The days sped so fast with these happy people, children and
“grown-ups,” as Sunny calls them, that soon it was already Sunday, the
first of the only two Sundays they had to spend at the glen. Shall I
tell about them both?
These parents considered Sunday the best day in all the week, and tried
to make it so; especially to the children, whom, in order to give the
servants rest, they then took principally into their own hands. They
wished that, when the little folks grew up, Sunday should always be
remembered as a bright day, a cheerful day, a day spent with papa and
mamma; when nobody had any work to do, and everybody was merry, and
happy, and good. Also clean, which was a novelty here. Even the elders
rather enjoyed putting on their best clothes with the certainty of not
getting them wetted in fishing-boats, or torn with briers and brambles
on hillsides. Church was not till twelve at noon, so most of the party
went a leisurely morning stroll, and Sunny’s papa and mamma decided to
have a quiet row on the loch, in a clean boat, all by their two selves.
But, as it happened, their little girl, taking a walk with her Lizzie,
espied them afar off.
Faintly across the water came the pitiful entreaty, “Papa! mamma! Take
her. Take her with you.” And the little figure, running as fast as her
fat legs would carry her, was seen making its way, with Lizzie running
after, to the very edge of the loch.
What heart would not have relented? Papa rowed back as fast as he
could, and took her in, her face quivering with delight, though the big
tears were still rolling down her cheeks. But April showers do not dry
up faster than Sunny’s tears.
No fishing to-day, of course. Peacefully they floated down the loch,
which seemed to know it was Sunday, and to lie, with the hills standing
around it, more restful, more sunshiny, more beautiful than ever. Not
a creature was stirring; even the cattle, that always clustered on a
little knoll above the canal, made motionless pictures of themselves
against the sky, as if they were sitting or standing for their
portraits, and would not move upon any account. Now and then, as the
boat passed, a bird in the bushes fluttered, but not very far off, and
then sat on a bough and looked at it, too fearless of harm to fly
away. Everything was so intensely still, so unspeakably beautiful,
that when mamma, sitting in the stern, with her arm fast around her
child, began to sing “Jerusalem the Golden,” and afterward that other
beautiful hymn, “There is a land of pure delight,” the scene around
appeared like an earthly picture of that Celestial Land.
They rowed homeward just in time to dress for church, and start,
leaving the little girl behind. She was to follow, by and by, with
her Lizzie, and be taken charge of by mamma while Lizzie went to the
English service in the afternoon.
This was the morning service, and in Gaelic. With an English
prayer-book it was just possible to follow it and guess at it, though
the words were unintelligible. But they sounded very sweet, and so
did the hymns; and the small congregation listened as gravely and
reverently as if it had been the grandest church in the world, instead
of a tiny room, no bigger than an ordinary sitting-room, with a
communion-table of plain deal, and a few rows of deal benches, enough
to seat about twenty people, there being about fifteen present to-day.
Some of them had walked several miles, as they did every Sunday, and
often, their good clergyman said, when the glen was knee-deep in snow.
He himself spent his quiet days among them, winter and summer, living
at a farmhouse near, and scarcely ever quitting his charge. A lonelier
life, especially in winter-time, it was hardly possible to imagine.
Yet he looked quite contented, and so did the little congregation
as they listened to the short Gaelic sermon (which, of course, was
incomprehensible to the strangers), then slowly went out of church and
stood hanging about on the dike-side in the sunshine, till the second
service should begin.
Very soon a few more groups were seen advancing toward church. There
was Maurice, prayer-book in hand, looking so good and gentle and sweet,
almost like a cherub in a picture; and Eddie, not at all cherubic, but
entirely boyish, walking sedately beside his papa; Eddie clean and
tidy, as if he had never torn his clothes or dirtied his face in all
his life. Then came the children’s parents, papa and mamma and their
guests, and the servants of the house following. While far behind,
holding cautiously by her Lizzie’s hand and rather alarmed at her new
position, was a certain little person, who, as soon as she saw her own
papa and mamma, rushed frantically forward to meet them, with a cry of
irrepressible joy.
“Sunny wants to go to church! Sunny would like to go to church with the
little boys, and Lizzie says she mustn’t.”
Lizzie was quite right, mamma explained; afraid that so small a
child might only interrupt the worship, which she could not possibly
understand. But she compromised the matter by promising that Sunny
should go to church as soon as ever she was old enough, and to-day she
should stay with mamma out in the sunshiny road, and hear the singing
from outside.
Staying with mamma being always sufficient felicity, she consented to
part with the little boys, and they passed on into church.
By this time the post, which always came in between the services on
Sundays, appeared, and the postmaster, who was also schoolmaster and
beadle at the church,--as the school, the church, and the post-office
were all one building,--began arranging and distributing the contents
of the bag.
Everybody sat down by the roadside and read their letters. Those who
had no letters opened the newspapers,--those cruel newspapers, full of
the war. It was dreadful to read them, in this lovely spot, on this
calm September Sunday, with the good pastor and his innocent flock
preparing to begin the worship of Him who commanded “Love your enemies;
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them that despitefully use you and persecute you.”
Oh, what a mockery “church” seemed! You little children can never
understand the pain of it; but you will when you are grown up. May
God grant that in your time you may never suffer as we have done, but
that His mercy may then have brought permanent peace; beating “swords
into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks,” for ever and ever
throughout the world!
Sunny’s mamma prayed so with all her heart, when, the newspaper laid
down, she sat on a stone outside the church, with her child playing
beside her; far enough not to disturb the congregation, but near enough
to catch a good deal of the service, which was the English Episcopal
service; there being few Presbyterians in this district of Scotland,
and not a Presbyterian church within several miles.
Presently a harmonium began to sound, and a small choir of voices,
singing not badly, began the _Magnificat_. It was the first time in
her life that the little girl had heard choral music,--several people
singing all together. She pricked up her ears at once, with the
expression of intense delight that all kinds of music bring into her
little face.
“Mamma, is that church? Is that my papa singing?”
Mamma did not think it was, but it might be Maurice’s papa, and his
mamma, and Lizzie, and several other people; Sunny must listen and be
quite quiet, so as not to disturb them.
So she did, good little girl! sitting as mute as a mouse all the while
the music lasted, and when it ceased, playing about, still quietly;
building pebble mountains, and gathering a few withered leaves to stick
on the top of them. For she and her mamma were sitting on the gravel
walk of the schoolmaster’s garden, beside a row of flowerpots, still
radiant with geraniums and fuchsias. They were so close to the open
window under which stood the pulpit, that mamma was able to hear almost
every word of the sermon,--and a very good sermon it was.
When it ended, the friendly little congregation shook hands and talked
a little; then separated, half going up and the other half down the
road. The minister came home to dinner, walking between Maurice and
Eddie, of whom he was a particular friend. They always looked forward
to this weekly visit of his as one of the Sunday enjoyments, for he was
an admirable hand at an oar, and Eddie, who tyrannised over him in the
most affectionate way, was quite sure of “a low” when the minister was
there.
So, after dinner, all went out together, parents and children, pastor
and flock, in two boats, and rowed peacefully up and down the loch,
which had fallen into the cool gray shadow of evening, with the most
gorgeous sunset light, resting on the mountains opposite, and gradually
fading away, higher and higher, till the topmost peaks alone kept the
glow. But that they did to the very last; like a good man who, living
continually in the smile of God, lives cheerfully on to the end.
Sunny and her mamma watched the others, but did not go out, it being
near the child’s bedtime; and unless it is quite unavoidable, nobody
ever puts Sunny to bed, or hears her say her little prayers, except her
own mamma. She went to sleep quite happily, having now almost forgotten
to ask for Tommy Tinker, or any other story. The continual excitement
of her life here left her so sleepy that the minute she had her little
nightgown on, she was ready to shut her eyes, and go off into what
mamma calls “the land of Nod.”
And so ended, for her, the first Sunday in the glen, which, in its
cheerful, holy peace, was a day long to be remembered. But the little
boys, Maurice and Eddie, who did not go to bed so early, after the loch
grew dark, and the rowing was all done, spent a good long evening in
the drawing-room, climbing on the minister’s knees, and talking to him
about boats and salmon, and all sorts of curious things: he was so
very kind to little children. And after the boys were gone to bed, he
and the elder folk gathered around the not unwelcome fire, and talked
too. This good minister, who spent his life in the lonely glen, with
very little money,--so little that rich Southern people would hardly
believe an educated clergyman could live upon it at all,--and almost no
society, except that of the few cottagers and farmers scattered thinly
up and down, yet kept his heart up, and was cheerful and kindly, ready
to help old and young, rich and poor, and never complaining of his dull
life, or anything else--this gentleman, I say, was a pattern to both
great folk and small.
The one only subject of discontent in the house, if anybody could feel
discontent in such a pleasant place and amid such happy circumstances,
was the continued fine weather. While the sky remained unclouded, and
the loch as smooth as glass, no salmon would bite. They kept jumping
up in the liveliest and most provoking way; sometimes you could see
their heads and shoulders clean out of water, and of course they looked
bigger than any salmon ever seen before. Vainly did the master of the
house and his guests go after them whenever there was the least cloud
on the sky, and coax them to bite with the most fascinating flies
and most alluring hooks; they refused to take the slightest notice of
either. Only trout, and they not big ones, ever allowed themselves to
be caught.
The children and mammas, delighting in the warm sunshiny weather, did
not grieve much, but the gentlemen became quite low in their spirits,
and at last, for their sakes, and especially for the sake of that one
who only cared for fishing, and had come so far to fish, the whole
household began to watch the sky, and with great self-sacrifice to long
for a day--a whole day--of good, settled, pelting rain.
And on the Monday following this bright Sunday, it seemed likely.
The morning was rather dull, the sunshiny haze which hung over the
mountains melted away, and they stood out sharp and dark and clear.
Toward noon, the sky clouded over a little,--a very little! Hopefully
the elders sat down to their four o’clock dinner, and by the time it
was over a joyful cry arose:
“It’s raining! it’s raining!”
Everybody started up in the greatest delight. “Now we shall have a
chance of a salmon!” cried the gentlemen, afraid to hope too much.
Nevertheless, they hastily put on their greatcoats, and rushed down to
the pier, armed with a rod apiece, and with Donald, the keeper, to
row them; because, if they did hook a salmon, Eddie explained, they
would want somebody to “low” the boat, and follow the fish wherever he
went. Eddie looked very unhappy that he himself had not this duty, of
which he evidently thought he was capable. But when his father told him
he could not go, he obeyed, as he always did. He was very fond of his
father.
The three boys, Maurice, Eddie, and Franky,--Phil, alas! was too ill
to be much excited, even over salmon-fishing,--resigned themselves
to fate, and made the best of things by climbing on the drawing-room
table, which stood in front of the window, and thence watching the boat
as it moved slowly up and down the gray loch, with the four motionless
figures sitting in it,--sitting contentedly soaking. The little boys,
Eddie especially, would willingly have sat and soaked too, if allowed.
At length, as some slight consolation, and to prevent Eddie’s dangling
his legs out at the open window, letting in the wind and the rain, and
running imminent risk of tumbling out, twenty feet or so, down to the
terrace below, Sunny’s mamma brought a book of German pictures, and
proposed telling stories out of them.
They were very funny pictures, and have been Little Sunshine’s delight
for many months. So she, as the owner, displayed them proudly to the
rest, and it having been arranged with some difficulty how six pairs
of eyes could look over the same book, the party arranged themselves
thus: Sunny’s mamma sat on the hearth-rug, with her own child on her
lap, Austin Thomas on one side, and Phil on the other; while Maurice,
Eddie, and Franky managed as well as they could to look over her
shoulders. There was a general sense of smothering and huddling up,
like a sparrow’s nest when the young ones are growing a little too
big, but everybody appeared happy. Now and then, Sunshine knitted her
brows fiercely, as she can knit them on occasion, when Austin Thomas
came crawling too close upon her mamma’s lap, with his intrusively
affectionate “Danmamma,” but no open quarrel broke out. The room was so
cosy and bright with firelight, and everybody was so comfortable, that
they had almost forgotten the rain outside, also the salmon-fishing,
when the door suddenly opened, and in burst the cook.
Mary was a kind, warm-hearted Highland woman, always ready to do
anything for anybody, and particularly devoted to the children. Gaelic
was easier to her than English always, but now she was so excited that
she could hardly get out her words.
“Master’s hooked a salmon! He’s been crying” (calling) “on Neil to get
out another boat and come to him. It must be a very big salmon, for
he is playing him up and down the loch. They’ve been at it these ten
minutes and more.”
Mary’s excitement affected the mistress, who laid down her baby. “Where
are they? Has anybody seen them?”
“Anybody, ma’am? Why, everybody’s down at the shore looking at them.
The minister, too; he was passing, and stopped to see.”
As a matter of course, cook evidently thought. Even a minister could
not pass by such an interesting sight. Nor did she seem in the least
surprised when the mistress sent for her waterproof cloak, and, drawing
the hood over her head, went deliberately out into the pelting rain,
Maurice and Franky following. As for Eddie, at the first mention of
salmon, he had been off like a shot, and was now seen standing on the
very edge of the pier, gesticulating with all his might for somebody to
take him into a boat. Alas! in vain.
Never was there such an all-absorbing salmon. As Mary had said, the
whole household was out watching him and his proceedings. The baby,
Austin Thomas, Sunny, and Sunny’s mamma were left alone, to take care
of one another.
These settled down again in front of the fire, and Sunny, who had been
a little bewildered by the confusion, recovered herself, and, not at
all alive to the importance of salmon-fishing, resumed her entreating
whisper:
“’Bout German pictures, mamma; tell me ’bout German pictures.”
And she seemed quite glad to go back to her old ways; for this little
girl likes nothing better than snuggling into her mamma’s lap, on the
hearth-rug, and being told about German pictures.
They came to her all the way from Germany as a present from a kind
German friend, and some of them are very funny. They make regular
stories, a story on each page. One is about a little greedy boy, so
like a pig, that at last, being caught with a sweetmeat by an old
witch, she turns him into a pig in reality. He is put into a sty, and
just about to be killed, when his sister comes in to save him with a
fairy rose in her hand; the witch falls back, stuck through with her
own carving-knife, and poor piggy-wiggy, touched by the magic rose,
turns into a little boy again. Then there is another page, “’bout
effelants,” as Sunny calls them,--a papa elephant and a baby elephant
taking a walk together. They come across the first Indian railway, and
the papa elephant, who has never seen a telegraph wire before, is very
angry at it and pulls it down with his trunk. Then there comes whizzing
past a railway-train, which makes him still more indignant, as he does
not understand it at all. He talks very seriously on the subject to
his little son, who listens with a respectful air. Then, determined to
put an end to such nuisances, this wise papa elephant marches right in
front of the next train that passes. He does not stop it, of course,
but it stops him, cutting him up into little pieces, and throwing him
on either side the line. At which the little elephant is so frightened
that you see him taking to his heels, very solid heels too, and running
right away.
Sunny heard this story for the hundredth time, delighted as ever, and
then tried to point out to Austin Thomas which was the papa “effelant,”
and which the baby “effelant.” But Austin Thomas’s more infantile
capacity did not take it in; he only “scrumpled” the pages with his fat
hands, and laughed. There might soon have been an open war if mamma had
not soothed her little girl’s wounded feelings by the great felicity
of taking off her shoes and stockings, and letting her warm her little
feet by the fire, while she lay back on her mamma’s lap, sucking her
Maymie’s apron.
The whole group were in this state of perfect peace, outside it had
grown dark, and mamma had stirred the fire and promised to begin a
quite new story, when the door again opened and Eddie rushed in.
Maurice and Franky followed, wet, of course, to the skin,--for each
left a little pool of water behind him wherever he stood,--but
speechless with excitement. Shortly after, up came the three gentlemen,
likewise silent, but not from excitement at all.
“But where’s the salmon?” asked Sunny’s mamma. “Pray let us see the
salmon.”
Maurice’s papa looked as solemn as--what shall I say?--the renowned
Buff, when he
“Strokes his face with a sorrowful grace,
And delivers his staff to the next place.”
He delivered his--no, it was not a stick, but a “tommy” hat, all
ornamented with fishing-flies, and dripping with rain, to anybody that
would hang it up, and sank into a chair, saying, mournfully:
“You can’t see the salmon.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s at the bottom of the loch. He got away.”
“Got away!”
“Yes, after giving us a run of a full hour.”
“An hour and five minutes by my watch,” added Sunny’s papa, who looked
as dejected as the other two. Though no salmon-fisher, he had been so
excited by the sport that he had sat drenched through and through, in
the stern of the boat, and afterward declared “he didn’t know it had
rained.”
“Such a splendid fish he was,--twenty-five pounds at least.”
“Twenty,” suggested some one, who was put down at once with scorn.
“Twenty-five, I am certain, for he rose several times, and I saw
him plain. So did Donald. Oh, what a fish he was! And he bit upon a
trout-line! To think that we should have had that one trout-line with
us, and he chose it. It could hardly hold him, of course. He required
the tenderest management. We gave him every chance.” (Of being killed,
poor fish!) “The minute he was hooked, I threw the oars to Donald, who
pulled beautifully, humouring him up and down, and you should have seen
the dashes he made! He was so strong,--such a big fish!”
“Such a big fish!” echoed Eddie, who stood listening with open mouth
and eyes that gradually became as melancholy as his father’s.
“And, as I said, we played him for an hour and five minutes. He was
getting quite exhausted, and I had just called to Neil to row close and
put the gaff under him, when he came up to the surface,--I declare,
just as if he wanted to have a stare at me,--then made a sudden
dart, right under the boat. No line could stand that, a trout-line
especially.”
“So he got away?”
“Of course he did, with my hook in his mouth, the villain! I dare say
he has it there still.”
It did occur to Sunny’s mamma that the fish was fully as uncomfortable
as the fisherman, but she durst not suggest this for the world.
Evidently, the salmon had conducted himself in a most unwarrantable
manner, and was worthy of universal condemnation.
Even after the confusion had a little abated, and the younger children
were safely in bed, twenty times during tea he was referred to in the
most dejected manner, and his present position angrily speculated
upon,--whether he would keep the hook in his mouth for the remainder of
his natural life, or succeed in rubbing it off among the weeds at the
bottom of the loch.
“To be sure he will, and be just as cheerful as ever, the wretch! Oh,
that I had him,--hook and all! For it was one of my very best flies.”
“Papa, if you would let me ‘low’ you in the boat, while you fished,
perhaps he might come and bite again to-morrow?”
This deep diplomatic suggestion of Eddie’s did not meet with half the
success it deserved. Nobody noticed it except his mother, and she only
smiled.
“Well!” she said, trying to cheer up the mournful company, “misfortunes
can’t be helped sometimes. It is sad. Twenty-five pounds of fish;
boiled, fried into steaks, kippered. Oh, dear! what a help in the
feeding of the household!”
“Yes,” said the patient gentleman, who, being unable to walk, could
only sit and fish, and, having come all the way from London to catch
a salmon, had never yet had a bite except this one. “Yes, twenty-five
pounds at two shillings the pound,--Billingsgate price now. That makes
two-pound-ten of good English money gone to the bottom of the loch!”
Everybody laughed at this practical way of putting the matter, and
the laugh a little raised the spirits of the gentlemen. Though still
they mourned, and mourned, looking as wretched as if they had lost
their whole families in the loch, instead of that unfortunate--or
fortunate--salmon.
“It isn’t myself I care for,” lamented Maurice’s papa. “It’s you
others. For I know you will have no other chance. The rain will clear
off--it’s clearing off now, into a beautiful starlight night. To-morrow
will be another of those dreadfully sunshiny days. Not a fish will
bite, and you will have to go home at the week’s end,--and there’s that
salmon lying snugly in his hole, with my hook in his mouth!”
“Never mind,” said the patient gentleman, who, though really the most
to be pitied, bore his disappointment better than anybody. “There’s
plenty of fish in the loch, for I’ve seen them every day jumping up;
and somebody will catch them, if I don’t. After all, we had an hour’s
good sport with that fellow to-day,--and it was all the better for him
that he got away.”
With which noble sentiment the good man took one of the boys on his
knee,--his godson, for whom he was planning an alliance with his
daughter, a young lady of four and a half,--and began discussing the
settlements he expected; namely, a large cake on her side, and on the
young gentleman’s, at least ten salmon out of the loch, to be sent in a
basket to London. With this he entertained both children and parents,
so that everybody grew merry as usual, and the lost salmon fell into
the category of misfortunes over which the best dirge is the shrewd
Scotch proverb, “It’s nae use greeting ower spilt milk.”