“He is more of a squib than ever,” laughed Colonel Rutland.

“I told you he was too good company to be left at home.”

“He’s a walking compendium of instruction, information, and anecdote,” added Mr. Lorimer. “I always told you, Rutland, that that boy hadn’t got his square head for nothing. He will make his mark some day.”

“We’re talking about you, Squib,” cried Uncle Ronald, catching sight of the boy. “Come along, we’re just starting for a walk. You shall tell us a story as we go.”

“Where are you going?” asked Squib.

“To the head of the glacier over there. It’s about five miles off they say; is that too much for you, eh?

“Five miles from here to the glacier,” said Squib, with a little twinkle in his eye; “but how far from the glacier to here?”

Then as the pedestrians looked at him and made no 205answer, the smile beamed all over his face, and he said,—

“I’ll tell you a story. There was an Austrian lieutenant, and he had ridden to Vienna from Prague. He was dining with a noble lady, and at table they were talking about the distance it was between the two towns. The lady turned and said, ‘You have just come, sir; you can tell us how far it is from Vienna to Prague.’ Then the young man put his hands together and said, ‘Excellency, I can tell you exactly the distance from Prague to Vienna, because I have ridden it; but I have never been from Vienna to Prague yet, so I cannot tell you how far it is.’ Then everybody began to laugh, and the lady said, ‘But, my dear sir, it is the same.’ But he put his hands together again and said, ‘Excellency, from Easter to Pentecost is forty days, but from Pentecost to Easter is three hundred and twenty days! The distance from Prague to Vienna I can tell you, but the distance from Vienna to Prague I do not know.’”

“He was a smart fellow,” remarked Uncle Ronald laughing.

“Yes, he was very funny,” answered Squib, who having been, as it were, wound up, was prepared to “go off” considerably longer. “I will tell you another story about him. He was dining at an inn called the Golden Lion, and several of the people were teasing him and making fun, because he was so funny and silly. And the waiter who was attending them 206came up and asked him a riddle, and said, ‘Who is it?—my father’s son, but not my brother?’ And he couldn’t guess, so by-and-by the waiter smacked his chest and said, ‘Why, myself of course,’ and then everybody roared with laughter, so that the young officer thought it must be very funny. Just a few days afterwards he was dining with the noble lady again, and at dinner he said suddenly, ‘Excellency, let me ask you a riddle. Who is it?—my father’s son, but not my brother.’ The lady said directly, ‘Why, yourself, of course.’ ‘No, Excellency,’ he said, putting his hands together, ‘not myself—the waiter at the Golden Lion!’”

The gentlemen laughed heartily at the story, and at Squib’s way of telling it, unconsciously imitated from Herr Adler.

“I suppose that’s another of your new friend’s stories? He must have had a wonderful memory, if he’s anything like what you represent him.”

“You couldn’t guess half how good and how clever and how interesting he is if you hadn’t seen him yourself,” answered Squib with enthusiasm. “Mother understands a little, because he once came here; but nobody could find out everything in one afternoon.”

For some little time Squib was the regular companion of his father and uncle on their walks; and he quoted Herr Adler morning, noon, and night, to the great entertainment of the party. These expeditions, many of them very interesting ones, helped Squib over 207the blank which Herr Adler’s departure had made in his present life. It was Herr Adler’s stories that he quoted to the walking party; but in his heart he turned over many of the other lessons he had received from his friend, and made numbers of resolves, many of which were never entirely forgotten or set aside.

But after spending a week or two at the chalet, the mountaineers went off for another spell of climbing at some distance. More visitors arrived from England to keep company with the ladies; and Squib found himself once more free to resume his old habits, and to return to the Valley of the Silent Watchers, which always drew him like a magnet when he had nothing else to do.

How Seppi’s thin face did light up with pleasure at sight of his friend!

“It seemed as if everything went away together when Herr Adler was gone and you had gone too,” said the little goat-herd with patient sadness. “I know I oughtn’t to say ‘everything,’ when there’s so much left. I did try to think of all the things the good Herr Adler had told us. It helped a great deal; but I am so glad to see you back.”

“I’m glad to come,” answered Squib truthfully enough, “I think I like our quiet days the best. But what will you do in the winter, Seppi, when I’ve gone right away to England, and Herr Adler won’t be coming, and you can’t go out on the hills and draw, and everything is different?”

208Sudden tears stood in Seppi’s eyes at the question. He had grown to love Squib with that kind of passionate love that often grows up in the heart of a child, and becomes almost a pain at last. Squib had, as it were, rooted himself into the very fibres of his heart. He had not seriously faced the thought that the little boy was only a bird of passage; that he was here just for a few short weeks, and then would go away, perhaps never to return. He had built up a fanciful idea of his own that the grand people from England, of whom the peasants spoke with reverence and respect, had bought the chalet for their very own, and would often come to it; and Squib had spoken so much of his love for the valleys and mountains that Seppi might be pardoned for thinking he meant to stay there always. To the peasant boy Squib appeared like a little prince, able to come and go and do as he would; and surely if he loved mountains and the free mountain life so much, he would be able to come very often to enjoy them, and stay a long time when he came.

“But—but—you are not going away, are you?” he faltered; “and you will surely come again?”

“I’m not going away yet—not for a good many weeks,” answered the other little boy, “but by-and-by we shall have to go back. I think we’ve got the chalet for three months. And I don’t know about coming again. You see I shall be going to school soon, and then there will only be the holidays—and 209those, I suppose, will be spent at home. When I’m a man, I think I shall often come to Switzerland and climb mountains, and do lots of nice things; but I don’t think that will be for a good many years. None of the others have ever been abroad, and this is just a treat for me before I go to school.”

Seppi’s tears flowed silently down his cheeks as he heard this, and as he gradually came to understand from his comrade’s explanations that Squib was not a fairy prince, able to come and go at will and do just what he liked, but a little English boy, bound by many rules and regulations, and with a regular round of duties mapped out for him for many years to come. His visions of constantly seeing the little Herr on the hills in summer began to dissolve like dreams at waking time, and his heart seemed to grow strangely heavy as he realized that he might not see his little friend any more after he once left, until both had grown to manhood.

“And it takes such a long, long time to grow up!” he sighed. “Peter is older than I, but he isn’t grown up, though he has been talking of it and waiting—oh, ever so long! What shall I do when I never see you any more—and the years when Herr Adler doesn’t come either?”

“I’ll write to you,” said Squib suddenly, putting out his hand and laying it on Seppi’s; “I’ll write you a letter every quarter, and I’ll send you paper and chalk sometimes by parcel post;” and then warming 210with his subject, he went on in his vehement fashion, “and I’ll send you an envelope with one of your Swiss stamps on it, if I can get them, and you shall send me a drawing back, and if you can, you will write me a letter too, and tell me how you are, and how Moor is, and Ann-Katherin, and everybody, and the goats. Then we shall seem always like friends, and if I ever can I’ll come and see you; only I can’t promise, because I shan’t be able to do as I like till I’m a man.”

Making plans like this was the best substitute for Seppi’s vague dreams of always having Squib near at hand. As the days flew by they made more and more detailed plans about keeping up some sort of a correspondence, and both were pleased to think that this friendship would not vanish away when the boy was carried off again to England.

All this while Squib had never seen Seppi’s home, save at a distance. The little goat-herd never went back till after Squib had left him in the afternoon, and he was too lame to wander about for pleasure. Moreover, there were the goats to think of and care for, and it had never occurred to him that the little Herr could feel the smallest interest in so poor a place as his home.

Squib, however, had often looked across at it and wondered what it was like inside; but he had not invited himself there in case Seppi’s mother might not like it. Yet he had a great wish to see her, 211and Ann-Katherin too, and had sometimes thought he would ask Seppi to go home early some day and let him accompany him.

But before he had ever got to the point of doing so, a sudden visit was paid by him to the chalet in a quite unexpected fashion.

For some days it had been very hot indeed—so hot that the little boy had felt indisposed for anything but to lie about in idleness, and even the goats had done little but crowd together in the shelter of the rock and nibble a little bit of grass in quite a lazy way. The dogs seemed to enjoy the sultry weather most, lying side by side in the sun and basking there to their hearts’ content; but sometimes it became too hot even for them, and they would retire panting into the shade with their tongues out, or trot down to the brook for a drink.

Hitherto the summer had been very fine and calm. Once or twice the boys had heard a rumble of thunder far away, but it had never come near them. Seppi had told Squib many stories of the violence of the summer thunder-storms in his valley, and Squib had wished he might see one; and now it seemed as if this wish were to be gratified.

It was the fifth of these very hot days. Squib thought it was the hottest day he ever remembered in his life, and wondered if India could be hotter. He and Seppi had to get under the great rock, where 212the shade was densest, for the pine trees did not afford nearly enough shelter.

The sky was cloudlessly blue, and the mountains opposite looked nearer than they had ever done before. The Silent Watchers seemed to have even advanced a few steps nearer each other, and Squib felt that if any persons had been climbing their shin............