It was very exhilarating to Squib to feel himself of use, and there was nothing which he more desired than to win the approval of his beautiful mother. Lady Mary was not one of those mothers who are always caressing and fondling their children, and yet they loved her with an almost adoring love, and desired her approval above everything in the world. As she bent a soft, smiling glance on Squib when she spoke, he felt his heart give a great bound, and slipping round the table till he reached her side, he put his small hand gently upon hers.
“I shall have to take care of you when father and Uncle Ronald go to climb the mountains with Mr. Lorimer, shan’t I, mother? You see I can take care of you now, don’t you? I can be useful, and there will always be Czar to keep away anybody who would frighten you. But I don’t think there will be anybody to do that in our valley. I think the mountains keep watch over it, as Lisa says, and keep the evil spirits out!”
The mother, who understood the child’s mind best, smiled and kissed him as she dismissed him to bed, for the time was getting on now, and the long daylight fading. The gentlemen laughed and teased him a little about his “queer fancies,” but Squib did not think them queer at all, he was so sure that there was something personal and protective about those white watchers opposite; and when he knelt to say his prayers that night, he knelt where he had them full in view all the time.
“They have been there always,” he said to himself, with a sensation akin to awe, “just as they are now, with nothing between them and God. I think He must have made them so grand and white and beautiful because He liked to look at them, and if He likes to look down at them, why, it must make them good!”
There was something very grand and wonderful in the way those white peaks stood out against the darkening sky in that clear transparent air. A short time ago they had been dyed a wonderful rose pink, as they caught the reflected glory of the setting sun; now they were rather grey than red, with a look of almost awful aloofness and grandeur as they stood up in their spotless whiteness and purity.
And then as the child watched this change with a strange sense of fascination, the great round moon rose slowly above the ridge, and at once new beauty and grandeur were thrown over the whole world. Great towering shadows seemed to be cast athwart the valley, and then the snow-slopes began to glimmer and shine with a new and almost unearthly radiance. Squib held his breath as he watched the moon rise over the snow-covered ridge, and the transformation of those rugged peaks and fissures into a new world of ebony and silver.
How long he would have watched it, forgetting all besides, may well be questioned, but he was quickly disturbed by an anxious voice,—
“Liebchen!—Liebchen!—what art thou doing? Thou wilt catch thy death of cold up here in the nipping mountain air!”
And Squib was quickly caught up in a pair of strong arms and hustled with ignominious rapidity into the queer little bed which seemed a necessary part of Swiss life.
But he was altogether too happy to be seriously ruffled by any such summary proceeding; and all he did by way of retaliation was to keep fast hold of Lisa’s hand and refuse to let her go till she had talked him to sleep with the most entrancing of her stories of the mountains.