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.
CHAPTER II.
GOING AWAY.
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.”