CHAPTER X. A MOUNTAIN STORM.

“He is more of a squib than ever,” laughed Colonel Rutland.

“I told you he was too good company to be left at home.”

“He’s a walking compendium of instruction, information, and anecdote,” added Mr. Lorimer. “I always told you, Rutland, that that boy hadn’t got his square head for nothing. He will make his mark some day.”

“We’re talking about you, Squib,” cried Uncle Ronald, catching sight of the boy. “Come along, we’re just starting for a walk. You shall tell us a story as we go.”

“Where are you going?” asked Squib.

“To the head of the glacier over there. It’s about five miles off they say; is that too much for you, eh?

“Five miles from here to the glacier,” said Squib, with a little twinkle in his eye; “but how far from the glacier to here?”

Then as the pedestrians looked at him and made no 205answer, the smile beamed all over his face, and he said,—

“I’ll tell you a story. There was an Austrian lieutenant, and he had ridden to Vienna from Prague. He was dining with a noble lady, and at table they were talking about the distance it was between the two towns. The lady turned and said, ‘You have just come, sir; you can tell us how far it is from Vienna to Prague.’ Then the young man put his hands together and said, ‘Excellency, I can tell you exactly the distance from Prague to Vienna, because I have ridden it; but I have never been from Vienna to Prague yet, so I cannot tell you how far it is.’ Then everybody began to laugh, and the lady said, ‘But, my dear sir, it is the same.’ But he put his hands together again and said, ‘Excellency, from Easter to Pentecost is forty days, but from Pentecost to Easter is three hundred and twenty days! The distance from Prague to Vienna I can tell you, but the distance from Vienna to Prague I do not know.’”

“He was a smart fellow,” remarked Uncle Ronald laughing.

“Yes, he was very funny,” answered Squib, who having been, as it were, wound up, was prepared to “go off” considerably longer. “I will tell you another story about him. He was dining at an inn called the Golden Lion, and several of the people were teasing him and making fun, because he was so funny and silly. And the waiter who was attending them 206came up and asked him a riddle, and said, ‘Who is it?—my father’s son, but not my brother?’ And he couldn’t guess, so by-and-by the waiter smacked his chest and said, ‘Why, myself of course,’ and then everybody roared with laughter, so that the young officer thought it must be very funny. Just a few days afterwards he was dining with the noble lady again, and at dinner he said suddenly, ‘Excellency, let me ask you a riddle. Who is it?—my father’s son, but not my brother.’ The lady said directly, ‘Why, yourself, of course.’ ‘No, Excellency,’ he said, putting his hands together, ‘not myself—the waiter at the Golden Lion!’”

The gentlemen laughed heartily at the story, and at Squib’s way of telling it, unconsciously imitated from Herr Adler.

“I suppose that’s another of your new friend’s stories? He must have had a wonderful memory, if he’s anything like what you represent him.”

“You couldn’t guess half how good and how clever and how interesting he is if you hadn’t seen him yourself,” answered Squib with enthusiasm. “Mother understands a little, because he once came here; but nobody could find out everything in one afternoon.”

For some little time Squib was the regular companion of his father and uncle on their walks; and he quoted Herr Adler morning, noon, and night, to the great entertainment of the party. These expeditions, many of them very interesting ones, helped Squib over 207the blank which Herr Adler’s departure had made in his present life. It was Herr Adler’s stories that he quoted to the walking party; but in his heart he turned over many of the other lessons he had received from his friend, and made numbers of resolves, many of which were never entirely forgotten or set aside.

But after spending a week or two at the chalet, the mountaineers went off for another spell of climbing at some distance. More visitors arrived from England to keep company with the ladies; and Squib found himself once more free to resume his old habits, and to return to the Valley of the Silent Watchers, which always drew him like a magnet when he had nothing else to do.

How Seppi’s thin face did light up with pleasure at sight of his friend!

“It seemed as if everything went away together when Herr Adler was gone and you had gone too,” said the little goat-herd with patient sadness. “I know I oughtn’t to say ‘everything,’ when there’s so much left. I did try to think of all the things the good Herr Adler had told us. It helped a great deal; but I am so glad to see you back.”

“I’m glad to come,” answered Squib truthfully enough, “I think I like our quiet days the best. But what will you do in the winter, Seppi, when I’ve gone right away to England, and Herr Adler won’t be coming, and you can’t go out on the hills and draw, and everything is different?”

208Sudden tears stood in Seppi’s eyes at the question. He had grown to love Squib with that kind of passionate love that often grows up in the heart of a child, and becomes almost a pain at last. Squib had, as it were, rooted himself into the very fibres of his heart. He had not seriously faced the thought that the little boy was only a bird of passage; that he was here just for a few short weeks, and then would go away, perhaps never to return. He had built up a fanciful idea of his own that the grand people from England, of whom the peasants spoke with reverence and respect, had bought the chalet for their very own, and would often come to it; and Squib had spoken so much of his love for the valleys and mountains that Seppi might be pardoned for thinking he meant to stay there always. To the peasant boy Squib appeared like a little prince, able to come and go and do as he would; and surely if he loved mountains and the free mountain life so much, he would be able to come very often to enjoy them, and stay a long time when he came.

“But—but—you are not going away, are you?” he faltered; “and you will surely come again?”

“I’m not going away yet—not for a good many weeks,” answered the other little boy, “but by-and-by we shall have to go back. I think we’ve got the chalet for three months. And I don’t know about coming again. You see I shall be going to school soon, and then there will only be the holidays—and 209those, I suppose, will be spent at home. When I’m a man, I think I shall often come to Switzerland and climb mountains, and do lots of nice things; but I don’t think that will be for a good many years. None of the others have ever been abroad, and this is just a treat for me before I go to school.”

Seppi’s tears flowed silently down his cheeks as he heard this, and as he gradually came to understand from his comrade’s explanations that Squib was not a fairy prince, able to come and go at will and do just what he liked, but a little English boy, bound by many rules and regulations, and with a regular round of duties mapped out for him for many years to come. His visions of constantly seeing the little Herr on the hills in summer began to dissolve like dreams at waking time, and his heart seemed to grow strangely heavy as he realized that he might not see his little friend any more after he once left, until both had grown to manhood.

“And it takes such a long, long time to grow up!” he sighed. “Peter is older than I, but he isn’t grown up, though he has been talking of it and waiting—oh, ever so long! What shall I do when I never see you any more—and the years when Herr Adler doesn’t come either?”

“I’ll write to you,” said Squib suddenly, putting out his hand and laying it on Seppi’s; “I’ll write you a letter every quarter, and I’ll send you paper and chalk sometimes by parcel post;” and then warming 210with his subject, he went on in his vehement fashion, “and I’ll send you an envelope with one of your Swiss stamps on it, if I can get them, and you shall send me a drawing back, and if you can, you will write me a letter too, and tell me how you are, and how Moor is, and Ann-Katherin, and everybody, and the goats. Then we shall seem always like friends, and if I ever can I’ll come and see you; only I can’t promise, because I shan’t be able to do as I like till I’m a man.”

Making plans like this was the best substitute for Seppi’s vague dreams of always having Squib near at hand. As the days flew by they made more and more detailed plans about keeping up some sort of a correspondence, and both were pleased to think that this friendship would not vanish away when the boy was carried off again to England.

All this while Squib had never seen Seppi’s home, save at a distance. The little goat-herd never went back till after Squib had left him in the afternoon, and he was too lame to wander about for pleasure. Moreover, there were the goats to think of and care for, and it had never occurred to him that the little Herr could feel the smallest interest in so poor a place as his home.

Squib, however, had often looked across at it and wondered what it was like inside; but he had not invited himself there in case Seppi’s mother might not like it. Yet he had a great wish to see her, 211and Ann-Katherin too, and had sometimes thought he would ask Seppi to go home early some day and let him accompany him.

But before he had ever got to the point of doing so, a sudden visit was paid by him to the chalet in a quite unexpected fashion.

For some days it had been very hot indeed—so hot that the little boy had felt indisposed for anything but to lie about in idleness, and even the goats had done little but crowd together in the shelter of the rock and nibble a little bit of grass in quite a lazy way. The dogs seemed to enjoy the sultry weather most, lying side by side in the sun and basking there to their hearts’ content; but sometimes it became too hot even for them, and they would retire panting into the shade with their tongues out, or trot down to the brook for a drink.

Hitherto the summer had been very fine and calm. Once or twice the boys had heard a rumble of thunder far away, but it had never come near them. Seppi had told Squib many stories of the violence of the summer thunder-storms in his valley, and Squib had wished he might see one; and now it seemed as if this wish were to be gratified.

It was the fifth of these very hot days. Squib thought it was the hottest day he ever remembered in his life, and wondered if India could be hotter. He and Seppi had to get under the great rock, where 212the shade was densest, for the pine trees did not afford nearly enough shelter.

The sky was cloudlessly blue, and the mountains opposite looked nearer than they had ever done before. The Silent Watchers seemed to have even advanced a few steps nearer each other, and Squib felt that if any persons had been climbing their shining white sides, he would have been able to watch their movements. There was a great silence over the world, and, as Squib expressed it, “everything sounded hollow.” He could not well have explained what he meant by this obscure saying; but Seppi understood in a moment, and said,—

“Yes, I think there will be a storm by-and-by. We must watch for it. If it comes it will be a bad one.”

“I should like to see a bad storm,” said Squib; but Seppi shook his head doubtfully.

“They are not always nice. Sometimes they are rather dreadful. Mother did not much like me to go so far to-day; but I knew you would be here.”

“Yes, I didn’t know you ever stayed away. But if you would like to be nearer your home—”

“Oh, I don’t mind. If it looks like a storm we will move. But it is too hot now. I think Moor will know if one is coming. He is so sensible.”

Both dogs were rather uneasy, though, perhaps, not more so than was accounted for by the great heat. 213They kept out of the sun’s rays to-day, and sometimes paced or moved about as if unable quite to get comfortable.

The boys lay on the dried moss and talked without attempting to work; and after they had eaten their dinner, for which neither felt any great appetite, they must have dozed off to sleep, for they were brought to a consciousness of their surroundings by the uneasy whining of Moor about his little master; and when they hastily sat up, they found that a change had come over the look of things.

Away in the east opposite them the sky was still blue and cloudless, and the snow glittered and shone as brightly as ever; but behind them had come up a great mass of purple-black clouds, edged with an angry livid red, and the air felt not only hot, but full of sulphur.

Seppi started to his feet with a little cry of alarm.

“The storm! the storm!” he cried. “Little Herr, we must run for shelter. Come with me! come to my home. You will never get to yours. And you must not go through the woods. The storm has come, and it will be a dreadful one. Oh, why did I go to sleep?”

Seppi was already summoning his goats by the familiar calls they knew so well, and Squib had his arm about him to help him down the hill.

“Run on without me!” cried Seppi, “I am so 214slow. You can’t miss the way—straight down the path and across the plank bridge, and there is the chalet just ahead of you.”

But Squib only held him tighter by the arm.

“We will go together. I will help you,” he said. “Czar will take care of the goats, and they know their way home. Come along,” and as Moor came up to his little master to help him, the party was soon on its way down the side of the valley, Seppi finding the help of Squib’s arm much better than that of his crutch.

Crash—bang—roar!

What an awful noise it was! and coming so close upon that blinding flash of lightning that Squib, who had learned something of the nature of thunder-storms, knew it must be dangerously near. Seppi knew it by experience, and gripped his comrade tighter by the arm. The air about them grew suddenly dark and stifling, the valley seemed filled with booming voices calling and shouting back to one another. Squib would have stopped to listen had not Seppi hurried him on.

“Don’t waste a minute. It’s coming right on us. Ask God to keep us safe. It’s going to be an awful storm!”

These words, panted out in gasping fashion, awoke in Squib’s heart a sense of personal peril which he had never before experienced in his short and protected life.

215“Is it dangerous?” he asked in a low voice; and Seppi squeezed his arm as he said,—

“Men and beasts are killed on the mountains every year when these storms come. Oh, I ought not to have slept! I promised mother not to get into danger. Little Herr, do run on and get into shelter. It doesn’t matter what happens t—”

The sentence was not finished; for so terrible a flash of lightning smote across their vision that both children started, clung together, and shut their eyes. Then just overhead, as it seemed, came that terrible crackling and crashing and roaring, echoed back from the mountains till the sound seemed more than human ears could bear. Squib involuntarily covered his, and hid his face till the violence of the explosion had passed, and when he looked up again it was to find himself enveloped in wreaths of suffocating vapour.

Seppi’s white face seemed to be looking out of a strange halo, and he caught the gasping words,—

“O little Herr! your dog—your dog!”

Squib started, dashed his hand across his eyes and looked round him. A few yards from them stood Czar, upright, motionless, in a strange posture. And even as the boy looked, wondering at Seppi’s cry, the huge creature dropped suddenly over on his side as if he had been shot, and lay motionless and rigid.

“Czar! Czar!” cried Squib, making a quick step forward. “Seppi! what is it?”

216“He was struck by the lightning,” answered the little peasant, “I saw it. I once saw a goat killed that way. It seemed as if fire was all round him for a moment, and the ground seemed to shake. Didn’t you feel it? He was dead in a moment. I know how lightning kills. O little Herr, don’t cry. It couldn’t have had time to hurt him. And it might have been you—or me. It might have been both of us.”

With an awed face Squib realized this truth. Well, indeed, might it have been either or both of them. He was too much shocked and bewildered for tears, and Seppi drew him insistently onwards, past the corpse of the noble hound—Squib could see for himself that no spark of life was left in him, and did not seek to linger—down towards the bridge, casting apprehensive glances behind him as he did so, towards the huge bank of lurid cloud. But the next minute—following almost immediately upon that fatal lightning flash, came a sudden gust of wind rushing up from behind them, and waking every pine tree in the valley into a whispering, moaning life; and as he heard that sound Seppi cried out,—

“Come quick! quick! The rain will soon be on us; and we must get across the bridge before it comes.”

For a breathless three minutes they scrambled down—the goats having by this time taken themselves homewards as fast as their nimble feet would 217carry them—and reached the bridge before any fresh development had taken place. But as they set their feet upon it the heavy cloud suddenly seemed to open its mouth in passing, and down came—was it rain? Squib gaspingly asked himself; it seemed rather as if the river itself had risen up and was tumbling bodily over them.

With a splash and a crash, and a roar of another kind, fell the torrent of lashing rain. Close as the two boys were to the chalet, they were wet to the skin before they reached it. It was just like being in the sea, Squib thought, when the great breakers come tumbling over you. He was by this time so blinded and bewildered by the terrific violence of the storm that he felt as if it were all part of a confused dream; and when he was drawn into shelter by kind, motherly hands, and heard around him a confusion of sympathetic voices, it was quite a number of minutes before he could really make out what was happening, or whether he was asleep or awake.

Gradually, however, the mists cleared from his eyes. He found himself in a strange room, standing before a fire of wood and stuff like peat which gave out a queer smell, and burned in a black-looking stove, and seemed not to have been lighted very long, though it burned hot and fiercely. There were three people in the place besides himself and Seppi—a woman with eyes like Seppi’s, dressed as all the Swiss peasants are, and with a kind, motherly face, who was taking off his 218wet jacket and calling out to somebody else to bring clothes from the press for the little gentleman; a little girl with her hair tightly braided, and a pair of very quick black eyes, who darted off to do her mother’s bidding; and a big boy, many sizes bigger than Seppi, who was helping his brother off with his soaked garments, and talking to him about the storm in the rude dialect which sounded rougher from his lips than from the others’.

Everything went so quickly and briskly that, before Squib had time to collect his ideas, he found himself wrapped in queer but dry garments, perched on a rough chair by the side of the stove, while his own clothes were spread out in the heat to dry, the motherly woman keeping up a constant flow of pitying talk, and the little girl staring at him with her bright black eyes as if she would never stop.

“You are Ann-Katherin,” said Squib, speaking for the first time.

She smiled all over her face and came a step nearer.

“You are Seppi’s little Herr,” she said; “I know all about you. But where is your big dog?”

A spasm crossed Squib’s face.

“He is dead,” he answered in a low voice; “the lightning killed him just now.”

Ann-Katherin’s face was full of vivid sorrow and sympathy.

“Ah, the poor Hündchen! And he so beautiful and faithful. Ah, but Seppi has told me of him, and 219I love him. Oh, these cruel, cruel storms! They kill so many every year—men and beasts. But the good God took care of you and Seppi. You were not hurt?”

“No,” answered Squib a different look coming over his face, “we were not hurt. He took care of us.”

That thought hindered Squib from any outbreak of sorrow over his lost favourite. Deeply as he grieved for the poor dog killed in a moment, he could not but feel that a sense of awed gratitude and thankfulness for his own escape must keep back his sorrow for the poor dumb animal. He was quite old enough and quite imaginative enough to realize the intensity of his own peril. God had protected him in the time of his danger. It would be ungrateful, therefore, to make too great a lamentation for the death of poor Czar.

“We will bury him to-morrow,” said little Ann-Katherin. “Peter will dig him a grave. We will have a beautiful funeral. Seppi shall carve a headstone, and we will always remember him.”

This thought comforted Squib, and was afterwards carried out and from that day forward the little boy often found his way to the chalet on the other side of the valley.

The storm had done much mischief to the garden, and Squib was pleased and proud to help to make things neat and tidy again. Seppi had taken a bad 220cold from his wetting, and was not able to go out to the hillside with the goats. They fed nearer home with Moor and Ann-Katherin to tend them, and the others worked about the place, and Seppi did what he could, and carved a headstone (of wood) for Czar during his leisure moments. He was also engaged upon a portrait of the hound, enlarged from some of his many studies; and when Squib had this presented to him in a little frame, made by Seppi also, he almost cried with pleasure and gratitude.

“But I wish Seppi would get strong and well again,” he said to his mother when displaying his treasure; “I want us to go out together to feed the goats again.”