“No,” he whispered, “I shan’t want him any more; but I love him. He brought you. He will miss me most. Please have him and keep him for me,” and possessing himself of Squib’s hand, Seppi drew it down upon the head of Moor, who had stretched himself upon the bed beside his little master, and who now licked the joined hands of both children, with his eyes full of tears.
“I’ll keep him,” answered Squib, steadying his voice. “He shall come home and live with me. I will make him happy.”
Seppi smiled. It seemed the last little cloud upon his mind. Now that he was satisfied he lay back on his pillows and put out one hand to his mother, the other lying still in Squib’s close clasp upon the head of the dog.
“Tell me about 'He shall give His angels charge,’” he whispered the next moment. Seppi looked at the mother, and the woman looked back at him, and then Squib, suddenly thinking of Herr Adler and some of the things he had said, answered with one of his own bursts of subdued vehemence,—
“Seppi, I daresay the angels are here. I daresay it was they who helped Moor to find me and bring me; but that doesn’t matter. The Lord Jesus is here Himself, and I think you will see Him soon. Never mind anything else. He is coming.”
Seppi’s eyes filled suddenly with strange light, and then the lids closed, and the quick panting breathing grew very slow—and then stopped.
“Jesus has come!” said Squib in his heart, and he turned by a sudden impulse and put his arms round the neck of the weeping woman on her knees beside him.
“Seppi is not lame any more,” said Squib softly.
It was the last day at the chalet. On the morrow Colonel Rutland and his party were to start for England and home.
Squib stood holding his father’s hand beside a little newly-made grave in the quaint little burying-ground of the little church on the hillside, just where it began to slope gently down towards the wider end of the valley where the small township lay.
Squib held in his hands a wooden cross about three feet high. He had spent the last days of his stay in Switzerland in carving that cross, and in striving to put into it some of the many imaginings which crowded his busy brain. For a child’s handiwork it was very creditable. There was a lily carved upon the upright bar, standing out in bold relief, and the greatest pains had been taken with the shape and veining of every leaf and petal. At the very top of the cross the word “SEPPI” was cut in small capitals, and that was all. The lower end of the upright bar was pointed, and as Squib stood at the little grave looking very seriously upon it, he gave a questioning look up into his father’s face, and on receiving a nod of assent he moved forward and drove his cross into the ground just at the head of the little grave. The earth, having recently been loosened, gave no great resistance. With the aid of his father the boy fixed his little memento safely in its place, and, having done this, he hung upon it a wreath of Alpine flowers which he carried on his arm, and stood looking at the result with a smile on his lips and a tear in his eye.