Evelyn Everett-Green - Squib and His Friends

“Father, you know about Charger. Coachman says he won’t break, and Mr. Young said he would only break his heart. I don’t want his heart to break. He’s the nicest horse that ever lived, and I can’t bear it. Father, didn’t I hear you say that Shag was getting too old to do anything but mow the lawns, and that you must look out for a new pony for me by the time I was seven?”

“Yes, Squib, I think I did. Would you like a little Exmoor? They are very sure-footed and generally fast.”

“I don’t want an Exmoor, father. I don’t want a pony at all. I want Charger instead.”

“Charger!”

“Yes, father. Charger could carry me. Coachman says it’s no more for him than a fly on his back. He’d be just as if he had nobody, and I’ve ridden him lots in the paddock. He likes it, and I like it; and he’d be nice, and safer for me than any pony, because he knows the country; you say so yourself, and he’s so good, even mother wouldn’t be frightened to let me go out on him. Father, I’m rising seven – that’s what coachman calls it. I’m rising seven, and I never fall off anything. Let me have Charger instead of a new pony. I shall like it so much better, and so will he!”

Something in the notion tickled Colonel Rutland’s fancy, and a little conversation with coachman convinced him that there would be no risk of damage either to the child or to the horse in such an arrangement. The strong trustworthy hunter would carry the light weight of the small boy without the least fear of renewing the strain; and as Squib said, he had a remarkable knack of sticking on, whilst he had “hands as any horse would be proud to answer to,” as the old coachman put it. And so his request was granted. The faithful old hunter was neither shot nor broken to uncongenial toil, but was gently and regularly exercised by the little fellow on the turf of the park, or permitted to trot steadily along the roads with his light burden, by the side of the Colonel on his own horse.

Squib was delighted, and his father amused, by the arrangement and the comments it provoked. The trusty horse justified all the confidence placed in him, and a stronger bond of friendship was thus established between the child and his four-footed friend, as well as between him and his rather stern and commanding father.

And now, having introduced my little hero to you, I will lose no more time, but commence the story I have to tell of one particular year of his life.

Squib was by this time “rising nine,” as he generally liked to call it. His next and ninth birthday would be in August, and this was May, and at Michaelmas he was to go to school, to his own mingled pride and regret. He enjoyed the thought of being a schoolboy, of gaining the independence and importance that always seemed to attach to his elder brothers from the fact that they only spent the holiday months at home, and were so much away at school; but he did not like to think of having to leave Czar and Charger and all his numerous and peculiar pets. He was not sure that any other person would understand how to manage them or to make them happy, and it weighed on him sometimes to think that they would miss him when he was gone. Still the thing would have to be done whether he liked it or not, and Squib was resolving to take matters philosophically, and look at things on the bright side as far as possible.

A little excitement had lately come into his life from the advent of a new uncle from India, whom Squib did not remember ever to have seen before. Uncle Ronald was their father’s youngest brother, and he had had a bad attack of jungle fever, and was to spend two years in Europe. He came straight to Rutland Chase, and Squib gave up much of his time to the entertainment of this new uncle, who spent a good part of every day in a long bamboo chair in the big hall, and seemed amused by the chatter of his small nephew. Squib felt it the more incumbent upon him to look after his uncle because his father was very busy, and his mother had been ailing all the spring-time, so that there was often nobody else to act as companion to this other invalid – who did not, however, seem to be suffering from anything worse than a little lassitude and languor. Still the doctor came regularly to see both him and Lady Mary Rutland, and one day as the little boy was perched up in the window seat of the big hall, getting up a lesson for Mademoiselle and keeping an eye upon Uncle Ronald at the same time, something very interesting happened.

It was a beautiful warm day early in May, and father had been driving mother out in the pony-carriage for the first time. As Squib was sitting there, the carriage returned, and when Colonel Rutland led his wife into the house the pair seemed to be discussing something very earnestly together. Catching sight of his brother in his favourite chair, the Colonel exclaimed, —

“I say, Ronald, what do you think of a three months’ run to Switzerland. We’ve just met Dr. Dawes in the village, and he says that’s what both you and Mary want, to set you up again. I’ve not had a holiday myself since I don’t know when. I’m half-bitten by the notion, and Mary is quite on fire to be off!”

“Oh, Bruce! I did not say that. I confess it has attractions for me; but there is so much to think of. There are the children – ”

“Oh, the children will be all right! Mademoiselle will keep guard over the girls, and as for the twins, why, they are as safe with nurse as with us, and the boys are safe at school till the end of July, when we shall be back. There’s only Squib, who might get into mischief if left altogether to petticoat government, but I’ve half a mind to take the child with us. His observations of foreign life would amuse us, and can’t he speak German as well as French? I’m sure that Swiss nursemaid of his taught him some barbarous patois of her own.”

“Ah yes – Lisa; I’m afraid she did teach him some very outlandish German-Swiss patois, if he hasn’t forgotten it by this time. I wonder if he would like to go with us. I should enjoy having one child with me, as you and Ronald are sure to go off mountaineering when he is stronger. Only it would be a great interruption to his lessons.”

“Oh, bother the lessons!” cried Uncle Ronald. “Squib knows as much as he needs to make a good start at school – more than I did when I went, I know. He’s a sharp little chap, and will soon pick up any lost time. Let’s take him along by all means. I shall want an interpreter; I expect Asiatic languages are more in my line than European. Squib shall come as my interpreter. He speaks French first-rate, I know, and he’ll do all the talking for me. Hallo! there he is! Come here, Squib, and tell us how you’d like to go to Switzerland.”

Squib came forward with eyes shining with excitement. Ever since he could remember anything it had been his dream to go to Switzerland, and he could hardly believe his ears now that he heard the thing spoken of as an immediate prospect. Switzerland was as a dream to him – a dream of wonder and enchantment. From his earliest infancy he had heard entrancing stories of great, lonely snow-peaks, whispering pine woods, little chalets perched high up in green alps, brawling torrents, great, awful glaciers with dark mysterious crevasses, and spirits of the mountains who revealed themselves only to those upon whom the spell of the mountains had fallen. Crowds of images rose up in the child’s mind as he slowly came forward, and the stress of his imaginative flights was so great that it held him mute for a longer time than usual; but when he did give expression to his opinion, it was with such enthusiasm and emphasis that his father and uncle both laughed aloud, and it became a settled thing from that time forward that Squib was to accompany the party to Switzerland, whenever the start should be made.