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.
[Illustration:
“_Squib’s brothers and sisters rejoiced over the pretty gifts he had
brought them._”
Page 283.
]
“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.
THE END.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's Squib and His Friends, by Evelyn Everett-Green