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 the 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. They 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 slow. 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.
“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?”
“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 carry 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 wet 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 I 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 cold 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.”
CHAPTER XI.
PLANS AND PROJECTS
“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.
“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 some 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 adventure 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 enough 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, we 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 chalet 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. I 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 tender 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, and 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 brows. 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 ever 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 there 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 like 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 obeying 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!”