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                         SQUIB AND HIS FRIENDS.


[Illustration:

  “_Squib flung himself upon the dog, and threw his arms about his
    neck._”

  Page 17.
]




              SQUIB AND HIS FRIENDS ❧ BY E. EVERETT-GREEN


 LONDON, EDINBURGH,
 AND NEW YORK
 THOMAS NELSON
 AND SONS

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               CONTENTS.


                      I. “THE ODD ONE,”             9

                     II. GOING AWAY,               28

                    III. THE CHALET IN THE HILLS,  47

                     IV. THE LITTLE GOAT-HERD,     65

                      V. COMRADES,                 84

                     VI. HERR ADLER,              102

                    VII. HAPPY HOURS,             124

                   VIII. A WONDERFUL WALK,        148

                     IX. A STORY AND A FAREWELL,  175

                      X. A MOUNTAIN STORM,        204

                     XI. PLANS AND PROJECTS,      221

                    XII. FAREWELLS,               238

                   XIII. GOING HOME,              256

                    XIV. CONCLUSION,              272




                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


 “SQUIB FLUNG HIMSELF UPON THE DOG, AND THREW HIS ARMS   _Frontispiece_.
   ABOUT HIS NECK,”

 “SQUIB LISTENED WITH A STRANGE SENSE OF FASCINATION,”                68

 “BREATHLESSLY ONE BOY WORKED AND THE OTHER WATCHED,”                 94

 “DOWN, DOWN, DOWN—WITH A CRASH, AND A BANG, AND A                   169
   ROAR!”

 “SEPPI DREW SQUIB’S HAND DOWN UPON THE HEAD OF MOOR,”               254

 “SQUIB’S BROTHERS AND SISTERS REJOICED OVER THE PRETTY              283
   GIFTS HE HAD BROUGHT THEM,”




                         SQUIB AND HIS FRIENDS.




                               CHAPTER I.
                             “THE ODD ONE.”


That was the name Squib went by in the nursery and in the household—“the
odd one.” Not exactly because of any personal peculiarities—although he
had a few of these—but because he had no especial brother or sister
belonging to him, and seemed to stand alone, whilst all the others could
be paired off together.

Norman and Frank were big boys, away at school most of the year, near to
each other in age, and always together in the holidays. Philippa and
Molly came next, and were girls, devoted to each other and to their
family of dolls, and even more devoted to the live dolls in the
nursery—the little twin sisters, Hilda and Hulda, whom nobody knew apart
save themselves and the nurse. But Squib had no brother or sister to be
bracketed with him. The baby who came next in age to him had died in
infancy, and was only a dim memory to the brother just above him in age.
So he had always been, as it were, “the odd one” of the family, although
his sisters were very fond of him, and never refused him a share in
their games when he wanted to join in them.

But Squib did not care for dolls, and his tastes lay amongst things
beyond the walls of nursery or schoolroom. He wanted always to be out of
doors when not busy with his lessons for Mademoiselle (for so far he had
not gone to school, but had been taught with his sisters in the
schoolroom); and his pursuits were not of a kind to be attractive to the
dainty little ladies, Philippa and Molly, or to find favour in the eyes
of nurse, who reigned supreme over Hilda and Hulda. So Squib got into
the way of amusing himself in his own fashion, and took his name of “the
odd one” with great equanimity.

Squib was not his real name, as I suppose I need hardly say; it was a
nickname given him by his father some years before my story begins, and
it had stuck to him ever since. His real name was Sydenham, and he had
been called Syd for a time, till Colonel Rutland had hit upon this other
appellation.

And the reason for this was a habit of Squib’s which amused his father a
good deal. The child had a way of sitting perfectly still and silent for
a very long time in the room, not speaking, even when spoken to, until
some exhaustive mental process had taken place, after which he would
suddenly “go off,” as his father expressed it, and talk rapidly and
eagerly for several minutes straight on end; then having thus relieved
his mind and delivered himself of his thoughts, he would relapse into
dead silence until ready for the next explosion. And so his father
called him “Squib;” and Squib he became in time to the whole household.

It was commonly whispered about the place that Squib was the Colonel’s
favourite amongst his children. Colonel Rutland was not a man who had
taken a great deal of notice of his sons and daughters as they appeared
upon the scene. He was a busy man, having a large estate to order, being
a magistrate, churchwarden, and guardian of the poor-law, and having
social duties to attend to as well. He was a most devoted husband; and
people used to say that never was there a happier couple than he and
Lady Mary, his beautiful wife. He was proud of his fine young family in
the aggregate, but did not notice the children very much individually,
until one or two small incidents brought Squib before his eyes.

The first of these was a severe altercation which he chanced to overhear
between the child and his nurse when Squib was five years old. He was
walking through the shrubberies one morning when the sound of raised
voices attracted his attention, the first being that of a child lifted
in indignant protest.

“It’s not a lie. I never tell lies! I _did_ hear father sing it his own
self!”

“Master Syd, that’s not true. Your father never would sing such a wicked
song. It only makes it worse, telling stories about it!”

“It isn’t a story!—it isn’t, I tell you! I heard him my own self, and
lots of other people heard him, too. It’s you who are wicked, saying I
tell lies and father sings wicked songs!” and the crunch of the gravel
betrayed the fact that Squib had brought his small foot heavily down
upon it in a stamp of passionate wrath.

Colonel Rutland turned a corner and came full upon the combatants. The
nurse—a most excellent and trustworthy woman, who had been for twelve
years with them—was looking very grieved and disturbed as she held Squib
by the hand, as if with the intention of taking him at once before some
domestic tribunal; whilst the child’s square, determined face was
flushed a deep crimson, his dark-grey eyes looked almost black, as they
had a way of doing in moments of passion and excitement, and his whole
frame was quivering with anger and protest as he reiterated his
assertion that he was speaking nothing but the truth.

“What is all this?” asked Colonel Rutland in a deep voice. “Squib, what
do you mean by resisting your nurse like that? I will have no
insubordination to authority in my house—you know that as well as I do.”
For Colonel Rutland, with his military training, was a martinet in his
house about discipline, and his children knew perfectly that he would be
more severe over an act of disobedience than over any other kind of
transgression.

Squib and the nurse both started at the sound of the Colonel’s voice,
and nurse dropped the hand she was holding and made a respectful
courtesy to her master. Squib stood perfectly silent, after his fashion,
for a full minute, and then burst into rapid speech,—

“I wasn’t resisting her, father. She told me I was telling lies—and I’m
not. You did sing it. I heard you; and it isn’t wicked—and she didn’t
ought to say it was. I don’t tell lies. I never did. It isn’t lies—it’s
only about them!”

The Colonel held up his hand to command silence.

“What does all this mean?” he asked, turning to nurse.

“If you please, sir, I heard Master Syd singing something that didn’t
sound right for a young gentleman, and when I told him I wouldn’t have
wicked words sung, he turned and said that he’d heard you sing them,
which I was quite sure was not true, and I told him so. And then he went
off into one of his tantrums—which I hoped he was learning to get better
of—and that’s all I know about it. But I am quite sure he is not
speaking the truth.”

“Leave him to me and I will get at the rights of the matter,” said the
Colonel; and nurse, who had an ailing baby indoors (Squib’s little
brother who shortly afterwards died), was glad to go in to see after
him, leaving Squib and his father to settle things together about the
song.

“Now, Squib,” said Colonel Rutland, with grave severity of manner, “let
me hear the whole truth of this from you. What is it you were singing?
Don’t be afraid to speak the truth.”

“I’m not afraid a bit!” cried Squib, after his habitual pause. “I’ll
sing it to you now. _You’ll_ know it—it’s your own song,” and taking a
deep breath and swelling himself out in unconscious imitation of a
singer about to commence his song, the child broke out with the
following words, sung in a deep voice as like that of a man as he could
achieve—

                          “Fi-ive del dies—
                          The father of lies!”

And then suddenly breaking off he looked up at his father and cried,—

“You know you did sing it yourself, father—so it can’t be wicked!”

The Colonel was puzzled. There was something in the rhythm of the notes
that was familiar to him; but what could the child mean? How had he got
hold of those absurd words, and what was in his head?

“When did you hear me sing it, Squib?” he asked, still not permitting
his face to relax.

“Why, father—you know—when all those people came, and you read such a
lot of funny things in turn in the drawing-room and sang songs. There
was another song about ‘Ban, ban, Ca-Caliban’—you _must_ remember; but
it was you who sang about the father of lies, and it can’t be wicked if
you did it, though nurse does say so!”

Colonel Rutland broke into a sudden laugh. The whole thing flashed
across him now. From time to time in that neighbourhood there were
gatherings generally known by the name of “Shakespeare readings”—friends
meeting together at one another’s houses to read a play of the great
dramatist’s, the parts being allotted by previous arrangement. Not very
long since “The Tempest” had been read in this way at Rutland Chase, and
the children had been allowed to come into the room for part of it. It
was just the kind of thing to fascinate Squib, and perhaps he had
succeeded in hiding away and being up longer than was known. At any
rate, he had evidently heard his father sing the well-known song—

                           “Full fathom five,
                           Thy father lies;”

and, with the capricious alchemy of a child’s mind over anything not
understood, had transformed it to the version which had aroused the ire
of his nurse.

Something in this little incident tickled the fancy of the Colonel and
attracted his attention towards Squib, who had always amused him when he
had had time to notice his children; and the bond was more closely drawn
between them by two little incidents which occurred, one after the
other, during the ensuing year.

The first of these had reference to a very fine Russian wolf-hound,
which had been presented to Colonel Rutland a short time before. It was
an animal almost as big as a calf, of a slate colour merging almost in
black, with a head very broad across the brows, and a voice like a
church bell. He was a very magnificent animal, but he had a fierce
temper, and made few friends. Colonel Rutland was one of these few, but
even he did not feel that he had the dog very well under control, and
always took him out with a certain sense of misgiving.

One of the chief difficulties with regard to the creature was that he
was so fierce when chained up that it was hardly safe to approach him,
either to give him his food or to let him loose when the time for his
daily run had arrived. Colonel Rutland was having a place made for him
where he could be shut up without being chained, which he hoped would
tend to the humanizing and taming of him; but, meantime, he had to be
fastened up in the yard when not at large, and Colonel Rutland made a
point of both chaining and loosing him himself—although it was not
without misgiving that he approached the great brute straining on his
chain, and glaring out at the world with red, defiant eyes.

One day, as he was approaching the kennel, liking the looks of the dog
rather less even than usual, he stood meditating at a short distance as
to whether it were really safe to keep such a fierce animal on the
premises, and whether he might not be running a foolish risk in going
near him. He was startled by the sound of a small voice proceeding from
an invisible questioner quite near at hand.

“Father,” said the little voice, “shall I let Czar out for you?”

Colonel Rutland looked up, and looked down, and looked round about him,
and again came the sound of the small voice, saying,—

“I’m in Czar’s kennel, father.”

The Colonel had certainly never thought of looking in such a place for
the speaker. Now, turning his startled glance in that direction, he saw
Squib sitting curled up on the clean straw in the huge kennel, looking
out from his nest with a friendly smile.

For a moment the fathers heart stood still. Suppose the great brute
should turn and see him! It was with difficulty he commanded his voice
to say quietly, whilst himself striving to attract the notice of the
dog, “Come out, Squib; come very quietly.”

But the child never heard the last words; he jumped up at once and made
an outward bound, flinging himself upon the dog as he did so, and
throwing his arms about his neck.

“Oh, father, if you would only let me have Czar to go out with me
sometimes! We should have such fun together!”

At the touch of those small childish hands the aspect of the dog changed
at once. The lifted crest along his back smoothed down, the red light in
his eyes changed altogether, the fierce bay ceased, for the creature was
engaged in licking the child’s hands and face, and in fondling him with
evident delight. The father looked on in amaze, and when Squib repeated
his question, “Shall I let him out now?” he gave his assent rather by
sign than by word, so great was his surprise at what he saw.

“Oh, father, _may_ I go with you?” pleaded Squib, with great, wistful
eyes. “I’ve never been out with Czar yet—and I should so like to!”

His father held out a ready hand.

“Come along, my little man. We will go together. How came you and Czar
to be such friends? I did not know he had made real friends with anybody
yet.”

Squib did not immediately answer; he was watching the gambols of the
great dog careering round and round them in wide circles—a thing he had
never done before when out with Colonel Rutland, always making a rush
ahead, and only coming reluctantly to his side when called with
authority. Whenever Squib held out his hand, Czar made a dash at him and
licked it; and once the child jumped upon the great creature’s back, and
Czar took him for a breathless scamper across the park—Squib holding on
like a little monkey; and only when he had come back and was holding his
father’s hand again did he “go off,” and enter into explanations of this
strange friendship.

“You see, father, it was like this—Czar had nobody to love him. They
were all afraid of him. I saw coachman give him his supper one day—he
had the stable broom, and he pushed the pan to Czar with it, and never
even gave him a pat, or said a kind word to him. And it _did_ seem so
hard! So when he was gone I just went up and patted him as he was eating
his great bones, and then I sat just inside his kennel and talked to him
all the time, and made it sociable for him; and he brought me the
biggest bone of all, and I pretended I liked it very much, and then I
gave it him back and he lay down and ate it, and I stroked him and
talked to him all the time. He is such an interesting dog to talk to
when you know him. And after that I went every day, and—when I can—I
give him his food, and we always have a great deal of conversation, and
it isn’t nearly so dull for him as it was at first. But I’ve never been
able to go out with him, because coachman says I mustn’t loose him. But
we’ve always longed to take walks together, and if you say we may, it
_will_ be so nice.”

Colonel Rutland listened to all this with something of a shiver. He had
not lived all this while without having known many instances of the
wonderful understanding between children and animals, or of the
forbearance shown often by the fiercest creatures to confiding little
children; but, nevertheless, he could not picture the first approach of
his small son to that great fierce dog in the midst of his bones without
a trem