineer for one thing, like Mr. Lorimer, and climb all the mountains that can be climbed, and I shall have your father for my guide, and I shall stay at his hotel, and we shall be great friends. You know he was very brave, and saved my father’s 244life. I shall never forget that. It’s not the sort of thing one ever does forget.”
Seppi looked very pleased and happy.
“I think father is a very brave man,” he said, “though he never talks about the brave things he does.”
“I don’t think really brave men do,” answered Squib, with decision. “The boys at school say that it’s always the cowards and the bullies who do the bragging and the boasting; the really brave boys don’t have to be always telling of themselves.”
Seppi quite agreed in this, and told a few stories he had heard from others of his father’s prowess, and they drew many happy fancy pictures of the days to come when Squib should become a great mountain climber, and Ernsthausen should go with him right up into the land of cloud and snow, across the blue mysterious glaciers, and ever upwards and onwards to the soaring peaks beyond. Squib’s face flushed with delighted anticipation as he lifted it towards the eternal snows and thought of all the triumphs that lay before him; but presently his expression changed, and putting out his hand he took Seppi’s gently in it, and said,—
“I wish you could go too!”
Seppi smiled without any sadness.
“But, little Herr, I never could climb, you know,” and he looked at his poor, little, shrunken limb.
“I know,” answered Squib quickly, “but I mean I wish that that hadn’t happened to you.”
245The little goat-herd looked thoughtfully out before him.
“I’m not sure that I do,” he said.
“O Seppi! what do you mean?”
“I was thinking,” answered Seppi dreamily, “that if I had been strong and active like Peter, perhaps I should not have had the goats to mind. I think Ann-Katherin would have taken them, and I should have worked at home with mother and Peter; and then, you see, I should not have had all those talks with Herr Adler, and I should not have had my drawing; and I should not have had you, little Herr!”
“O Seppi! but to have been strong and well would have made up for that,” said Squib, whose active spirit could not imagine a more terrible loss than that of the power of locomotion.
“I don’t know,” answered Seppi. “I think I am happier than Peter, who is strong and big. I don’t think I want to be anybody else. It’s just as Herr Adler said it would be.”
“What did he say?” asked Squib, with interest.
“It was the first time he came; at least, the first time I can remember about. I was out with the goats. I had not been lame long, and I was often unhappy. I missed the things I had been used to do, and I wanted to do them again. I was crying about it one day, and he saw me, and came and sat down by me and talked. He said such beautiful things.”
246“Tell me what they were.”
“Yes; but I can’t make them sound as he does, you know. He first told me about how God had taken care of me down in the ice, and had helped father to get me up safe again; and he said I must not think any more about its being the ice-maidens, because that was nothing but the fancy of people who lived amongst mountains, and that God would never let His children be subject to such beings, even if they had any existence; but when I cried again about being lame, he was kinder still, and told me that it was perhaps because the Lord loved me that He had laid His hand upon me, because it says somewhere that whom He loveth He chasteneth—it is in the Bible.”
Squib nodded his head.
“Yes, I know. I came upon it reading once with mother. I said it seemed like you.”
Seppi’s face flushed with pleasure and gratitude.
“Did you? How kind to think of me, little Herr! Well, I won’t tell you the things of that sort which he said. I expect you know them all yourself; but he told me other things that I had never thought about before. He said that if God took away from us one of our powers, He was always ready to make it up to us by giving us more of another; and that, if we could learn to be submissive, and to take everything He sent us as His gift, we should soon find that we were not the worse, but the better for it!”
247“O Seppi—how?”
“Well, I didn’t understand then, but I do now. He told me I must use my eyes if I could not use my legs, and that I should see as many wonderful things going on around me as if I could scour the woods after them; and indeed it’s true. Just sitting still anywhere, and listening and watching is so interesting; and then watching the shapes and the colours of things put it into my head to carve and draw; and that has made me so happy. And then the farmer down in the big thal gave me Moor for my very own, which he never would have done if I hadn’t been lame; and so you see how many, many things I have got by it. And I often think I’ve been happier than Peter, though he is so strong and can go anywhere.”
“Do you think you are?” asked Squib.
“I often think so. Peter doesn’t care a bit to watch the mountains, and he doesn’t know how beautiful they can be. He never listens to what the water says, and he doesn’t know a bit how happy it makes one to see beautiful things and think about how they come to be there. Herr Adler says that if we only have eyes to see and ears to hear, everything in the beautiful world tells us about God and His Kingdom, and I’m sure it does. It has made up for everything to me. I don’t think I want anything different now.”
Squib heaved a little sigh as he said,—
248“Well, if you don’t want it different, I’ll try not to want it either. But I can’t help thinking how nice it would be if you could have been my guide some day when we were both men, and I came to stay in your father’s hotel.”
The talk about that hotel was a great amusement and pleasure to the boys in the days to come. Seppi was failing rapidly. He was still able to be out near home with the goats, and Squib would join him almost daily, often with some interesting piece of information about the negotiation of the land purchase, which was going on still. Colonel Rutland was buying the site, Squib presently informed Seppi, and he would then make it over to Ernsthausen as his own. Then, after the sale of the present plot of ground and chalet, the man would have enough with his savings to ask the needful loan from government, and commence the building. It would not take long to run up the modest building he required, and by the following spring he would be able to open it for the use of mountaineers, for whose resort it was mainly to be put up. The children were never tired of talking about it, and by this time the whole family knew what was on foot, and were in a state of excitement and pleasure. Peter was going to realize his dream, and live a wider and more exciting life, not quite so much shut in as now by the limits of the narrow valley. The mother would not be separated from her husband during the summer, and would have congenial occupation at his side; and 249as for Ann-Katherin, she caught the prevailing excitement without exactly knowing what it was all about, and thought that everything would be delightful, though she could not at all imagine living anywhere but in her own beautiful valley.
Moor was the only member of the household that seemed unhappy at this juncture. Was it that the sensible fellow had a premonition of coming change? or did some instinct tell him that all was not well with his little master? The boys could not tell. All they knew was that the dog was restless and unhappy; that he followed their movements with his eyes in a wistful and imploring manner; that he whined a good deal at night, and was only quieted by being put to sleep upon the foot of Seppi’s bed; and that on the days when Squib failed to appear, he had been known to set off to meet him and hasten him, and not finding him, had come home very dejected, and had been restless and uneasy all day.
“He is so very fond of you,” Seppi often said when telling Squib of this. “I think he likes you next best to me of anybody. He only seems really happy when we are together. Poor Moor! he is such a faithful friend. I do love him so! I think he understands everything I say!”
Squib had been detained at home one whole day, first by a rainy morning, and then by a walk with his father, which had kept him away from the valley where Seppi was half-expecting him. He did 250not always go, but since his time had begun to get short (for they were to leave the chalet soon), he tried hard to see his friend daily, for he knew that his visits were eagerly looked for, and he sometimes had some interesting bits of news to communicate.
He had planned to start off for the valley next day as soon as ever his early breakfast had been dispatched; but before he was up in the morning—when, in fact, the day was only beginning to brighten in the east—he was awakened by a strange sound of snorting and scuffling just outside the little door-window which opened on his balcony, and he sat up listening with a beating heart and a strange feeling creeping over him, for it was just that sort of noise that Czar used to make when he came up sometimes to suggest that they should have an early walk together. But poor Czar lay in his grave on the hillside. What could this noise mean?
Squib sprang out of bed and pattered across the bare floor in his little night-shirt. He unfastened the bolts and opened the window, when in ran Moor, his coat wet with dew, his eyes full of that unspeakable wistfulness seldom seen in any eyes save those of a dog, and his whole manner full of such an eager intensity of purpose that Squib knew in a moment that something unwonted had happened or was happening.
“What is it, Moor? What is it, good dog?” he asked. “And oh, Moor, how did you find your way 251here?” for Squib suddenly remembered that Moor had never been to the chalet before, and had never accompanied him further than to the ridge just above the knoll with the fir-trees, where he had first seen Seppi and his goats.
Moor could not answer, but he whined round the child, putting up his paws and seeming to try as hard as he could to tell him something.
Squib understood dog-ways and dog-talk almost as well as dogs understood him, and he quickly comprehended that Moor wanted him to go with him somewhere.
“I’ll come! I’ll come!” he answered, and began hurrying on his clothes. Moor was satisfied the moment he saw this, and ran to a water-jug to slake his own thirst, for he had plainly run fast and hard. Squib was not many minutes in getting into his clothes, and as soon as he was dressed he paused for nothing save to get a few biscuits out of a cupboard, some for himself and some for Moor, as they ran down the staircase and through the dewy grass together.
“Is it Seppi?” asked Squib anxiously; and at the sound of the familiar name the dog looked backwards over his shoulder and uttered a little, low whine.
“Did he send you for me?” said Squib again, still running onwards along the familiar track, with Moor always a few yards in advance. But Moor only wagged his tail that time and said nothing, and the pair sped on in silence.
252“Something is the matter,” said Squib to himself, “and Moor will show me what it is. Can Seppi have fallen, or be in danger? But then Moor would have run home for help. Besides, Seppi could not be out so early. He is not well enough.”
Down the side of the valley plunged Squib in the wake of the faithful Moor, looking keenly to right and left as he did so, but seeing nothing to attract his attention or account for the eagerness of the dog.
At last they reached the bridge, and were quite near the chalet. Squib suddenly began to wonder what they would think there of his appearing at such an hour, and, for a moment, he paused, as though in doubt; but Moor uttered a quick, sharp bark, either of joy or command, and out from the chalet darted a little bare-headed figure, and Squib heard Ann-Katherin’s voice raised in sudden excitement and relief.
“Mother, he has come! He is here! Mother—Seppi—the little Herr has come!”
The next moment Frau Ernsthausen herself had come running out, and she met Squib a few paces from her door. Her face was pale and stained with weeping. Her voice shook as she held out her hands.
“Ah, the good God must surely have sent His angel to tell you! Oh, how my poor little Seppi has been calling for you!”
“Moor came for me,” answered Squib, rather bewildered and awed. “What does Seppi want?”
253“Ah, don’t ask! don’t ask! My child is dying!” cried the poor mother, her tears gushing forth again. “Peter is away for the doctor. I could not let Ann-Katherin go, nor did she know the way. But all the night through he has been asking for you. Oh, thank God that you have come in time!”
Very full of awe, but without any sense of fear, Squib entered the low door, and found himself in the familiar room. A shaft of sunlight entered with him, and Seppi, who was lying in his bed propped up high with pillows, stretched out his arms to him with such a smile of welcome.
“The angel has brought him, mother!” he cried, in a quick succession of panting breaths. “I see the shining of his wings. How good God is!”
Squib went straight up and took Seppi’s two hands.
“I have come,” he said simply. “Moor came for me; he said you wanted me, Seppi!”
The eyes, so wonderfully bright and full of the intense light which is not of this world, suddenly drew off, as it were, from looking out into space and fastened themselves on Squib’s face. Seppi smiled a different kind of smile now, but it was a very happy one.
“I am so glad you have come,” he said; “I did so want to see you again. I have something to give you, little Herr. Will you let me?”
“O Seppi, yes. Is it anything I can do for you?”
“Yes; I want you to have Moor,” said Seppi, still 254panting out his words in the same quick, breathless way. “I want you to have him for your very own. He loves you next best. He would be happy with you. Will you have him?”
“O Seppi, don’t give him away yet; you may want him again,” sobbed Squib, overcome for a moment by the sense of near parting which this request brought home to him.
A quick, strange smile flashed over Seppi’s face, over which a grey shadow was falling.
“No,” he whispered, “I shan’t want him any more; but I love him. He brought you. He will miss me most. Please have him and keep him for me,” and possessing himself of Squib’s hand, Seppi drew it down upon the head of Moor, who had stretched himself upon the bed beside his little master, and who now licked the joined hands of both children, with his eyes full of tears.
“I’ll keep him,” answered Squib, steadying his voice. “He shall come home and live with me. I will make him happy.”
Seppi smiled. It seemed the last little cloud upon his mind. Now that he was satisfied he lay back on his pillows and put out one hand to his mother, the other lying still in Squib’s close clasp upon the head of the dog.
“Tell me about 'He shall give His angels charge,’” he whispered the next moment. Seppi looked at the mother, and the woman looked back at him, and then 255Squib, suddenly thinking of Herr Adler and some of the things he had said, answered with one of his own bursts of subdued vehemence,—
“Seppi, I daresay the angels are here. I daresay it was they who helped Moor to find me and bring me; but that doesn’t matter. The Lord Jesus is here Himself, and I think you will see Him soon. Never mind anything else. He is coming.”
Seppi’s eyes filled suddenly with strange light, and then the lids closed, and the quick panting breathing grew very slow—and then stopped.
“Jesus has come!” said Squib in his heart, and he turned by a sudden impulse and put his arms round the neck of the weeping woman on her knees beside him.
“Seppi is not lame any more,” said Squib softly.
It was the last day at the chalet. On the morrow Colonel Rutland and his party were to start for England and home.
Squib stood holding his father’s hand beside a little newly-made grave in the quaint little burying-ground of the little church on the hillside, just where it began to slope gently down towards the wider end of the valley where the small township lay.
Squib held in his hands a wooden cross about three feet high. He had spent the last days of his stay in Switzerland in carving that cross, and in striving to put into it some of the many imaginings which crowded his busy brain. For a child’s handiwork it was very creditable. There was a lily carved upon the upright bar, standing out in bold relief, and the greatest pains had been taken with the shape and veining of every leaf and petal. At the very top of the cross the word “SEPPI” was cut in small capitals, and that was all. The lower end of the upright bar was pointed, and as Squib stood at the little grave looking 257very seriously upon it, he gave a questioning look up into his father’s face, and on receiving a nod of assent he moved forward and drove his cross into the ground just at the head of the little grave. The earth, having recently been loosened, gave no great resistance. With the aid of his father the boy fixed his little memento safely in its place, and, having done this, he hung upon it a wreath of Alpine flowers which he carried on his arm, and stood looking at the result with a smile on his lips and a tear in his eye.
Colonel Rutland, standing bare-headed at the grave, bent his keen gaze on the face of the child beside him. The death of little Seppi was Squib’s first real acquaintance with death (for he had been too little to understand or remember the loss of his baby brother), and it had produced a considerable effect upon the child, as his parents had observed. His presence at the deathbed could not have failed to leave an impression on a mind so thoughtful and sensitive as Squib’s; and it had been plain to those about him that the boy had thought of little else ever since his return from the peasant’s chalet with news of Seppi’s sudden death, and the way in which he had been summoned.
“I think they will know whose doing that is,” said the Colonel, and the boy looked up with a smile. Although grave, and sometimes tearful, Squib had not been sorrowful during these intervening days, and there was a look of gladness in his face now as he surveyed his handiwork.
258After rather a long silence he broke out in his earnest way,—
“I think they will. I’m sure Ann-Katherin will, because Seppi always told her everything—what we talked about and what we thought about. She will know why I made it a cross, and why I put the lily on.”
“Why did you, my boy?” asked the father gently.
“Well, you see, father, it was like this. We used to talk about things—Seppi and I—and he used to tell me things I didn’t know. You know the people about here are some of them Roman Catholics, and they do things that seem queer to us. They go down on their knees when they pass a cross or a crucifix by the roadside, and Seppi said that Protestants called that wicked, so that they didn’t have any crosses or anything like that in their churches. But I told him we did in England, and he thought it was nice, if it wasn’t wrong; and so we asked Herr Adler about it, and he told us.”
“Told you what?”
“Oh, just made us understand what was right and beautiful and true, without getting wrong things mixed up with it. Herr Adler is so nice like that. He loves the Roman Catholics, and calls them brothers, but he knows better than anybody I ever met just where they are wrong, because they go beyond the Bible, and teach things that are not there; and he loves the Protestants, because they made a stand for 259the truth and would not have the Bible kept from them, nor have a Pope for the head of the church instead of our Lord; but he tells us just where they have cut away too much and left their churches bare and their services too. And so he told us that we were right to love the symbol of the cross (as Seppi did, only he was afraid it was wrong), because St. Paul said that he would glory in it, and our Lord said we were to take up our cross and follow Him. We used to talk about Seppi’s lameness. I think that was his cross; and I knew he would have liked to have one at his grave—though I don’t think anybody else would put one there. And you see the lily means that he isn’t lame any more—that he has laid down his cross, and that he is in God’s garden now—a lily, perhaps, or some beautiful flower, just blooming there with the others, and waiting for the Lord to come. Like his dream.”
And then Squib slipped his hand again into his father’s, and the pair walked back to the chalet again.
They had plenty of interesting things to talk of. Not only were they going home soon, but everything had been arranged about the Ernsthausens and the piece of ground which Colonel Rutland had bought and made over to them. Everything was practically settled by that time; and as they passed through the place on their homeward way, Squib was to have the great delight of seeing the site of the proposed hotel, and of being introduced to Seppi’s father.
260Moor was one of the little party at the grave that day. He had stood with wistful eyes and drooping tail whilst father and son remained there. It seemed almost as if he knew who it was that lay sleeping below; but he had quite settled down by this time in his new home and with his new master, and Squib had won his fathers consent to taking the faithful dog back to England with him.
At first there had been some doubt about this. Both parents had thought the dog would be far happier in his own home, and could not understand Squib’s assurances to the contrary; but when it was demonstrated time after time that, if taken back to the peasant’s chalet, the dog would return almost immediately to his new master with every demonstration of joy and affection, Colonel Rutland was fain to admit that some inexplicable bond had been formed between the pair, and he no longer resisted Squib’s earnest appeal to be permitted to take the dog home with them. He was not a beautiful animal, but his fidelity and sagacity were beyond dispute. Squib and he were devoted friends, and since poor Czar was no more, one dog was manageable on the homeward journey.
Squib’s farewells were all made by this time. The visit to Seppi’s grave was the very last. His precious collections of plants and flowers were all packed up by the careful Lisa. His many small gifts and his numerous carvings were stowed away in the great 261boxes, all carefully marked for identification. On his last visit to the home of the Ernsthausens he had been given numbers of Seppi’s drawings, and especially, what he greatly valued, the sketch-book, full of those chalk sketches and studies whose progress he had watched with such keen interest. There were several beautiful portraits of Czar in this book, which made it the more valuable, and every picture recalled some incident to the boy’s mind, or portrayed some familiar effect of sunshine and snow such as the pair had loved to watch. With that sketch-book in his hands, he would be able to make the brothers and sisters at home understand everything about his life in the valley. Here were the Silent Watchers with their great snow crowns, there the tumbling cascades and watercourses with their many bridges. On one page was a picture of Seppi’s home, with Peter digging in the garden, and Ann-Katherin sitting in the doorway with her red handkerchief on her head; on another, the flock of goats browsing on the hillside with Moor watching them, and Czar lying beside him with his head on his paws. There were studies of some of their favourite Alpine flowers too, such as would be useful to carve from by-and-by, if Squib continued to keep up that accomplishment; and almost everything Squib most wanted to describe to the girls at home was illustrated in Seppi’s book.
There was even a portrait of Herr Adler in his long coat, pointing out to Squib something in the rocks at 262their feet. Perhaps the faces were not particularly like, being on so small a scale; but the general effect was good, and Squib was very glad he had not let Seppi tear out the page on which the hasty sketch had been drawn, as he wished to do, being himself dissatisfied with it.
Squib was ready by this time to go home. Seppi’s death had in a great measure broken the tie which had bound his heart to the green valley; and the thought of all the party at home, the pleasant summer holidays, and the interest and excitement of preparing for school next term, drew his thoughts and interests homewards like a magnet.
The parting with Lisa was the only really hard thing, and that was hard; for the pair had always been much attached, and the bond had been drawn very close during these long summer weeks.
However, they consoled themselves by promises of writing sometimes. Now that there would be no Seppi to write to, Squib would have lost all news of the valley and of his friends there if Lisa had not promised to keep him informed from time to time. Her home was about midway between this valley and the one in which the Ernsthausens were to set up in the spring in their new hotel. She would be sure to hear and see something of them from time to time, and would let her “Liebchen” know.
Squib was permitted to spend a part of his money in the purchase of a silver watch for Lisa, which he 263gave to her on the morning of departure. Her wonder and delight helped them to get through the good-byes wonderfully well, and it was rather a relief at the last to be actually on their homeward way again.
The first stages were taken slowly, and by the evening of the first day the party only got as far as the place where Ernsthausen stayed during the summer months. Here they remained for the night, and Colonel Rutland hired a light carriage and drove Squib out in the evening to see the spot where the hotel was to be built. As they approached it they saw several peasants standing about and looking with great interest at what was going on, and Colonel Rutland remarked with a smile,—
“Ah, here is my friend Ernsthausen himself, measuring the level ground, and seeing how best to pitch his building. We will go and speak to him.”
This was all very interesting, and Squib highly enjoyed the encounter. He did not know which to admire most—the gratitude and dignity of the fine Swiss mountaineer, who now knew to whom he was indebted for this piece of good fortune; or the pleasant, kindly manner of his father in first accepting, then quietly putting aside the thanks, going into all the calculations and measurements, dropping a hint here and making a suggestion there, always to the point, and always eagerly listened to by those standing by.
“I am so glad we went,” cried Squib, as they got into the carriage at last, followed by something very 264like a cheer from the peasants. “What a nice place it will be when it is done! Father, do you think you will ever bring me here again?”
Colonel Rutland looked down at his small son, and seeing the eagerness in the boy’s eyes, answered after a little thought—
“Well, Squib, suppose we make a compact. You are going to school, and for the next few years you will be busy and full of other interests—interests which you cannot understand yet, but which will absorb you immensely by-and-by. In the holidays you will want to be at home with your brothers and sisters, and they will want you. But our compact shall be this, Squib, that if you are an industrious boy at school, if you do well there—do your best, I mean—and give satisfaction to your masters, then when the time comes for you to leave—the time when there is a break in a boy’s life, and often rather an unwelcome one—then I will take you or send you to Switzerland once more for a couple of months; and you shall do some mountaineering with Ernsthausen, provided you are strong enough, and he is here to take care of you.”
Squib’s eyes had been growing brighter and brighter during the course of this speech. Now, after turning the delightful proposition over and over in his mind for several minutes, he said,—
“Oh, father, you are kind to me! I will be good and diligent. I meant to before, but I shall never forget now. I told Seppi I didn’t know if I should 265ever come again, not till I was quite grown up and could do as I liked. But now I shall always have this to look forward to! Oh, I am so much obliged to you!”
Colonel Rutland patted his son’s head as he replied,—
“Being grown up, and doing as one likes in your sense of the word, my little man, by no means always go together. When we look back at our boyhood, we fancy it was then that we did as we liked, not now. The fetters of life are much heavier as we go on than they are at starting, as you will find for yourself one of these days.”
Squib gave a quick upward glance at his father’s face, then turned matters over and over in his mind for a long while, after which he broke out in his vehement way,—
“I know what you mean, father—at least I think I do. But I mean to like everything I have to do, which is better than just doing as one likes. You know that’s what Herr Adler does, and he’s always happy. I don’t know what he does do, but it’s hard work, because Seppi says so; and yet he says it is beautiful work, because he loves it so. He says everything can be beautiful if it is done right—done the best way—done,” here Squib dropped his voice to a whisper and added, “to the glory of God. Seppi found it out. He said it was beautiful work to keep the goats on the mountains, though at first it seemed so dull. I’m going to try that way of doing everything 266and looking at everything. Then I shall always do as I like, because I shall always like what I do.”
The Colonel bent an earnest look at the child and said,—
“Well, Squib, if coming to Switzerland has taught you that lesson, I don’t think your journey has been in vain.”
Going home was very interesting, Squib thought, though perhaps not quite so exciting as going out, when everything had the charm of novelty. He understood things better now, and could explain them all to Moor, who was very much perplexed by some of his experiences, especially his first introduction to trains, and his first sight of a large town and paved streets. He was so afraid of being lost that he would not leave Squib’s side for a single second, and had to be permitted to sleep at his bed’s foot at night. This dependence formed a very strong bond between the dog and the child; and before they reached England, Squib felt as if he must have had Moor all his life, and his grief for the loss of Czar was very much lessened. There would have been a great blank in his life if he had had no canine companion especially his own; but Moor was more his own even than Czar had been, and, being so much smaller in size, could come much more indoors with him at home. His only trouble in prospect was the thought which sometimes presented itself—“What will he do when I go to school?” But Squib 267had always possessed a fund of philosophy of his own, and would answer to himself, “Better wait and see what happens before bothering. Perhaps he will get fond of them all at home, and will not miss me more than Czar would have done. Everybody at home will be fond of Moor for being such a good dog. He must learn to do without me sometimes. He will have all the girls to love him.”
And so Squib would not be troubled by the future, but enjoyed the present very much, sitting in the corner of a railway carriage, whilst Moor squeezed up beside him next the window, eagerly watching the flying landscape, his ears very tightly pricked, his brown eyes full of light, but quite content even amidst all this unwonted bustle and confusion so long as he and his master were together. There was less trouble with him than with Czar in travelling, on account of his smaller size.
Squib occupied his leisure moments in trying to teach him English, as he was afraid things would be very strange for him at the Chase if he did not know any English words. He soon reached the conclusion that Moor had a “natural gift for languages,” for he soon obeyed words of command as readily in French or in English as in his native tongue.
“I wonder if he will be sea-sick!” thought Squib, as he led him on board the packet. “Poor Czar was, but perhaps Moor will be a better sailor. In people, one can never tell.”
268Apparently Moor was a better sailor than Czar, for the slight motion of the boat did not seem to affect him at all, and he presently grew so much at home that at last he left his little master’s side and wandered about on his own account.
Presently Squib heard a short sharp bark, such as Moor was wont to give when anything pleased him, and that roused the boy, who was leaning over the ship’s side thinking about the home he was rapidly approaching, and he went to see what had excited his companion. There were a good many passengers on board that day, and Moor’s bark came from some distance off, for Squib was right up in the prow, watching the sharp point cut through the waves and throw back two great flashing scimitars of shining water as it tore its way along, and the sound came from the hinder part of the packet.
Suddenly he came in view of Moor, triumphantly holding by the corner of a gentleman’s long coat, and drawing him along with him; and a quick flush rose in Squib’s face as he exclaimed joyfully,—
“Herr Adler!”
“My little friend the firework,” said Herr Adler, in his kind way, holding out a hand and drawing the boy to him. “Squib with Seppi’s dog! I could scarcely believe my eyes when Moor came and claimed acquaintance. Have you got Seppi somewhere here? or how come you to have his dog?”
“Seppi is dead,” answered Squib gravely, “and he 269asked me when he was dying to have Moor, and father said I might;” and then Squib launched out into the history of the last weeks of his stay at the chalet, and Herr Adler listened with undivided attention and sympathy, just putting in a word here and there, “saying some of his nice things that leave you feeling happy afterwards,” as Squib expressed it to his mother, but leaving the greater part of the talk in the hands of the child.
It was a great satisfaction to Squib to have this talk.
“Seppi would have liked you to know everything, I’m sure,” he said in conclusion, “because it was you who helped him so when he was lame first. Isn’t it funny we should both he crossing in the same boat? It seems like a beautiful thing to me. I think beautiful things do happen to you, Herr Adler.”
“I think they happen to all of us, my little friend, if we have eyes to see and hearts to understand.”
Squib looked up eagerly into the kind face and said,—
“Oh, I think they do! I do indeed! Everything seems beautiful to me, I mean about going to Switzerland and finding Seppi, and being his friend, and meeting you and everything. I wonder whether it will go on being like that always! Do you think it will, Herr Adler?”
He was smiling in the way Squib remembered so well—the way that always drew the children’s eyes to his face in eager anticipation of his next words.
270“I hope it will, my child,” he said. “There is nothing to stop it, unless we raise obstacles ourselves. Sad things may happen to us, but, as you have found already, sad things can be beautiful things too. Everything that comes to us from God has a beautiful side, if we can but find it; and with what is evil, and comes not from Him, we must have nothing to do. And the most beautiful thing of all is surely coming, and may come any day. We must always live in that hope, and then everything about us is beautiful.”
Squib did not entirely comprehend what those last words meant, but that did not matter. Children do not ask to comprehend all they hear; it is enough that they apprehend something beyond their ken which lifts their hearts upwards. The pair sat side by side for some minutes in silence, and then the boy said with a sigh of contentment,—
“I am so glad I have seen you again. Now will you come and see my mother? I am sure she would like it.”
After that there was no more private talk between Squib and his friend, but he kept by Herr Adler’s side, and enjoyed hearing him talk with his parents and uncle. They all liked him so much—Squib was quite proud of the fact. Everybody loved Herr Adler who came across him. As Squib expressed it, “They just couldn’t help it!”
“Well, good-bye, my little friend,” said Herr Adler at last, as the boat was slowly steaming within the 271great stone crescent that guarded the harbour; “perhaps some day we may meet again; but whether or not we do here, we shall meet one day, and know each other again. Be a good boy, and never forget whose child you are. A very happy home-returning to you! What a clamour there will be when they all come out to meet you—brothers and sisters, and horses and dogs! I should like to be there to see!”
“Oh, do come, sir!” cried Squib eagerly. “I’m sure they would all so like it!”
But Herr Adler shook his head, though he was smiling all the time.
“Thank you, my little man, but those pleasant things cannot be. Good-bye, my child. You must go to your parents now.”
The boat had come to a standstill, the great engine had ceased to throb. There began to be a movement amongst the passengers. Squib knew that he must not linger now. Although he was growing to be a big boy, and was not much in the way of kissing now, he suddenly lifted his face to Herr Adler’s and received a kiss from him.
The next minute his friend had passed across the narrow gangway, and was with the crowd on the shore. Squib waved his hand to him once, and then turned quickly back, joining his father and mother almost before they had had time to miss him.
“I was just saying good-bye to Herr Adler,” he said. “I’m so glad we met him again!”
Squib was on the box-seat of the carriage, squeezed in between coachman and footman. His eyes were bright with excitement; his flood of eager questions, which had not ceased to be poured out since leaving the station, now ceased suddenly—for there was the house rising up before his eyes; here was the inner gate dividing garden from park; and there was the great hall door standing open wide, a flood of bright lamplight pouring out into the warm dusk of the summer night.
It was eight o’clock by this time, and the sun had dipped behind the hill (Squib could not quite make out what had happened to that hill; it always used to be so high, and now it looked so funny and low), but there was still a warm red glow all over the western sky, though the shadows were darkening, and the dusk was creeping on. It was almost August by this time, and the longest days had come and gone since Squib had been at home.
“Squib’s brothers and sisters rejoiced over the pretty gifts he had brought them.”
Page 283.
273“There they are!—there they are!” cried Squib, jumping up and down upon the box in his excitement. “I can see them out on the steps! Oh, how nice it is, getting home! I thought going away was the nicest; but I do think coming back is better!”
In another minute the carriage had dashed up to the door, and there arose a chorus of voices.
“Squib!—Squib!—Father!—Mother! O mother, how glad we are to have you back!—Squib! Squib!” and from the twins, allowed on this evening of all evenings to sit up for mother’s kiss, a little echo in their high-pitched, baby voices—“Kwib!—Kwib!”
Squib was off the box before the carriage had stopped, and was immediately the centre of a bevy of sisters, all trying to hug him together. He might be the odd one of the family, with no special comrade of his own; but the sisters found they had missed him terribly all these weeks, and were delighted to have him back once more. The big brothers from school did not fill the niche which Squib always occupied; and now they had got him back, it seemed as if they did not know how to make enough of him. Norman and Frank slapped him on the back, and looked with a certain respect at one who had seen so much that was strange to them. The babies put their fingers into their mouths, and gazed at him with solemn admiration. They were just a little bit shy of the parents they had not seen for almost three months, but they were not shy of Squib, and kept very close to him, till at last, in the midst of the 274tumult of greetings and questions going on in the big hall, they pulled hard at his hands, and pointing to a corner of the place where a great chair stood, said in eager whispers,—
“Who’s that, Kwib?”
Squib looked and saw poor Moor. Perplexed by the hubbub and tumult, which he somehow felt to be different in kind from any former experience he had been through, and rather alarmed by the number of people, and the presence of a couple of house-dogs, jumping up upon everybody in joyous excitement, he had taken himself off to this obscure corner, and had effaced himself as far as he could beneath the chair, waiting till his little master should have leisure to notice him again, and tell him what he was to do.
“That’s Moor,” answered Squib eagerly; “come and talk to him, and make him feel at home. He’s such a nice dog! Seppi gave him to me. I’ll tell you all about Seppi some day when we have time. But come and see Moor now. I’m sure he’ll like it. He likes being loved.”
“Where’s poor Czar?” asked Hilda, as they went across the hall willingly with Squib.
“He’s dead,” answered Squib sadly. “Didn’t you know?”
The twins had heard that something tragic had happened to Czar, but were not quite sure of its nature. They had rather feared the huge dog, and did 275not personally regret him, though always sorrowful for anything that other people thought sad.
“Won’t he ever come back again?” asked Hulda; and Squib shook his head.
“No, he’s buried in Switzerland; I’ll show you a picture of his grave. I’ve brought Moor home instead. Father said I might.”
Moor by this time had advanced a few yards from his retreat, and was wagging all over, as dogs have a talent for doing when rather forlorn or shy, but anxious above all things to propitiate.
Hilda and Hulda, who had grown up amongst animals, and loved them dearly, were on their knees beside him in a moment, calling him by all sorts of endearing names, and receiving his grateful and affectionate kisses with great joy. As for Moor, he did not know how to show his affection enough. He squirmed and wriggled, and thumped his tail upon the parqueterie floor, and fawned first upon one little girl and then upon the other. They ran to the dining-room and got him biscuits; and were wonderfully taken by the little tricks he did for them, and, above all, by his comprehension of another language, when Squib gave the words of command in his own home-patois.
“Oh, isn’t he a clever doggie! Oh, isn’t he a dear doggie!” they cried again and again, interrupting proceedings by their eager kisses and caresses. “Oh, may we have him in the nursery when you don’t 276want him, Kwib dear? We never had a nursery dog—and he is such a dear one! Oh, good Moor!—nice Moor! Oh, isn’t he kind and gentle! I think he’s much nicer than Czar; but then Czar wasn’t nice to us as he was to you, Kwib.”
The delight of the children was great. They could hardly tear themselves away from the new pet, till a message came that they were to say good-night to father and mother, and go to bed.
“May Moor come with us?” they asked, and Squib gladly consented, for he was afraid Nip and Koko might not be very friendly to a stranger the first night, though they would be certain to make friends later on.
“Kwib’s brought home such a nice doggie!” they cried, as they pressed up to say good-night; “and he’s coming with us now, 'cause he feels rather strange just at first.”
“That is right, darlings,” answered the mother. “Make him happy, and give him a nice supper; for he’s a very good doggie, and very fond of little people”—and the twins trotted off hand-in-hand perfectly happy, with Moor snuggling in between them, very willing to do anything that was desired of him when Squib had explained that he would come too by-and-by.
So Squib sat at table with the elders that evening, at a meal that was something like dinner and tea and supper all rolled into one. He sat at a corner, 277between Mary and Philippa, and poured a perfect broadside of information into their willing ears as he ate. As for them, they listened greedily, and piled his plate with every kind of delicacy. It was nice to be home again, Squib thought, although he had enjoyed himself so much away. It was nice to find out how very kind his sisters were. He felt he had not quite appreciated them before. They were so glad to have him back, and made so much of him, although he was younger than they, and they wanted to know everything that he had to tell them.
But it was getting late to-night; and mother by-and-by told him he must run off to bed, and finish his stories to-morrow. Squib felt that it would take a great many to-morrows before all was told; but when he came to think of it, he found that he was rather sleepy, and he did want to see how his own little iron bedstead would look after the funny wooden ones he had slept on all these weeks.
His bedroom was in the nursery wing, and he had to pass his little sisters’ door before he reached his own. As he softly stepped along the matted corridor, he heard the soft flopping of a tail against the boards, and found Moor stretched out upon the mat just outside the night-nursery.
“Good dog! good Moor!” he said, pausing to pat him. “Yes, take care of the little mistresses all night. Good dog! good old fellow!”
The sound of his voice attracted the attention of 278nurse, who came out of the day-nursery with a beaming face.
“Master Squib, my dear, how well you look, and how brown! and I declare if you haven’t grown, too! Well, we shall all be glad to see you back, I am sure. The young ladies have missed you sadly since you went. But there, there, as I tell them, they’ll have to get used to it, seeing that you are just going off to school.”
“But it’s nice of them to miss me—I didn’t think they would,” said Squib, holding nurse’s hand and looking up into her face, and thinking how nice and kind it was. “Oh, nurse, Lisa sent her love to you, and such a lot of messages. I’ve got something in my box that she knitted for you, too. I’ve got such a lot of things to unpack to-morrow. I’ve brought such a heap of things home. And Moor has come instead of Czar. I’m dreadfully sorry poor Czar is dead; but I think the children will like Moor better. And he is our very own; and we may have him in the nursery, mother says.”
Squib looked up under his eyebrows at nurse as he spoke, for he was not quite sure how she would take to the idea of a nursery dog—she had never favoured Czar’s presence there; but she was looking quite smiling and pleasant, and even put out a hand to stroke Moor, who had come up at the sound of his name, and seemed to desire to propitiate the presiding authority of these regions.
279“Well, he seems a nice, faithful, attached creature, and Miss Hilda and Miss Hulda are so set on animals, there’s no keeping them away. If your mother does not mind having the dog up here, and he’ll be clean and quiet, I don’t say but he might be useful in his way. It’s a long way from here to the kitchens when I’m at supper, and now you’ll be so much away, Master Squib, I confess I haven’t always been quite comfortable to think of leaving them all alone, in the dark days, so far from everybody. But a nice, sensible dog up here beside their door would make me quite happy. And he seems wonderful understanding with children—as though he was used to them. I’ve taken rather a fancy to him myself, I own; though I never liked that big Russian fellow. I never felt that he mightn’t turn upon them if they teased him; and he’d soon have made an end of a child if he’d been angry.”
“He never turned on anybody when I was with him,” said Squib; “though I know people called him fierce. But Moor is very good and gentle. You should have seen how he took care of Seppi.”
And then Squib went to his room, nurse coming with him to help him to unpack a few things that he was anxious about, and to get to bed; and whilst she did this he told her the story of little Seppi, and how good and faithful Moor had always been. So that nurse was quite reconciled to the idea of a nursery dog, and Moor slept contentedly at the night-nursery 280door, with his eyes (when he was awake) on that of his little master’s room.
How exciting it was, waking up the next morning, to find himself really at home!
Squib leaped out of bed the moment he thoroughly realized this, and began dressing in great haste, without even looking at his precious watch. When he did look at it at last, he found it was only six o’clock.
“But never mind,” he said to himself; “I shall have all the more time to see everything.”
Moor jumped eagerly up when his master appeared, and was delighted to accompany him out of doors.
“Things have a different smell here,” was Squib’s first thought as he let himself out into the fresh, morning air; “I should know I wasn’t in Switzerland by that. I wonder if Moor notices the difference.”
Moor was at any rate immensely interested in this place, which Squib was careful to explain to him was his home now. He raced hither and thither, with his nose to the ground, and sniffed eagerly at everything.
Squib’s first journey was to the paddock where Charger was generally to be found when he was turned out. The nights had been so warm that he did not think he would have been taken in for shelter; and when he neared the place, sure enough there was Charger quietly cropping the dewy grass, and flicking off the flies with his tail; but as Squib ran forward, calling out his name, he threw up his head, and came trotting up to the fence.
281“Good old Charger! nice old horse!” cried Squib, caressing the soft nose and feeding his favourite with lumps of sugar from his pocket. He had brought home some of the funny French sugar on purpose for Charger, and very much the good horse seemed to like it.
“May I have a ride, Charger?” he asked, and Charger arched his neck and gave an answering whinny, and the next minute Squib mounted the iron railing, and made a quick spring upon the broad back of his friend. In a moment he was firmly seated with his hands in the thick mane of the horse, and Charger set out on a little canter round and round his paddock, whilst Moor careered after him in wild excitement, this being quite a new experience for him.
“You will often run with Charger now,” Squib explained to him as he rolled himself off: the horse and dog made mutual acquaintance by gently sniffing at each other, and from that moment they were friends. Moor was often afterwards to be seen trotting off to see Charger either in paddock or in stable, as the case might be. Sometimes he would jump into the empty manger, and sit an hour there holding silent converse with him. It soon became recognized throughout the household that Moor was a “character,” and he was accorded the liberty and consideration which such individuals usually earn. Everybody liked him, and all were pleased when he singled them out for notice; but he was reserved in the main, and kept 282the wealth of his affections for his own master and the little twin girls.
To them he was intensely devoted, and nurse soon found that he could be quite useful to her in taking charge of the little ones, either in the garden or even on the roads, if she had an errand to do and did not wish them to come into the cottage where she might have to go. With Moor to take care of them they were perfectly safe; for he would not allow a stranger to approach or address them, nor would he permit them to get into mischief, or to wander away from him or from one another. He treated them as he had been used to treat a straying goat, running round and barking at them, and keeping them together and in the right place; and his antics were always so entertaining to the little ones, that they were kept quite amused and happy till nurse returned to them.
So Moor won for himself a place in the household; and by the time that Squib had to go to school, he was able to say philosophically to himself, “Well, it was just a good thing I didn’t worry about leaving Moor behind. He’ll miss me, of course; but he’s got Hilda and Hulda and Charger to be fond of. He won’t pine a bit. He’s much too sensible; and I shall tell him that I shall come back. He’ll quite understand. It’s not a bit of good to worry over things beforehand. They come much righter if one is just sensible and lets them alone!”
But all that was much later of course. School still 283seemed distant when Squib returned home to find himself something of a hero.
He was a greater hero than ever when the boxes were unpacked, and tray after tray of odds and ends, incalculably precious to children, were carried into the nursery to be distributed and explained.
Oh, how the brothers and sisters did rejoice over the pretty little gifts their brother had brought for them, and almost more over the quantities of little things he had carved himself! Really, when all these were collected together there was a goodly array. There was something for everybody in the house, and for all the men in the yard too. And even when all these were arranged for, there were quantities left, and the nursery and the girls’ rooms were filled with trifles that little people love to collect about them—goats and dogs, and horses and chalets, and paper knives, trays, and little boxes. Not only were there all Squib’s carvings, but numbers of Seppi’s too; for Frau Ernsthausen had given Squib a box of these at the last, which he had not opened till he got home; and now it was found to contain all manner of pretty little trifles such as Swiss boys so often make in the winter months; and Seppi’s work was always good, he took such pains with it.
Squib was thought a most wonderful traveller as he produced these stores, with a perfect flood of reminiscences and anecdotes in connection with them. Breathlessly was the history of his acquaintance with 284Seppi listened to, and tears stood in the sisters’ eyes as the pathetic little story was told.
As for Moor, he was loved even more when it was told how good and faithful he had been; how he had acted like a sort of crutch to Seppi; and above all, how he had come all that way across the valley and found his way to the chalet to summon Squib to the side of his dying master. Squib always told that part of the story with a certain awe; for he felt that something beyond mere instinct had guided the creature’s steps, and he scarcely knew how to give expression to the ideas which this thought suggested.
But as the days flew by, and the first excitement of Squib’s return died a natural death, there was still one favourite pastime that never failed the children, but which seemed to grow more and more fascinating with familiarity. And this was to get Squib to produce Seppi’s sketch-book, and sitting all together in a cluster on the broad, low nursery window seat, to turn the pages slowly over, and make Squib tell the story of every picture.
Amongst so many favourites it was hard to say which was first, but perhaps it was the sketch of Czar’s grave; for that always elicited the story of the terrible thunder-storm amongst the mountains, to which the sisters would listen with the most breathless interest. The drawings of the snow-peaks and the Silent Watchers had a great fascination also, and Squib would tell the legends of the peasantry about 285the Bergm?nnlein and the Seligen Fr?ulein. But at the end he would always add,—
“But that’s all make-up, you know. It isn’t true. It’s not like the stories Herr Adler tells.”
As for Herr Adler’s stories, they were a perfect mine of wealth to the children. When for any reason Squib failed to remember any fresh adventure of his own to relate, Hilda or Hulda would quickly turn the pages till they came to the one which represented Herr Adler in his long coat pointing something out to Squib with the end of his stick, and then they would all cry out in a breath,—
“Never mind, Squib; tell us one of Herr Adler’s stories. His are the nicest after all!”
So Herr Adler became a household word in that nursery, and in future, if Squib caught himself in the act of being slovenly, selfish, disobedient, or wasteful, he would pull himself up shortly on remembering how he had been taught always to give his best, always to try after the highest, to make his life a beautiful thing, and to find everything round him beautiful, as no one can ever do who is not struggling with his faults, and seeking to follow in the footsteps of One who pleased not Himself.
Then he soon found that when there was discord in the nursery or schoolroom, and voices were raised in grumbling, or fault-finding, or scolding, and he suddenly said,—“I don’t know what Herr Adler would say to us if he saw us now!” it generally 286produced a sudden lull, and they would all look at each other and begin to wonder how the quarrel had commenced.
“I wish Herr Adler would come and see us some day,” said Philippa once, when there had been a good many breezes through the house, and the children had at last made peace, and agreed that there had been nothing to quarrel about, but that they were just naughty and silly; “I think he would make us all good.”
Squib was squatting on the window-seat looking out over the park, and wondering why he was cross with his sisters, of whom he was so fond, when he had hardly ever felt cross all the time he had been in Switzerland.
“He wouldn’t like you to say that,” he answered quickly.
“Why not? I thought you said he always did make you feel good.”
“So he does,” answered Squib, wrinkling up his brow in the effort to formulate the thought in his brain, but failing to find adequate words in which to express it. After some moments of silence he broke out in his squib-like way: “Yes, I just wish he would come, and then you would understand. I can’t make you, because you’ve never seen anybody like him. I think”—with a flash of sudden inspiration—“it’s because he’s a man of God. That’s what Seppi said, and I’m sure he’s right. You just feel that all the 287time he’s talking. And that’s what makes everything about him just what it is.”
After which very lucid statement Squib subsided into silence.
But I think the sisters understood him, in spite of the difficulty of expression, because children, and especially brothers and sisters, have a wonderful gift of reading each others’ hearts and minds by a species of intuition; and after a little pause of silence, Mary said thoughtfully,—
“I think I know what you mean, Squib dear. We oughtn’t to think just whether this person or that person would be pleased by what we do, although, of course, we must try to please our parents; but we must try most to please God; and He always sees us and knows what we are saying and doing. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
Squib nodded with some vehemence, but answered nothing, and the subject dropped; yet the children did not forget, and even the little twins would sometimes say to each other in whispers,—
“We shouldn’t do that if we knew Herr Adler could see us—but God always sees. We mustn’t do anything He would mind.”
Now after that journey to Switzerland, Squib no longer found himself the odd one of the family. His brothers recognized qualities and experiences in him which made them willing to patronize him and make a comrade of him in many things; whilst the sisters 288found him always an addition to their party, and always had a welcome for him. Moor was a great bond at first—Moor and the picture-book and the stories—and the bond once formed was never loosened, but grew stronger and stronger, even though Squib had to go to school and pass months away from them all.
But that is the way of the world, and boys and girls make light of it, provided they still have happy holidays together, which they certainly do at Rutland Chase. Squib is still looking eagerly forward to the day when he will finish his school life and claim the promised reward. He is very happy at school, to be sure, but what boy ever did fail to look beyond? and Squib’s retentive memory and Lisa’s half-yearly letters all serve to keep that purpose alive in him.
The mountaineer’s hotel in the valley is growing and flourishing. The Ernsthausens are substantial people and have paid off the last of the debt. And Squib still talks grandly to his little sisters of the day when he will go to that hotel and climb all the great mountain peaks under the escort of Seppi’s father.
The End