The forebodings of the disappointed salmon-fishers turned out true.
That wet Monday was the first and last day of rain, for weeks. Scarcely
ever had such a dry season been known in the glen. Morning after
morning the gentlemen rowed out in a hopeless manner, taking their
rods with them, under a sky cloudless and hot as June; evening after
evening, if the slightest ripple arose, they went out again, and
floated about lazily in the gorgeous sunset, but not a salmon would
bite. Fish after fish, each apparently bigger than the other, kept
jumping up, sometimes quite close to the boat. Some must have swum
under the line and looked at it, made an examination of the fly and
laughed at it, but as for swallowing it, oh, dear, no! Not upon any
account.
What was most tantalising, the gardener, going out one day, without
orders, and with one of his master’s best lines, declared he had hooked
a splendid salmon! As it got away, and also carried off the fly, a
valuable one, perhaps it was advisable to call it a salmon, but nobody
quite believed this. It might have been only a large trout.
By degrees, as salmon-fishing, never plentiful, became hopeless, and
game scarcer than ever, the gentlemen waxed dull, and began to catch
at the smallest amusements. They grew as excited as the little boys
over nutting-parties, going in whole boat-loads to the other side of
the loch, and promising to bring home large bags of nuts for winter
consumption, but somehow the nuts all got eaten before the boats
reached land.
The clergyman was often one of the nutting-party. He knew every nook
and corner of the country around, was equally good at an oar or a
fishing-rod, could walk miles upon miles across the mountains, and
scramble over rocks as light as a deer. Besides, he was so kind to
children, and took such pleasure in pleasing them, that he earned their
deepest gratitude, as young things understand gratitude. But they are
loving, anyhow, to those that love them, and to have those little
boys climbing over him, and hanging about him, and teasing him on all
occasions to give them “a low,” was, I dare say, sufficient reward for
the good minister.
Sunny liked him, too, very much, and was delighted to go out with him.
But there was such dangerous emulation between her and the boys in
the matter of “fishing” for dead leaves with a stick, which involved
leaning over the boat’s side and snatching at them when caught, and
mamma got so many frights, that she was not sorry when the minister
announced that every nut-tree down the canal had been “harried” of its
fruit, and henceforward people must content themselves with dry land
and blackberries.
This was not an exciting sport, and one day the gentlemen got so hard
up for amusement that they spent half the morning in watching some
gymnastics of Maurice and Eddie, which consisted in climbing up to
their papa’s shoulder and sitting on his head. (A proceeding which
Sunny admired so, that she never rested till she partly imitated it by
“walking up mamma as if she was a tree,” which she did at last like a
little acrobat.)
Children and parents became quite interested in their mutual
performances; everybody laughed a good deal, and forgot to grumble at
the weather, when news arrived that a photographer, coming through the
glen, had stopped at the house, wishing to know if the family would
like their portraits taken.
Now, anybody, not an inhabitant, coming through the glen, was an object
of interest in this lonely place. But a photographer! Maurice’s papa
caught at the idea enthusiastically.
“Have him in, by all means. Let us see his pictures. Let us have
ourselves done in a general group.”
“And the children,” begged their mamma. “Austin Thomas has never been
properly taken, and baby not at all. I must have a portrait of baby.”
“Also,” suggested somebody, “we might as well take a portrait of the
mountains. They’ll sit for it quiet enough; which is more than can be
said for the children, probably.”
It certainly was. Never had a photographer a more hard-working morning.
No blame to the weather, which (alas, for the salmon-fishers!) was
perfect as ever; but the difficulty of catching the sitters and
arranging them, and keeping them steady, was enormous.
First the servants all wished to be taken; some separately, and then
in a general group, which was arranged beside the kitchen door, the
scullery being converted into a “dark room” for the occasion. One
after the other, the maids disappeared, and re-appeared full-dressed,
in the most wonderful crinolines and chignons, but looking not half
so picturesque as a Highland farm-girl, who, in her woollen striped
petticoat and short gown, with her dark red hair knotted up behind,
sat on the wall of the yard contemplating the proceedings.
The children ran hither and thither, highly delighted, except Franky
and Austin Thomas, who were made to suffer a good deal, the latter
being put into a stiff white piqué frock, braided with black braid,
which looked exactly as if some one had mistaken him for a sheet of
letter-paper and begun to write upon him; while Franky, dressed in
his Sunday’s best, with his hair combed and face clean, was in an
aggravating position for his ordinary week-day amusements. He consoled
himself by running in and out among the servants, finally sticking
himself in the centre of the group, and being depicted there, as
natural as life.
A very grand picture it was, the men-servants being in front,--Highland
men always seem to consider themselves superior beings, and are
seen lounging about and talking, while the women are shearing, or
digging, or hoeing potatoes. The maids stood in a row behind, bolt
upright, smiling as hard as they could, and little Franky occupied the
foreground, placed between the gardener’s knees. A very successful
photograph, and worthy of going down to posterity, as doubtless it will.
Now for the children. The baby, passive in an embroidered muslin frock,
came out, of course, as a white mass with something resembling a face
at the top; but Austin Thomas was a difficult subject. He wouldn’t sit
still, no, not for a minute, but kept wriggling about on the kitchen
chair that was brought for him, and looked so miserable in his stiff
frock, that his expression was just as if he were going to be whipped,
and didn’t like it at all.
In vain Franky, who always patronised and protected his next youngest
brother in the tenderest way, began consoling him: “Never mind,
sonnie,”--that was Franky’s pet name for Austin,--“they sha’n’t hurt
you. I’ll take care they don’t hurt you.”
Still the great black thing, with the round glass eye fixed upon
him, was too much for Austin’s feelings. He wriggled, and wriggled,
and never would this likeness have been taken at all,--at least that
morning,--if somebody had not suggested “a piece.” Off flew Mary, the
cook, and brought back the largest “piece”--bread with lots of jam upon
it--that ever little Scotchman revelled in. Austin took it, and being
with great difficulty made to understand that he must pause in eating
now and then, the photographer seized the happy moment, and took him
between his mouthfuls, with Franky keeping guard over him the while,
lest anybody did him any harm. And a very good picture it is, though
neither boy is quite handsome enough, of course. No photographs ever
are.
Little Sunshine, meanwhile, had been deeply interested in the whole
matter. She was quite an old hand at it, having herself sat for her
photograph several times.
“Would you like to see my likenesses?” she kept asking anybody or
everybody; and brought down the whole string of them, describing them
one by one: “Sunny in her mamma’s arms, when she was a little baby,
very cross;” “Sunny just going to cry;” “Sunny in a boat;” “Sunny
sitting on a chair;” “Sunny with her shoes and stockings off, kicking
over a basket;” and lastly (the little show-woman always came to this
with a scream of delight), “That’s my papa and mamma, Sunny’s own papa
and mamma, both together!”
Though then she had not been in the least afraid of the camera, but,
when the great glass eye looked at her, looked steadily at it back,
still she did not seem to like it now. She crept beside her mamma and
her Lizzie, looking on with curiosity, but keeping a long way off, till
the groups were done.
There were a few more taken, in one of which Sunny stood in the doorway
in her Lizzie’s arms.
And her papa and mamma, who meanwhile had taken a good long walk up
the hill-road, came back in time to figure in two rows of black dots
on either side of a shady road, which were supposed to be portraits
of the whole party. The mountains opposite also sat for their
likenesses,--which must have been a comfort to the photographer, as
they at least could not “move.” But, on the whole, the honest man made
a good morning’s work, and benefited considerably thereby.
Which was more than the household did. For, as was natural, the cook
being dressed so beautifully, the dinner was left pretty much to dress
itself. Franky and Austin Thomas suffered so much from having on their
best clothes that they did not get over it for ever so long. And Sunny,
too, upset by these irregular proceedings, when taking a long-promised
afternoon walk with her papa, was as cross as such a generally good
little girl could be, insisting on being carried the whole way, and
carried only by her mamma. And though, as mamma often says, “she
wouldn’t sell her for her weight in gold,” she is a pretty considerable
weight to carry on a warm afternoon.
Still the day had passed pleasantly away, the photographs were all
done, to remain as memorials of the holiday, long after it was ended.
In years to come, when the children are all men and women, they may
discover them in some nook or other, and try to summon up faint
recollections of the time. Oh, if Little Sunshine might never cry
except to be carried in mamma’s arms! and Austin Thomas find no sorer
affliction in life than sitting to be photographed in stiff white
clothes!
But that cannot be. They must all bear their burdens, as their parents
did. May God take care of them when we can do it no more!
The week had rolled by,--weeks roll by so fast!--and it was again
Sunday, the last Sunday at the glen, and just such another as before:
calm, still, sunshiny; nothing but peace on earth and sky. Peace!
when far away beyond the circle of mountains within which parents and
children were enjoying such innocent pleasures, such deep repose,
there was going on, for other parents and children, the terrible siege
of Paris. Week by week, and day by day, the Germans were closing in
round the doomed city, making ready to destroy by fire, or sword, or
famine,--all sent by man’s hand, not God’s,--hundreds, thousands of
innocent enemies. Truly, heaven will have been well filled, and earth
well emptied during the year 1870.
What a glorious summer it was, as to weather, will long be remembered
in Scotland. Even up to this Sunday, the 2d of October, the air was
balmy and warm as June. Everybody gathered outside on the terrace,
including the forlorn salmon-fishers, whose last hope was now
extinguished; for the patient gentleman, and Sunny’s papa, too, were to
leave next morning. And the fish jumped up in the glassy loch, livelier
than ever, as if they were having a special jubilee in honour of their
foe’s departure.
He sat resigned and cheerful, smoking his cigar, and protesting that,
with all his piscatory disappointments, this was the loveliest place he
had ever been in, and that he had spent the pleasantest of holidays!
There he was left to enjoy his last bit of the mountains and loch in
quiet content, while everybody else went to church.
Even Little Sunshine. For her mamma and papa had taken counsel together
whether it was not possible for her to be good there, so as at least to
be no hindrance to other people’s going, which was as much as could be
expected for so small a child. Papa doubted this, but mamma pleaded for
her little girl, and promised to keep her good if possible. She herself
had a great desire that the first time ever Sunny went to church should
be in this place.
So they had a talk together, mamma and Sunny, in which mamma explained
that Sunny might go to church, as Maurice and Eddie did, if she would
sit quite quiet, as she did at prayers, and promise not to speak
one word, as nobody ever spoke in church excepting the minister.
She promised, this little girl who has such a curious feeling
about keeping a promise, and allowed herself to be dressed without
murmuring--nay, with a sort of dignified pride--to “go to church.” She
even condescended to have her gloves put on, always a severe trial; and
never was there a neater little figure, all in white from top to toe,
with a white straw hat, as simple as possible, and the yellow curls
tumbling down from under it. As she put her little hand in her mamma’s
and they two started together, somewhat in advance of the rest, for
it was a long half-mile for such baby feet, her mamma involuntarily
thought of a verse in a poem she learnt when she herself was a little
girl:
“Thy dress was like the lilies,
And thy heart was pure as they;
One of God’s holy angels
Did walk with me that day.”
Only Sunny was not an angel, but an ordinary little girl. A good little
girl generally, but capable of being naughty sometimes. She will have
to try hard to be good every day of her life, as we all have. Still,
with her sweet, grave face, and her soft, pretty ways, there was
something of the angel about her this day.
Her mamma tried to make her understand, in a dim way, what “church”
meant,--that it was saying “thank you” to God, as mamma did
continually; especially for His giving her her little daughter. How He
lived up in the sky, and nobody saw Him, but He saw everybody; how He
loved Little Sunshine, just as her papa and mamma loved her, and was
glad when she was good, and grieved when she was naughty. This was all
the child could possibly take in, and even thus much was doubtful; but
she listened, seeming as if she comprehended a small fragment of the
great mystery which even we parents understand so little. Except that
when we look at our children, and feel how dearly we love them, how
much we would both do and sacrifice for them, how if we have to punish
them it is never in anger but in anguish and pain, suffering twice as
much ourselves the while,--then we can faintly understand how He who
put such love into us, must Himself love infinitely more, and meant us
to believe this, when He called Himself our Father. Therefore it was
that through her papa’s and mamma’s love Sunny could best be taught her
first dim idea of God.
She walked along very sedately, conversing by the way, and not
attempting to dart from side to side, after one object or another, as
this butterfly child always does on a week-day. But Sunday, and Sunday
clothes, conduced exceedingly to proper behaviour. Besides, she felt
that she was her mamma’s companion, and was proud accordingly. Until,
just before reaching the church, came a catastrophe which certainly
could not have happened in any other church-going walk than this.
A huge, tawny-coloured bull stood in the centre of the road, with half
a dozen cows and calves behind him. They moved away, feeding leisurely
on either side the road, but the bull held his ground, looking at mamma
and Sunny from under his shaggy brows, as if he would like to eat them
up.
“Mamma, take her!” whispered the poor little girl, rather frightened,
but neither crying nor screaming.
Mamma popped her prayer-book in her pocket, dropped her parasol on
the ground, and took up her child on her left arm, leaving the right
arm free. A fortnight ago she would have been alarmed, but now she
understood the ways of these Highland cattle, and that they were not
half so dangerous as they looked. Besides, the fiercest animal will
often turn before a steady, fearless human eye. So they stood still,
and faced the bull, even Sunny meeting the creature with a gaze as firm
and courageous as her mamma’s. He stood it for a minute or so, then he
deliberately turned tail, and walked up the hillside.
“The big bull didn’t hurt Sunny! He wouldn’t hurt little Sunny, would
he, mamma?” said she, as they walked on together. She has the happiest
conviction that no creature in the world would ever be so unkind as
to hurt Sunny. How should it, when she is never unkind to any living
thing? When the only living thing that ever she saw hurt--a wasp that
crept into the carriage, and stung Sunny on her poor little leg, and
her nurse was so angry that she killed it on the spot--caused the child
a troubled remembrance. She talked, months afterward, with a grave
countenance, of “the wasp that was obliged to be killed, because it
stung Sunny.”
She soon looked benignly at the big bull, now standing watching her
from the hillside, and wanted to play with the little calves, who
still stayed feeding near. She was also very anxious to know if
they were going to church too? But before the question--a rather
puzzling one--could be answered, she was overtaken by the rest of the
congregation, including Maurice and Eddie with their parents. The two
boys only smiled at her, and walked into church, so good and grave
that Sunny was impressed into preternatural gravity too. When the rest
were seated, she, holding her mamma’s hand, walked quietly in as if
accustomed to it all and joined the congregation.
The seat they chose was, for precaution, the one nearest the door, and
next to “_the_ pauper,” an old man who alone of all the inhabitants of
the glen did not work, but received parish relief. He was just able to
come to church, but looked as if he had “one foot in the grave,” as
people say (whither, indeed, the other foot soon followed, for the poor
old man died not many weeks after this Sunday). He had a wan, weary,
but uncomplaining face; and as the rosy child, with her bright curls,
her fair, fresh cheeks, and plump, round limbs, sat down upon the bench
beside him, the two were a strange and touching contrast.
[Illustration: Two little churchgoers.]
Never did any child behave better than Little Sunshine, on this her
first going to church. Yes, even though she soon caught sight of her
own papa, sitting a few benches off, but afraid to look at her lest she
should misbehave. Also of Maurice’s papa and mamma, and of Maurice and
Eddie themselves, not noticing her at all, and behaving beautifully.
She saw them, but, faithful to her promise, she did not speak one word,
not even in a whisper to mamma. She allowed herself to be lifted up
and down, to sit or stand as the rest did, and when the music began
she listened with an ecstasy of pleasure on her little face; but
otherwise she conducted herself as well as if she had been thirteen
instead of not quite three years old. Once only, when the prayers were
half through, and the church was getting warm, she gravely took off
her hat and laid it on the bench before her,--sitting the rest of the
service with her pretty curls bare,--but that was all.
During the sermon she was severely tried. Not by its length, for it was
fortunately short, and she sat on her mamma’s lap, looking fixedly into
the face of the minister, as pleased with him in his new position as
when he was rowing her in the boat, or gathering nuts for her along the
canal bank. All were listening, as attentive as possible, for everybody
loved him, Sundays and week-days; and even Sunny herself gazed as
earnestly as if she were taking in every word he said,--when her quick
little eyes were caught by a new interest,--a small, shaggy Scotch
terrier, who put his wise-looking head inquiringly in at the open door.
Oh, why was the church door left open? No doubt, so thought the
luckless master of that doggie! He turned his face away; he kept as
quiet as possible, hoping not to be discovered; but the faithful animal
was too much for him. In an ecstasy of joy, the creature rushed in and
out and under several people’s legs, till he got to the young man
who owned him, and then jumped upon him in unmistakable recognition.
Happily, he did not bark; indeed, his master, turning red as a peony,
held his hand over the creature’s mouth.
What was to be done? If he scolded the dog, or beat him, there would be
a disturbance immediately; if he encouraged or caressed him, the loving
beast would have begun--in fact, he did slightly begin--a delighted
whine. All the perplexed master could do was to keep him as quiet as
circumstances allowed, which he managed somehow by setting his foot on
the wildly wagging tail, and twisting his fingers in one of the long
ears, the dog resisting not at all. Quite content, if close to his
master, the faithful beast snuggled down, amusing himself from time to
time by gnawing first a hat and then an umbrella, and giving one small
growl as an accidental footstep passed down the road; but otherwise
behaving as well as anybody in church. The master, too, tried to face
out his difficulty, and listen as if nothing was the matter; but I
doubt he rather lost the thread of the sermon.
So did Sunny’s mamma for a few minutes. Sunny is so fond of little
doggies, that she fully expected the child to jump from her lap, and
run after this one; or, at least, to make a loud remark concerning it,
for the benefit of the congregation generally. But Sunny evidently
remembered that “nobody spoke in church;” and possibly she regarded the
dog’s entrance as a portion of the service, for she maintained the most
decorous gravity. She watched him, of course, with all her eyes; and
once she turned with a silent appeal to her mamma to look too, but said
not a word. The little terrier himself did not behave better than she,
to the very end of the service.
It ended with a beautiful hymn,--“O Thou from whom all goodness flows.”
Everybody knows it, and the tune too; which I think was originally
one of those sweet litanies to the Virgin which one hears in French
churches, especially during the month of May. The little congregation
knew it well, and sang it well, too. When Sunny saw them all stand up,
she of her own accord stood up likewise, mounting the bench beside the
old pauper, who turned half round, and looked on the pleasant child
with a faint, pathetic sort of smile.
Strange it was to stand and watch the different people who stood
singing, or listening to, that hymn; Maurice and Eddie, with their
papa and mamma; other papas and mammas with their little ones; farmers
and farm-servants who lived in the glen, with a chance tourist or
two who happened to be passing through; several old Highland women,
grim and gaunt with long, hard-working lives; the poor old pauper,
who did not know that his life was so nearly over; and lastly, the
little three-year-old child, with her blue eyes wide open and her rosy
lips parted, not stirring a foot or a finger, perfectly motionless
with delight. Verse after verse rose the beautiful hymn, not the less
beautiful because so familiar:
“O Thou from whom all goodness flows,
I lift my soul to Thee;
In all my sorrows, conflicts, woes,
O Lord, remember me!
“When on my aching, burdened heart,
My sins lie heavily,
Thy pardon grant, Thy peace impart,
In love, remember me!
“When trials sore obstruct my way,
And ills I cannot flee,
Oh I let my strength be as my day,
For good, remember me!
“When worn with pain, disease, and grief,
This feeble body see,
Give patience, rest, and kind relief,
Hear, and remember me!
“When in the solemn hour of death
I wait Thy just decree,
Be this the prayer of my last breath,
‘O Lord, remember me!’”
As Little Sunshine stood there, unconsciously moving her baby lips to
the pretty tune,--ignorant of all the words and their meaning,--her
mother, not ignorant, took the tiny soft hand in hers and said for her
in her heart, “Amen.”
When the hymn was done, the congregation passed slowly out of church,
most of them stopping to speak or shake hands, for of course all knew
one another, and several were neighbours and friends. Then at last
Sunny’s papa ventured to take up his little girl, and kiss her, telling
her what a very good little girl she had been, and how pleased he was
to see it. The minister, walking home between Maurice and Eddie, who
seized upon him at once, turned round to say that he had never known a
little girl, taken to church for the first time, behave so remarkably
well. And though she was too young to understand anything except that
she had been a good girl, and everybody loved her and was pleased with
her, still Sunny also looked pleased, as if satisfied that church-going
was a sweet and pleasant thing.