Squib and His Friends

by Evelyn Everett-Green

With an awed face Squib realized this truth. Well, indeed, might it have been either or both of them. He was too much shocked and bewildered for tears, and Seppi drew him insistently onwards, past the corpse of the noble hound—Squib could see for himself that no spark of life was left in him, and did not seek to linger—down towards the bridge, casting apprehensive glances behind him as he did so, towards the huge bank of lurid cloud. But the next minute—following almost immediately upon that fatal lightning flash, came a sudden gust of wind rushing up from behind them, and waking every pine tree in the valley into a whispering, moaning life; and as he heard that sound Seppi cried out,—

“Come quick! quick! The rain will soon be on us; and we must get across the bridge before it comes.”

For a breathless three minutes they scrambled down—the goats having by this time taken themselves homewards as fast as their nimble feet would carry them—and reached the bridge before any fresh development had taken place. But as they set their feet upon it the heavy cloud suddenly seemed to open its mouth in passing, and down came—was it rain? Squib gaspingly asked himself; it seemed rather as if the river itself had risen up and was tumbling bodily over them.

With a splash and a crash, and a roar of another kind, fell the torrent of lashing rain. Close as the two boys were to the chalet, they were wet to the skin before they reached it. It was just like being in the sea, Squib thought, when the great breakers come tumbling over you. He was by this time so blinded and bewildered by the terrific violence of the storm that he felt as if it were all part of a confused dream; and when he was drawn into shelter by kind, motherly hands, and heard around him a confusion of sympathetic voices, it was quite a number of minutes before he could really make out what was happening, or whether he was asleep or awake.

Gradually, however, the mists cleared from his eyes. He found himself in a strange room, standing before a fire of wood and stuff like peat which gave out a queer smell, and burned in a black-looking stove, and seemed not to have been lighted very long, though it burned hot and fiercely. There were three people in the place besides himself and Seppi—a woman with eyes like Seppi’s, dressed as all the Swiss peasants are, and with a kind, motherly face, who was taking off his wet jacket and calling out to somebody else to bring clothes from the press for the little gentleman; a little girl with her hair tightly braided, and a pair of very quick black eyes, who darted off to do her mother’s bidding; and a big boy, many sizes bigger than Seppi, who was helping his brother off with his soaked garments, and talking to him about the storm in the rude dialect which sounded rougher from his lips than from the others’.

Everything went so quickly and briskly that, before Squib had time to collect his ideas, he found himself wrapped in queer but dry garments, perched on a rough chair by the side of the stove, while his own clothes were spread out in the heat to dry, the motherly woman keeping up a constant flow of pitying talk, and the little girl staring at him with her bright black eyes as if she would never stop.

“You are Ann-Katherin,” said Squib, speaking for the first time.

She smiled all over her face and came a step nearer.

“You are Seppi’s little Herr,” she said; “I know all about you. But where is your big dog?”

A spasm crossed Squib’s face.