COMRADES.
“Will you be here to-morrow, Seppi?”
“Yes, little Herr. I come every day with the goats. I like this place
the best of any, and so do they.”
“I shall come and see you again, then,” said Squib, with a satisfied
smile.
“Thank you, little Herr.”
“What do you do all day when you have nobody to talk to? Were you
writing something when I saw you first?”
Seppi shook his head, but drew from his wallet the pencil and paper he
had stowed away there when the children had shared together their
mid-day meal.
“Sometimes I try to draw a little,” he answered, with a loving look
round him at the wonderful outlines of the eternal hills, glowing with
the glories of the westering light. “But all that is too big for me. I
draw my goats and Moor the best. See!” and with a few rapid touches,
which showed that there was talent in those thin brown fingers, Seppi
drew a picture of one of his own goats standing with a defiant
expression on his queer, semi-human, bearded face, whilst Moor was
represented admonishing him with a peremptory bark, as Squib had seen
him do a dozen times that day, when some more independent goat wandered
away and appeared disposed to resent his authority.
Squib laughed aloud as he watched the quickly-moving pencil.
“Oh, Seppi, how clever you are! I wish I could draw like that! Who
taught you?”
“Nobody, exactly. It seems to be in my fingers. But the Herr Adler told
me many things that helped, and he gave me a box of pencils when he was
here last, and left me all his paper when he went away. It’s nearly done
now. I have to be very careful. But if he comes again this summer
perhaps he’ll give me some more. He is so very kind.”
Squib could not linger longer. It was time he went back. But as he
pursued his homeward way his face was glowing with happiness and with a
generous purpose.
A new page of history had been turned before Squib’s eyes that day; a
new world had been opened out before him. Hitherto he had lived amongst
those to whom all the good things of this world come as a matter of
course. He himself had had every reasonable pleasure and enjoyment ever
since he could remember, and although his nurses and parents had told
him from time to time that other little boys were not so well off as
himself, he had not yet realized how wide was the gulf which separated
his lot from that of the majority of those about him.
At home he had heard of poverty and trouble; he had always been used to
go in and out of the cottages on his father’s estate and talk to the
people in them, but he had always fancied that it must be very nice to
live as they did. He found them smiling and content. He knew that in
sickness and trouble they were cared for; nothing in their condition
aroused his pity or compassion. He used often to think he should like to
have one of the cottages himself, and work on the farm instead of going
to school. All the conditions of life which he had seen in England were
too familiar to have aroused speculation, but with this little mountain
goat-herd everything seemed different.
He did not quite understand what the difference was, but in talking to
Seppi he had realized it more than once with singular clearness. He had
gleaned that Seppi hardly knew the taste of meat, that he and all his
family lived with a frugality almost unknown in England. The bit of
black rye-bread and morsel of goat’s cheese which had been Seppi’s
dinner gave him a better idea of what life in the chalets was like than
he had had before. He had shared his own dainties with the wondering
Seppi, who had plainly never tasted anything approaching such luxuries
before, and could hardly believe that the little Herr fed like that
every day. As for Squib, he had eaten a portion of the hard bread and
cheese with a certain heroic relish, pleased with the novelty of sharing
a real goat-herd’s Swiss dinner, but he could not honestly feel that he
should like such fare every day, and he secretly had no small admiration
for the boy who seemed to take these things as a matter of course.
And then to think that Seppi could not even obtain pencil or paper for
himself, and could indulge his favourite occupation only through the
kindness of a chance visitor! Why, to Squib such things came as
naturally as the food he ate or the clothes he wore. It would never have
occurred to him that there could be any difficulty in getting pencils.
Squib spoilt or lost a dozen pencils in the year, and as for paper—why,
there was always an endless store at home. And Seppi had to be careful
of his meagre supply because he could get no more unless Herr Adler came
back.
The child’s eyes glowed with a mixture of feelings as he realized this,
and he hurried home as fast as his legs would carry him, full of a new
purpose and plan.
Up to his room he hastened by the little outer stairway which was such a
source of delight to him, and straight to the cupboard where all his
treasures were stored. This cupboard was in a state of quaint disorder,
but Squib always knew where to find what he wanted, though the object he
was searching for now was hidden away almost at the bottom of the
receptacle. He drew it forth at last, however, with a look of pride and
delight. It was nothing more or less than a big square sketch-book, with
thick drawing-paper of different soft tints filling its stout black
covers. Squib set to work to count the leaves, and found that there were
fifty.
Yes, positively fifty! Fifty pages for Seppi to fill with drawings of
his goats, his dog, perhaps even the outlines of the hills or the little
picturesque water-troughs or bridges.
“I’m sure she won’t mind when I tell her about Seppi. I never draw. I
don’t think I have time or know how. I’ll get Seppi to give me one of
his drawings for her, and when I tell her all about him and how pleased
he was, I’m sure she’ll be glad for him to have it.”
For the sketch-book had been given to Squib by an aunt of his, who had
come to say good-bye at the Chase before they all went away. He had
wandered into her room one day, as he had a way of doing, and this book
was lying on the table. He asked its use, and was told that it was a
sketch-book, and after they had talked a little more his aunt had said
he might have it, and that perhaps he would be able to bring home a few
little sketches of some of the things he had seen in Switzerland, or of
the chalet in which he was going to live.
Of course Squib had been delighted with his new possession, and at the
time had fancied he should draw a great deal. He was yet more sure of
this when his aunt had given him a box of coloured chalks with beautiful
fine points to help him with his picture-making. But somehow, since his
arrival at the chalet, other interests had come uppermost, and Squib had
really not thought of his sketch-book at all since he had unpacked it
and put it carefully at the bottom of the cupboard, until reminded of it
to-day.
Now as it lay open on his knee, and he drew out the box of chalks and
looked lovingly at them—for they were very pretty—he felt a glow of
pleasure in picturing the happiness they would give. It was just a
little more difficult to think of parting with the chalks than with the
book, but Squib would not let himself hesitate for a moment.
“You greedy boy!” he said aloud in a tone of stern admonition, “you know
you have got so many things yourself you don’t know hardly what to do
with them all; and Seppi has got almost nothing, and is lame, and can’t
do anything but sit still all day and mind his goats. And you can’t draw
a bit, hardly, and he can beautifully. You’re just to give him
everything and not be a pig. I’m ashamed of you, I really am, thinking
you’d like to keep those chalks yourself!”
And Squib shook his head quite fiercely at himself, and scrambled to his
feet with sketch-book and chalks safe in his grasp. He made them up into
a neat parcel and put them into his bag, and then went off to find Lisa
and tell her all about Seppi.
Lisa knew Seppi quite well, and said that he was a very good little boy,
and that his parents were very honest, hard-working people. Their name
was Ernsthausen, and they had lived a long time in the valley. The
father went off to the mountains to act as a guide during the summer,
and the mother stayed at home and cultivated their bit of land with the
aid of one son and daughter, whilst little lame Seppi minded the goats
and did a little wood-carving sometimes, though there was not much sale
for it up here, and so many people carved nowadays that it was not
always easy to get money for such work.
Squib listened with great attention and interest, many plans coming into
his head the while. Perhaps he would get Seppi to give him some lessons
in carving and pay him for them. He would speak to mother about it
sometime, when he knew Seppi better and had time to begin. He would like
to carve above everything. He had already bought a good many charming
little carved-wood animals at Interlaken to give to sisters and friends
at home, but to be able to carve them for himself would be yet more
attractive and delightful.
Next day Squib was off betimes to his new valley, which in his mind he
had already christened the Vale of the Silent Watchers. There was a vein
of poetry running through Squib’s nature, which helped him to enjoy the
scenes about him as he could not otherwise have done, and those two
silent peaks, with their crowns of everlasting snow, looking down on the
smiling valley and shutting it in (as it appeared to him) at either end,
had powerfully affected his imagination. His dreams that night had all
been of mountain giants and snowy solitudes, and he awoke eager to talk
more with Seppi about the ideas which came crowding into his head.
Lisa packed him up a more bountiful lunch than usual, when she knew he
was going to join Seppi again. The little satchel was quite heavy, what
with the sketch-book and what with the dinner, but Squib was delighted
at the weight of his burden, and hurried down the rough path and up the
opposite side with a light heart and bounding footstep.
Seppi was there before him at the green knoll. Squib heard the sound of
the goats’ bells even before he reached the crest of the ridge. But this
time Seppi was sitting with his face towards him, and as soon as he saw
his companion of yesterday, he waved his hat and shouted a glad
greeting, whilst Moor rushed forward with a sharp, joyous bark.
It was very nice to have a friend now to welcome him and to talk to. The
boys met with the frank fellowship which is only possible on such short
acquaintance between children.
“I’ve got something for you, Seppi!” cried Squib, as soon as he had
disburdened himself of his satchel, and was wiping his hot face with his
pocket-handkerchief. “Would you like to see what it is?” And opening the
bag, he drew out his parcel and placed it in Seppi’s hands.
“Is it for me?” asked Seppi, with wide-open eyes, as though such a thing
as a gift were too wonderful to be understood all at once.
“Of course it is,” answered Squib, “for your very own self. I hope
you’ll like it. I think you will.”
Squib’s face was flushed with exercise and with generous pleasure. Over
Seppi’s had stolen a strange look of mingled wonderment and awe. In all
life before (which seemed a long one to him) he never remembered
receiving such a grand present as this square parcel done up in paper
and string. He was almost afraid to open it, and sat clasping it between
his trembling hands, till Moor pushed an inquisitive nose against it and
Squib said laughingly,—
“Don’t you want to see what it is, Seppi?”
Seppi would not have minded how he prolonged the exquisite pleasure of
that moment, but at Squib’s words he slowly began to unfasten the string
and unfold the brown paper. With the same deliberate slowness and look
of rapturous intentness on his face, he drew forth the square black book
and the long box beside it, and with a strange, fleeting glance at Squib
and a catch in his voice, he asked—
“What is it, little Herr?”
“Why, a book for you to put your pictures in, to be sure,” answered
Squib, taking it for a moment into his own hands and opening it. “See,
all these pages are blank—you can put in just what you want; and when
you have drawn anything you can colour it if you like with these chalks.
See—” and Squib took off the lid and displayed to Seppi the rows of
graduated pointed chalks all ready for use, and of all colours that a
young artist could want.
Seppi turned from red to pale and from pale to red. It seemed as if he
could hardly believe his eyes or his ears; but that he understood the
nature of the gift was plain from the emotion which it excited in him.
“For me! for me!” he kept saying almost under his breath. “Oh, I can’t
believe it; I can’t understand it; it is too wonderful altogether.”
Squib was greatly delighted at the success of his experiment. He could
not get Seppi all at once to begin drawing in his book. It was too
beautiful to be done anything with save to be looked at and caressed.
But when the first stress of emotion had passed, Squib got the boy to
make a picture of Moor and two of the goats upon the brown paper of the
wrapper, and to colour them with the chalks, thereby producing a picture
which so delighted him that he begged to have it to take home to his
mother and Lisa.
Seppi was like a boy in a dream all that day. He sat gazing out at the
mountains with his very soul in his eyes, and by-and-by Squib drew from
him the fact of his intense longing to put on paper those familiar and
well-loved outlines, only his attempts hitherto with his imperfect
materials had resulted always in disheartening failure.
Squib, however, explained eagerly that on thick paper, and with chalks
to give effects of colour, it would be far easier to draw mountains than
in pencil on flimsy bits of shiny writing paper; and when at their
dinner hour Squib showed him that bread crumbs would rub out pencil
marks from paper without leaving a trace behind, Seppi consented at
last, although in visible fear and trembling, to try to put upon paper
the outlines of the familiar ridge of snow-capped hills under whose
shadow he had been born and brought up.
Breathlessly one boy worked and the other watched. Seppi had the gift of
an inborn talent; Squib had had a little technical training, and had
always been keenly observant, besides possessing a retentive memory. All
his small store of knowledge and recollection was brought out in aid of
Seppi’s efforts, and the picture slowly grew and grew to the delight and
wonder of both.
When it came to the use of the chalks—putting the snow-white crowns to
the mountain tops, the green slopes, the bold dashes of red where here
and there the sun struck hot on some ruddy rocks and made them glow like
fire—the excitement became intense. Seppi drew his breath hard as he
worked, and Squib kept up a running commentary of advice, observation,
and enthusiastic praise. Whatever the picture might have appeared to an
outsider, to the vivid imaginations of the children it was a marvellous
reproduction of the scene. Why, even Seppi’s brown chalet, with its
wood-stacks and boundary walls were all there in place, and the
green-blue glacier away to the right was seen creeping down the hillside
at the corner.
“It is quite splendid,” cried Squib at last, warned by the rosy flush in
the sky that he must be going. “O Seppi, you _are_ clever! I wish I
could draw like you! But never mind, if you can do it that is just the
same. I’ll watch you, and some day you shall do me a picture to take to
Aunt Adela—it was she who gave me the sketch-book to draw in—and she’ll
see how clever you are, and how nice it is for you to have a book to
keep your drawings in.”
If this new amusement made such a mark in Squib’s history just at this
time, what must it have done in Seppi’s?
By the time Squib had reached the Vale of the Silent Watchers next day,
Seppi had been hard at work for above an hour giving loving touches to
his picture of the night before, trying effects and making little
studies upon the bits of paper in which Squib’s dinner of yesterday had
been wrapped, every one of which had been eagerly kept and hoarded by
Seppi.
And now a new life began for both the boys, between whom such a bond of
fellowship had been formed. Squib confided his ambition of learning to
carve to Seppi, and Seppi, delighted to do anything for one to whom he
felt he owed such a debt of gratitude, assured him that it was quite
easy to learn to carve little animals and so forth, and offered to teach
him the art so far as he knew it himself.
A compact was soon made. Squib had more than one knife, and one of
almost perilous excellence, given him by Uncle Ronald. Seppi could bring
him any number of little blocks of wood which had been rudely shaped by
himself at home, and for which Squib insisted on paying at what seemed
to the little goat-herd to be fabulous rates. But Squib had his own
views on these matters and was very resolute.
“You shall teach me to carve if you will,” he said, “and I won’t pay you
for that, because we’re friends. But I will pay for the wood, because I
want you to have some money to get paper or chalks with when these are
done and when I’ve gone away. My father and mother give me money, you
see, and I haven’t anything particular to do with it. I want to buy your
wood, and you must let me, please.”
Then, these preliminaries being amicably settled, the two boys would
pass whole days together in that sunny, quiet valley, the one intent
upon his pictures, ever learning, ever finding fresh facilities in the
use of his new materials; the other, equally engrossed with his knife
and wood, appealing constantly to his patient teacher for hints and
instruction, but showing an aptitude for form and a dexterity of
manipulation which excited Seppi’s honest admiration.
[Illustration:
“_Breathlessly one boy worked and the other watched._”
Page 94.
]
Very happy were those days of cloudless sunshine, when it was almost too
hot for Squib to ramble far afield, and when sitting beside Seppi in the
shade of the pine woods, watching him draw, and carving busily at his
growing family of goats and dogs, was the pleasantest thing he could
find to do.
When not too much engrossed in their tasks, the children would talk
together of all the thoughts and fancies in their heads. Seppi caught at
Squib’s fancy about the Silent Watchers of the Valley with the eagerness
of a true son of the mountain. He had not the same power of expression
that Squib could boast. He could describe what he had seen or heard, but
found it less easy to put into words his own imaginings; but he hailed
with delight any fanciful idea of the little Herr’s, and they soon began
to live in a world and atmosphere of their own, which comes so readily
to those upon whom the spell of the mountains has fallen.
Squib had many fancies about that rugged range opposite. He fancied it
the home of a great mountain giant, who dwelt in some mighty caverns
within. When the echoes of the valley would be awakened by the fall of
great avalanches into some far-away and unseen valleys on the opposite
slope, he would lift his head and cry,—
“Hark! there is the giant playing bowls in his cave!”
And when little cloud-wreaths circled about the tops of the ridge, or
lay idly along the hollows, he would pull Seppi by the sleeve and say,—
“See, the giant is smoking his pipe to-day! You can see the smoke coming
out at the cracks!”
There was endless amusement and variety for Squib in that peaceful vale
overlooked by those Silent Watchers, who, he was sure, regarded him and
his comrade with protecting kindliness and an especial favour. When it
was not too hot, or he was not too busy, he would stroll down to the bed
of the stream below, where a great flat stone rising high out of the
water gave him a little island home of his own. A willow tree had
sprouted out from a fissure in the stones, and hung over the rock,
affording shelter from the sun. Within this little green retreat Squib
passed many a happy hour, sitting very quiet, looking down into the
sparkling depths of the dimpling water, and listening to the numberless
tales it told him.
Sometimes strange changes would occur to that friendly stream, even as
he lay watching it and listening to its never-ceasing babble. It would
suddenly rise and swell, and down from the heights above would come
tossing and foaming a great surging volume of water, sometimes brown and
turbid, sometimes clear and sparkling, laughing, playing, foaming, and
shouting as it raced onwards to the lake below. And Seppi would explain
to Squib afterwards that that happened with a sudden fall of snow or ice
into the stream above. It would perhaps remain there in a mass for a day
or two; then the hot sunshine would strike it and melt it with wonderful
rapidity, and the volume of water suddenly set at liberty would come
tearing down the rivulet to swell the stream and rush helter-skelter to
the lake.
This thought made it all the more interesting when it happened again,
and Squib would lean over his rock and watch the quick rise of the
water, and the swirl and thunder of the miniature cascades, and say to
himself,—
“The giant has been throwing his snowballs about, and the sun is driving
the ice-maidens deeper and deeper into their caverns. Perhaps the giant
throws the snowballs after them to make them run away quicker! I wonder
if I should ever see them if I were to be here in the long cold winter,
when they fly about touching everything with their wands, and sending
all the world to sleep till the sun comes to wake it. They must be very
beautiful with their white robes and crystal crowns, and sceptres tipped
with moonlight; but I think they are rather cruel, too. Perhaps it is
better to come when they are driven back into their green caverns, and
can only hurt the people who seek them there.”
As time went on Squib began to know all about Seppi, though to be sure
there was not much to know in that very simple and uneventful life.
It was as Lisa had said. His father, who knew the mountains well, went
out every year through all the summer months as a guide; and Seppi said
his mother always cried each time he went away, because she knew he
might never live to come back again. Every year many brave men lost
their lives on the mountains, and skill and strength were often of no
avail against the reckless hardihood of inexperienced and rash
travellers, who would not listen to advice, and who risked other lives
besides their own in their folly and pride. Nevertheless, hitherto the
good God had always preserved him, and brought him safely home again,
and his wife and children prayed every day that he might be kept from
all peril.
At home there was Peter to help mother in the fields, and Ann-Katherin,
the little sister, who helped at home, and was Seppi’s chief comrade and
sympathiser, as Squib quickly gathered, though Seppi himself did not
appear to be given to comparisons.
Peter was older than Seppi by one year, and very much taller and
stronger. He was now twelve, and was looking forward to the time when he
should be a man and could go out first as porter and then as guide, and
leave the monotonous life of the valley for something more stirring. But
for himself Seppi had no such desire, even had it been possible for him
to think of an active life. He and Ann-Katherin loved their home and
their valley with a love too strong for expression—a love which had
grown with their growth and strengthened with their strength till it had
become an essential part of their nature. Squib thought he could
understand that feeling. He felt that if he had lived in this place he
should never want to leave it. He remembered how Lisa used to cry when
she told him of her mountain home, and how he had longed to see it for
himself. Gradually as he grew to understand the life led by the
peasants, its hardness and poverty, and yet its quiet contentment and
business, a feeling came over him that it was a good life to lead—that a
little with peace and contentment was far better than the feverish
discontent that was always striving after more, even at the expense of
the weaker ones who must of necessity “go to the wall” in the struggle.
Squib was too young to enter with any real comprehension into the
burning questions of the day, but he was too observant and quick not to
have caught up some notions from the talk he heard amongst his elders
from time to time.
“I like your country,” he said one day to Seppi very seriously; “I think
it’s a good country to live in. I wish our people in England would come
and see you and learn to be like you. You don’t waste things, and you
don’t grumble. You haven’t any workhouses and poor-laws; and you don’t
seem to want them. You may be poorer than English people, but you’re
much happier. I think it’s happiness that is the real thing. I wish we
were as happy as you.”