Squib and His Friends

o happy before as was littl

s, 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,

ellow 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 golde

Lisa was able to give him practical help in 67digging and delving, and told him all sorts of stories about the different properties of the herbs he someti

ves 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

no return could be made. Squib listened 68with 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

ut?” asked Squib with breathless e

ere jealous—they would not have their captives leave them for others. Na! na! It was an ill thing t

sense of something weird and unseen, uncomprehended in these lonely mountain heights, grew upon the child rather than diminished as he came to dwell 69among them. The legends which had grown up in the mouths of the peasants were but the expression of thos

w 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 for

not often that he found time for such solitary musings; for the days were very full of occupation, and Squib might ha

faster than he could count; and it was only when the three gentlemen had departed for a mountaineering expedition that was likely

of friends from England, who were travelling about in the neighbourhood, swooped down upon the chalet only the day after the mountaineers had left, a

red 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 bus

t 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 hap

f goat’s milk could always be obtained, and Squib 72soon came to have many a friend along the various routes which he pursued in turn; for all the simple

ach 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 sor

was soon to

ry 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 desc

n to Squib; nor was Czar in any way disturbed by the passage. He followed his little master sob

ongst these hills, one side of a valley seems to open out quite a ne

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

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—t

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 c

d 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 ci

ar so that their proximity might not be at once divulged. It was a good-sized dog with a shaggy blu

nce of intruders, and suddenly, sighting or smelling them, broke into a s

he attention of the little goat-herd, who, as soon as he saw the pair on the bro

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

whilst the two dogs eyed each other suspiciously. For a minute the two children stood looking at each other almost in

e action to the words. “You’ve got a dog and I

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 f

h his hand on Czar’s great head, although the two dogs seemed to f

because he’s black. But I often call him Ami, and th

he pair. “He goes everywhere with me, and they all know I am safe when Czar is there

come here if it

ked Squib, fu

h and a stick; but I can only get down with Moor helping me. I put my leg over his back

aid Squib, drawing a long breath of satisfa

n as if to ratify the compact of friendship. Then he and Czar were formally introduced, with much wagging of tails,

is you

nted to one of the chalets Squib had been observing, which were larger and mor

ys? or do you go down into

s 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 79slipping, 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

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

vered with ice and snow?” he asked; but at those word

know of the Seligen Fr?ulei

mortals and send them fast, fast asleep with their cold kisses; and that nobody ever wakes again whom

n awed doubt. His voice was

but I was once down, down, down

pi!—te

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

Squib. “And who i

t, 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

bout the ice-maidens?” aske

obody who 82had 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 Bergm?nnlein or the i

y?” asked Squib

ace 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 t

dren talked on and on, passing from one subject to another in rapid instinctive fashion, till the sun began to