Sudden 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 those, 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 with 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, and 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.