Evelyn Everett-Green - Squib and His Friends

Squib, who was told that he might consider himself free of lessons from this very day until he went to school in September, closed the book he was still holding as though in a dream, and wandered out into the sunny garden with a heart swelling with wonder and delight.

Switzerland! He was really going to Switzerland! He should see with his own eyes the dazzling snow peaks, hear the roar of the avalanches breaking the eternal silence of those lonely valleys. He would see (as he thought at least) the chamois springing from peak to peak, and hear the yodeling of the peasants as they took their cattle up into the green pastures. He would see it all – hear it all – all those things of which Lisa had told him, of which he had dreamed until he seemed to be able to see them at will when he shut his eyes. Perhaps he would even see Lisa again herself; for had she not returned to Switzerland? And Switzerland was such a little country on the map!

Lisa had been Squib’s own peculiar attendant, and he had given to her a very large slice of his childish affections. As has been said in the preceding chapter, Squib had had a little baby brother when he was not much more than a baby himself, and this little brother had been so ailing that nurse had had to give up almost all her time to him, and so Lisa – a young Swiss maid who was leaving a friend’s nursery just at that juncture – was engaged to take entire charge of the elder little boy.

Having once come in that capacity, she stayed on for many years – until, in fact, Squib had no longer any need of a nurse; the delicate little brother who died, and the little twin sisters who were still in the nursery, had always occupied all nurse’s attention, and Lisa had been retained year after year to attend to Master Squib, and to help with her needle in the care of the little girls’ clothes. Lisa had loved Squib from the first with a singular devotion, which he repaid by a warm affection. He had learned to speak her curious patois as naturally as he had learned the English of his parents and sisters, and it seemed as if the power of using her native tongue again unsealed the silent Lisa’s lips, for to Squib she would talk by the hour together of her country, her home, her people, and all the glories and the wonders of that land of mountains and wood and water whence she had come. She had much of the imaginative temperament which is so often found amongst a mountain race, and to her nursling she talked with the utmost freedom and unreserve. Not only did she speak of the things she had heard and seen, but she also told him long stories of fairies and water-spirits, genii of the mountain, and the little brown men who dwelt in the caves and rocks, till the child’s head was as full of enthusiasm as her own for her native land, as crowded with fanciful imaginings as if he had been a son of the soil himself.

Lisa had now been gone for nearly a year, and some of these imaginings had been growing a little faint and hazy; but they were all there, lying dormant, and ready to wake into active life on the smallest provocation, and as Squib wandered down the garden and into the yard, and found Czar all ready to share his ramble and his talk, he poured a whole volley of excited information into the dog’s ears, lapsing almost unconsciously into Lisa’s German patois as he did so, which, however, seemed to make no difference to Czar’s power of comprehension.

The next days seemed to go by like magic. Squib found himself raised to a position of some importance in the nursery, on the strength of his approaching departure. The tailor from the next town called to measure him for two new suits of clothes; his sisters made much of him because they were so soon to lose him; and all the servants talked to him about his journey, and called him a lucky little boy to be taken.

It was rather hard to think of leaving Charger, who was such a very great friend and companion; but coachman said that it would do Charger a “world of good” to get a run out for two months, now that he was growing elderly, and that pleased Squib a good deal, for he did not want his favourite to miss him too much.

“Maybe it’ll be a good thing though, sir,” said coachman, “since you are going to school by-and-by. It will break him in to having you gone for a spell, and he’ll kind of know that you’ll be coming back before so very long. I’ll see he is well looked after, and he’ll be in first-rate fettle for you by the time you get back.”

The other trouble, about leaving Czar, was got over in a very unexpected and most satisfactory way; for Squib was told one day that Czar was to be taken with them to Switzerland.

“The master said so himself,” the groom told Squib, when he came down to loose him for his morning’s run. Czar was by this time a dog of mature years, and he had tamed down wonderfully. Indeed, he was often left loose during the day, and was allowed to lie on the terrace or patrol the gardens. But he lived in his house at night, and several of the men still stood in some awe of him: yet he was thoroughly under control now, and a very valuable watch-dog and guard. He was still devoted to Squib, and would obey him at a word or a look; but by this time he was attached to all the family; and whenever the master of the house was away, he slept indoors at the foot of the great staircase; and Lady Mary always said that she never felt nervous when she knew that Czar was on guard.

“You see, sir,” the groom added in explanation, “them furrain parts is none too safe, what with all these bombs and one thing and another; and the master says as hell feel more happy like to have the dog with him. If so be as he were to go off hunting wolves or boars, or whatever they may have over yonder, or leastways climbing mountains, where her ladyship couldn’t go, he’d like to leave the dog behind to look after the house; and so it’s all fixed now that Czar is to go.”

This was great news for Squib, who quickly found his way indoors to make sure of it. Uncle Ronald was in the hall looking at his guns, and he gave Squib a friendly smile.

“Oh yes, that’s all right enough,” he answered in response to the eager inquiry. “You see we’ve heard of a chalet that will just suit your mother, right up in one of those thals as they call them, out of the way of regular tourists, where the air is almost enough to keep you going without the superfluities of meat and drink. It’s furnished comfortably, too, which is a consideration; and there’s an old servant you once had who will come and act maid to your mother, and help her with the foreign ways of housekeeping – ”

“What! Lisa?” asked Squib breathlessly.

“I think that was the name – anyway she was the girl who was your nurse so many years. She’s going to come to be with you, and Mr. and Mrs. Lorimer are going to come out with us and share the chalet. You know who the Lorimers are, I suppose?”

“Yes – they come every year to stay here. They are very nice. Mrs. Lorimer is mother’s very great friend, I think. We all like her very much.”

“That’s all right. I’ve heard as much myself. Well, Mr. Lorimer is a great Alpine Club man, and no end of a mountaineer, and knows all the passes and the peaks and the guides, and the ways of things; and we shall go off from time to time with him and do some climbing, and then your mother and Mrs. Lorimer will be left at the chalet with you for their protector, and we thought that a dog like Czar would be a good addition to the party; so it’s settled that he’s to go. That’s just about how it is, you see.”

“I see,” answered Squib, looking very thoughtful and contemplative, and after a long pause he asked tentatively, “I suppose we couldn’t take Charger with us too?”

“I’m afraid not, old chap. Charger would be rather a large order; and I don’t think we’d get him up to the chalet without a steam crane or some trifle of that sort. Swiss Alps aren’t just cut out for English horses. I’m afraid Charger must stay at home.”