THE LITTLE GOAT-HERD.
Surely never had boy been so happy before as was little Squib in his
mountain home!
He had perfect liberty to rove where he would, so long as he went
nowhere that Czar could not follow him. This stipulation, as Colonel
Rutland observed, would keep him from any precipitous ascents or
descents, and restrict his wanderings to safe paths; and the fidelity
and sagacity of the dog were quite to be trusted should the child lose
his way. Czar would be certain to bring him safe home again; but,
indeed, there was not much fear that Squib would lose his way. He had a
decided “bump of locality,” as Uncle Ronald called it, and the green
valley with its many attractions was a safe place for the boy to wander
in.
For the first fortnight of his residence at the chalet, Squib had no
disposition to stray very far away. There were so many attractions close
at hand that it was needless to go far afield for his pleasures. Why,
just by climbing up through the meadows and wood behind the house you
could find more flowers than could be properly pressed and arranged in
many days—gentians, small and large, the delicate little soldanella with
its cyclamen leaf, the tiny and exquisite pinguicula with its fairy-like
white bloom, and the yellow anemones which made quite a carpet in one
little glade, hemmed in between the spurs of a dim fir wood. Then down
by the bed of the little brawling torrent, which was always racing and
tumbling down the hillside to join the wider river below, grew in
obscure and shady corners the golden auriculas with their graceful bells
and silvery leaves. As to the lower-lying meadows, they were glorious
with their wealth of many-hued flowers, the blue salvia, purple
crane’s-bill, yellow clover, the wild salsafy with its golden bloom,
that Squib believed to be a rudbeckia until somebody told him to the
contrary, and warned him against including it in his collection, as it
was a tiresome thing to have in the garden, and grew rampant and
masterful beyond bearing. The delicate Alpine roses, too, with their
white and yellow clusters of blossom, were a perfect delight to the
little botanist, and he hardly knew where to begin or where to stop in
digging up roots to be kept in his garden behind the chalet, ready for
final transportation to England.
His mother took great interest in his flowers and plants, and Mrs.
Lorimer knew the names of almost all the Alpine plants, and whereabout
they grew, whilst Lisa was able to give him practical help in digging
and delving, and told him all sorts of stories about the different
properties of the herbs he sometimes brought home, and how they could be
distilled into Enzian-schnapps as she called it, though what sort of
stuff that might be Squib could never make out.
And then there were all Lisa’s stories to be listened to again, with
even a greater sense of fascination here amongst the mountains
themselves than in the nursery at home. Why, the little men of the
mountains—the Bergmännlein, as Lisa called them—might have their caves
in the sides of any of these hills; and it always seemed as if everybody
who once strayed in there came out a hundred years older at the end of
what had seemed to him a very short time. Squib sometimes wondered with
awe if he would ever find his way accidentally into one of these caves
one day, and come back to find the chalet in ruins, the saplings grown
to monster forest trees, and the glacier rolled farther down into the
valley; for Lisa declared that it was always moving on—on—on-although
Squib found it hard to believe.
Talking of the glacier always made Lisa speak of the Seligen Fräulein as
she called them—the ice-maidens, who loved to woo to sleep the unwary
travellers who trusted to their soft guiding voices, and let themselves
be lured from the path and down—down—down into some cold dim crevasse or
grotto whence no return could be made. Squib listened with a strange
sense of fascination as Lisa told him of these snow-white maidens with
shining eyes, and hair like powdered crystal, and how they sang to sleep
the victims they had lured to destruction, and how that sleep lasted for
years and years, and how the sleeper was found at last, still smiling in
his dreams, when, after many generations had passed away, the
ice-maidens would yield up their prey at a certain icy portal where the
river came rushing and sweeping out of a great green ice grotto, in
which the Seligen Fräulein were said to hold high revel.
“And do they wake when they come out?” asked Squib with breathless
eagerness, but Lisa shook her head.
“Na! na!—they never woke again. Nobody ever woke who had felt the kisses
of the ice-maidens. They were jealous—they would not have their captives
leave them for others. Na! na! It was an ill thing to get with the
Bergmännlein or the Seligen Fräulein. The little Herr must beware of all
such things.”
How much Squib believed of all these mountain legends, and how much Lisa
herself believed, it would be hard to say; but the fascination of the
subject was the same, even though there might be a lingering doubt in
the mind both of listener and teller. The sense of something weird and
unseen, uncomprehended in these lonely mountain heights, grew upon the
child rather than diminished as he came to dwell among them. The legends
which had grown up in the mouths of the peasants were but the expression
of those feelings which life in such lonely heights cannot but
suggest—the sense of mystery and unreality, the consciousness of great
overwhelming forces at work, the existence of a spiritual and eternal
world just beyond the ken of human knowledge and experience.
Often the talk between the pair would drift from the fanciful
superstitions of an imaginative peasantry to the region of the world of
spirits dimly indicated in Holy Scripture, and Squib would bring out his
little Bible and search there for such passages as seemed to give
glimpses into the unseen, and strive to translate them into the language
so much more familiar to Lisa. The book of the Revelation was now
studied by him with an interest it had never held for him before—though
like most children he had often read the mystic words with a strange
sense of fascination; but now, as he watched from some lonely knoll or
rocky height the gorgeous pageantry of the clouds, or the reflections
they cast upon the everlasting snows, he would almost think that he saw
the heavens opened and the armies of heaven riding forth on white
horses, conquering and to conquer. Or amid the wonderful lights of
sunrise or sunset, when the mountains glowed and burned with lambent
fire, and the sky was almost too dazzling for the eye to rest upon, he
would fancy that, far, far away in its golden depths, he could see the
great white gates of pearl, or even the shining city coming down out of
heaven, like a bride prepared for the marriage.
But of these things he seldom spoke—perhaps because he had hardly words
in which to express them; and besides it was not often that he found
time for such solitary musings; for the days were very full of
occupation, and Squib might have been “made of gutta-percha,” as Uncle
Ronald declared he was, for his readiness to go everywhere and see
everything.
So what with his own private botanizing excursions, and the walks he
took with father and uncle, the days seemed to race by almost faster
than he could count; and it was only when the three gentlemen had
departed for a mountaineering expedition that was likely to last for
some weeks, that Squib felt himself at leisure to go further afield and
explore the more distant parts of his valley.
He had expected to be his mother’s companion now, but this expectation
was not realized. Not only was there Mrs. Lorimer to be with her, but a
party of friends from England, who were travelling about in the
neighbourhood, swooped down upon the chalet only the day after the
mountaineers had left, and they gladly accepted Lady Mary’s cordial
invitation to remain her guests there for as long a time as the vacant
rooms should be at their disposal.
This sudden invasion made a great deal of difference to Squib’s plans.
He was no longer wanted as his mother’s companion. She was busy and well
looked after. Even Czar was not required now, when there were so many
people about—and, indeed, the valley seemed as safe as the house at
home, and the people far more honest; while all this company made the
servants busy, and even Lisa’s time was so fully taken up in attending
to so many ladies, that she had but little of it to give to the child,
and was glad for him to amuse himself in his own way.
It was quite easy for Squib to do this. Indeed, on the whole (since his
mother really did not need him), he was very glad of the liberty he now
enjoyed to make long expeditions with Czar, and really explore the
valley from end to end. He would get something to eat packed in a little
satchel in the morning—Lisa always took care that it should be something
good, and that there should be plenty of it—and with this little satchel
slung on his back, and his iron-pointed stick in his hand, and Czar
bounding beside him, the happy little pilgrim would start off after his
early breakfast, long before the visitors had thought of leaving their
rooms, and would not return, save by his own wish, till the evening
shadows began to lengthen, and the valley to lie wrapped in a soft,
tender shade.
As for drink—was not every mountain rill a fountain for him, free from
all danger of pollution? And there were scattered huts and chalets,
where a drink of goat’s milk could always be obtained, and Squib soon
came to have many a friend along the various routes which he pursued in
turn; for all the simple peasant folk had a ready smile for the little
English boy with his big, grey eyes and sunny curls, and square, quaint
face so full of thoughtful curiosity.
But though the old folks always looked kindly at him, and exchanged a
morning or evening greeting as he passed, Squib had as yet made no way
with the bare-headed, bare-footed children who were to be seen from time
to time playing round the huts. If he spoke to them they only stared,
and they seemed afraid to approach Czar, who generally stood very close
to his little master if there were any huts or people near. Sometimes
they fled at his approach as if afraid the dog would attack them, and
Squib was not able to understand their guttural exclamations as he
understood the salutations of the grown-up folks. He was rather sorry
for this, as he was a friendly little fellow and would have liked to
fraternize with some of the children; but they were rather like little
savages up here, he thought, and he went on his way solitary, but happy,
satisfied with the companionship of Czar, and talking to him when the
need of speech came over him.
But all this was soon to be changed.
One day Squib took a new route, and dropped almost perpendicularly, by a
very tangled path, to the bottom of the valley, instead of skirting
along its side as had been his fashion heretofore. It happened to be a
very warm day, and this tangled woodland path had greater attractions
than those which led through stretches of sunny meadow. The sound of the
brawling torrent at the bottom made refreshing music in his ears as he
descended, and when at last he found himself at the bottom of the
ravine, he was delighted to see that a narrow bridge of planks had been
thrown across the torrent there, by which he could easily cross to the
other side.
It was a dizzy crossing for any one unused to such transits, but
dizziness was a feeling unknown to Squib; nor was Czar in any way
disturbed by the passage. He followed his little master soberly and
carefully, and in another minute both were on the opposite side of the
familiar valley.
This was quite a new world for Squib, for, as is so often the way
amongst these hills, one side of a valley seems to open out quite a new
region, and it is not easy to believe oneself so near to old haunts.
Squib clambered up the opposite bank of the torrent, which was rather
rough and stony, and then found himself at the entrance of a little
wood, through which a narrow footpath ran. He followed this upwards for
some distance, and found himself at last out on a green shoulder of the
mountain spur, with the top of the ridge only a little above him. He
must climb up and look over, he said to himself, and a few minutes’
breathless clambering brought him to the top; and now a new world, of
which he had never dreamed, lay spread out before him.
From the chalet he had fancied that the range of snow-peaks opposite
rose directly from the bed of the torrent he had just crossed. Now,
however, he found that a whole panorama of meadow, wood, and water lay
between. Sloping gently away from where he stood were emerald-green
meadows full of flowers, watered by little sparkling rills and foaming
cascades tumbling down the hillsides into a lake at the base as blue as
the sky overhead. To the right and left the valley seemed closed in by
great snow-peaks, which stood like two silent sentinels looking down
upon it; and opposite to Squib were patches of cultivated land, with
here and there a little peasant’s chalet—the wooden roof weighted by
heavy stones, piles of wood cut into lengths heaped up against the wall
on the lee side, the whole house raised up on piles to keep it above the
level of winter snow, and the overhanging eaves and protected gallery
showing that it was lived in all the year round, and not just an abode
for the summer months.
The tinkling of many bells was filling the air, and Squib’s attention
was speedily attracted to a herd of brown goats feeding at a little
distance. Seated on a green knoll, with (oddly enough, as it seemed to
Squib) a piece of paper and a pencil in his hands, was a little boy in
the rough, snuff-coloured clothes so common in the district, and a
flapping felt hat a world too large for him. He sat with his back
towards the little intruder, apparently intent upon some task.
At the boy’s feet lay stretched a rough-coated dog with his head on his
paws. The dog seemed to be guarding both the goats and the boy, for he
would rise sometimes and pursue a vagrant goat, who was in danger of
straying away too far, and would make use of the opportunity for making
a rapid circuit round the whole drove and addressing a word of
admonition to them, after which he would return to his old position at
his little master’s feet.
Squib was always interested in dogs, and looked at this one with
approval, holding Czar by the collar so that their proximity might not
be at once divulged. It was a good-sized dog with a shaggy blue-black
coat, a square head, a strong shoulder, and a look of general
benevolence and intelligence.
But he was too good a watch-dog to be long without scenting out the
presence of intruders, and suddenly, sighting or smelling them, broke
into a succession of short, sharp barks, running towards them bristling
all over.
Czar returned the challenge by uttering one of his deep bays, and this
aroused the attention of the little goat-herd, who, as soon as he saw
the pair on the brow of the hill, rose slowly to his feet and called to
his dog in commanding tones.
Squib, holding Czar by the collar, and bidding him be good and
peaceable, went forward smilingly, and when he got nearer he saw that
the little boy was a cripple, one leg being so much shorter than the
other that he could only stand upright with the help of a rough little
crutch. His face, too, was pinched and pale in spite of its coat of
summer tan. He had a pair of big, wistful, dark eyes, but except for
this the face was not remarkable in any way, the features being
insignificant, and the eyelashes and brows of the same pale, sandy tint
as the hair.
“Guten Tag!” (which means good-day) said Squib, gravely, and the little
boy returned the salutation in the same words, whilst the two dogs eyed
each other suspiciously. For a minute the two children stood looking at
each other almost in the same tentative and wondering fashion, and then
Squib’s face suddenly lighted with the smile which few could resist.
“Let’s sit down and talk,” he said, suiting the action to the words.
“You’ve got a dog and I’ve got a dog. I think we ought to be friends.”
The little goat-herd smiled in response, and sank down upon the mossy
knoll where he had been before, looking out at the little English Herr
from under his sandy brows. He was not very ready with his tongue at
first, but he was wooed into speech before long by Squib’s frank
friendliness. He spoke a queer sort of mixed language, which Squib did
not find quite easy to follow all at once; but a freemasonry was quickly
established between them, and the shaggy dog lay blinking at the little
stranger, as much as to intimate that _he_ understood them both.
“My dog’s called Czar—what you would call Kaiser,” said Squib, with his
hand on Czar’s great head, although the two dogs seemed to find no cause
of quarrel between themselves; “what’s yours called?”
“His name is Moor,” answered the little goat-herd, “because he’s black.
But I often call him Ami, and that means friend—because he’s the best
friend I have.”
“That’s how I feel about Czar!” cried Squib, a link at once forming
itself between the pair. “He goes everywhere with me, and they all know
I am safe when Czar is there. Does Moor come out with you every day when
you take the goats up here to the hill?”
“Yes, I couldn’t come here if it wasn’t for Moor.”
“Why not?” asked Squib, full of interest.
“Because I’m lame. That leg isn’t any use to me walking. I can get up
hill with my crutch and a stick; but I can only get down with Moor
helping me. I put my leg over his back like this, and then I can hold
myself up; but I couldn’t go hardly anywhere without Moor.”
“Dogs _are_ so nice and kind and sensible!” said Squib, drawing a long
breath of satisfaction. “May I kiss Moor for being so good?”
Moor submitted to the caress in pleased silence wagging his bob-tail all
the while, and he kissed Squib back again as if to ratify the compact of
friendship. Then he and Czar were formally introduced, with much wagging
of tails, and many snuffs, and a few dignified gambols. The two boys
looked on with great interest, and Squib suddenly asked,—
“What is your name?”
“Seppi,” answered the child, “and I live over there in that house,” and
he pointed to one of the chalets Squib had been observing, which were
larger and more solid than the little huts for cattle which lay around
his own present home.
“And do you live there always? or do you go down into the valleys in the
winter?”
“Our _thal_ is warm—we stay there all the year round,” answered the
little boy. “The little Herr sees how it lies—all open to the warm sun
in the south and west, and sheltered by the great, beautiful mountains
from the cruel north. We get the snow, to be sure—and we are shut up for
the winter months, except those that can go about in sledges or with
their snow-shoes. But with us the winter does not last as it does in
other parts. When the beautiful spring comes, and the sun looks over the
mountain ridges for many long hours day by day, then the snow begins to
get full of strange holes, and the ice slips down off the roof, and
there is a great cracking and crashing amongst the pine trees, and the
rivers begin to wake and leap into life, and the snow goes slipping,
slipping down into them, and they grow deeper and wilder and fiercer;
and it seems as if the valley were full of voices and the laughter of
the fairies, pushing the snow down the cascades and clapping their hands
to see it swirled along in the fierce water. Then the men take up the
bridges—because they would all get swept away—and for a little bit we
are more shut in than ever, for it is nothing but a world of water. But
the sun goes on shining, shining, shining, and then some morning we wake
up and the valley is green again, and the cows and goats go out to the
hill slopes, and by-and-by the cows from the valleys come up, and life
begins again as it is in the happy summer-time. But yet I like the
winter too. It is very beautiful, although I do miss coming out here and
taking care of my goats.”
All this was not said at once, but bit by bit, as Seppi sat staring
straight in front of him, and seemed to see the whole scene rising
before him as he conjured it up before his mental vision. Squib listened
with breathless interest, seeing it all, and hearing the strange voices
of the valley almost as clearly as his companion. The lake so blue and
smiling now, how did it look when lashed by winter storms and filled
high with masses of half-melted snow?
“Do the Seligen Fräulein play there when it is all covered with ice and
snow?” he asked; but at those words his companion turned upon him a
half-frightened look.
“What does the little Herr know of the Seligen Fräulein?” he asked in a
low voice.
“Only what Lisa tells me,” answered Squib; “that they live in the ice
and the snow, and love to catch mortals and send them fast, fast asleep
with their cold kisses; and that nobody ever wakes again whom they have
kissed to sleep. Have you ever seen them, Seppi? Lisa never has, nor the
Bergmännlein either.”
Seppi shook his head as if in awed doubt. His voice was very low as he
made answer,—
“I don’t think that I saw them; but I was once down, down, down with
them in their blue ice home.”
“O Seppi!—tell me!”
“I don’t know how to tell, for I could never remember. That’s what
everybody asks of me, but I can’t tell them anything. I was crossing the
glacier with father, oh, long ago now, when I was quite a little boy. He
had a rope round his waist, and he had tied the end of it round mine to
keep me safe. I was following behind him when my foot caught in a little
crevasse in the ice, and before I could get it out the rope jerked me
off my feet and along, and then suddenly I found myself falling,
falling. I was going down, down, down a great, green fissure, and the
rope had broken, and there was nothing to hold me. After that I don’t
remember anything till I woke up at home, with my leg all bound up; and
ever since that it never grew any more, though I grew, and so I have
been a cripple. And the people look at me and shake their heads, and say
that I have been with the ice-maidens, and that that is why I am lame;
but the good Herr Adler, he told me once that I must not think of it
like that.”
“Why not?” asked Squib. “And who is the Herr Adler?”
“He is a man of God—I don’t know how else to call him,” answered the
child with a look of reverence upon his face. “He lives away over in
your country, little Herr; but he belongs to us too—or to Germany
perhaps; and sometimes he comes here when he wants a rest, and stays one
week, or two, or three here in this thal, wandering about the valley,
and thinking his beautiful thoughts about everything. He always comes
and talks to me. He is good to every one he meets, but to the little
children most, I think—though, to be sure, the old women say he is best
to them; and the men, that nobody understands them and their troubles
like the Herr Adler. We all love him here, and count it a good summer
when he comes. He was not with us last year. Perhaps God will send him
to us soon.”
“And what did he tell you about the ice-maidens?” asked Squib, with
great interest.
“Ah yes, that was what I was saying. I used to be frightened to think I
had been with them, and the old women would shake their heads and
whisper when I went by; and I knew they were saying that there was
something wrong about me, and that nobody who had been kissed by the
ice-maidens would ever live to make old bones. My mother used to cry,
and I was afraid too; for I love our green valley and happy life—I
didn’t want to die, or to be carried off by the Bergmännlein or the
ice-maidens; and once I was crying about it when the Herr Adler came
suddenly round a corner and found me; and when I told him all about it,
he said such beautiful, good words, and now, whenever I think of them, I
am not frightened any more.”
“What did he say?” asked Squib, with interest.
“Ah! I cannot say it as he did; but it was something like this. He spoke
of the good God in the heavens up yonder, and how He had once been a
child Himself, and knew all the dangers which happen to little children.
And how He has told us that He loves little children, and watches over
them specially, and that the beautiful angels who guard the children
have a high place in heaven, and always behold the face of the Father.
And he said that he thought when I was falling down, down, into the cold
blue ice, that the angels must have been helping me and holding me up
all the time; for everybody said it was a miracle I was not killed, and
they perhaps took care of me as I lay there not knowing anything, and
helped father and the men to get me out. He said that little Christian
children could not be hurt by evil spirits, unless they grew wicked and
gave themselves up to evil. So now when I remember the Herr Adler, I am
not frightened any more about ice-maidens, for I think of the beautiful
angels who were watching over me instead. Do you ever think about the
angels, little Herr? I often do now.”
“So do I,” answered Squib, eagerly; “and I think they must be fond of
beautiful places like this.” And the children talked on and on, passing
from one subject to another in rapid instinctive fashion, till the sun
began to sink in the sky behind, and Squib realized with a start that he
ought to be making his way home.