CHAPTER IX.

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