CHAPTER XIV.
CONCLUSION
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.
“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 tumult 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 not 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 want 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, between 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 nurse, 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.
“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 door, 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.
“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 the 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 seemed 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 Seppi 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 the Bergmännlein and the Seligen Fräulein. 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 produced 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 time 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 found 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.