Little Sunshine's holiday

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

“Thy frown canna fear me, thy smile canna cheer me,

For the flowers o’ the forest are a wede away.”

It was a picture not easily to be forgotten.

Soon the steamer stopped at another pier, where were waiting a number of people, ready to embark on a large excursion boat which all summer long goes up and down the firth daily, taking hundreds of passengers, and giving them twelve pleasant hours of sea air and mountain breezes. She was called the Iona, and such a big boat as she was! She had two decks, with a saloon below. On the first deck, the passengers sat in the open air, high up, so as to see all the views; the second was under cover, with glass sides, so that they could still see all about; the third, lower yet, was the cabin, where they dined. There was a ladies’ cabin, too, where a good many babies and children, with their nurses and mammas, generally stayed all the voyage. Altogether, a most beautiful boat, with plenty of play-places for little folk, and comfortable nooks for elder ones; and so big, too, that, as she came steaming down the river, she looked as if she could carry a townful of people. Indeed, this summer, when nobody has travelled abroad, owing to the war, the Iona had carried regularly several hundreds a day.

Sunny gazed with some amazement from the pier, where she had disembarked, in her mamma’s arms. It is fortunate for Sunny that she has a rather tall mamma, so that she feels safely elevated above any crowd. This was a crowd such as she had never been in before; it jostled and pushed her, and she had to hold very tight round her mamma’s neck; so great was the confusion, and so difficult the passage across the gangway to the deck of the Iona. Once there, however, she was as safe and happy as possible, playing all sorts of merry tricks, and wandering about the boat in all directions, with her papa, or her Lizzie, or two young ladies who came with her, and were very kind to her. But after awhile these quitted the boat, and were watched climbing up a mountainside as cleverly as if they had been young deer. Sunny would have liked to climb a mountain too, and mamma promised her she should some day.

She was now in the very heart of the Highlands. There were mountains on all sides, reflected everywhere in the narrow seas through which the boat glided. Now and then came houses and piers, funny little “baby” piers, at which the Iona stopped and took up or set down passengers, when everybody rushed to the side to look on. Sunny rushed likewise; she became so interested and excited in watching the long waves the boat left behind her when her paddles began to move again, that her mamma was sometimes frightened out of her life that the child should overbalance herself and tumble in. Once or twice poor mamma spoke so sharply that Sunny, utterly unaccustomed to this, turned around in mute surprise. But little girls, not old enough to understand danger, do not know what terrors mammas go through sometimes for their sakes.

It was rather a relief when Sunny became very hungry, and the bag of biscuits, and the bottle of milk occupied her for a good while. Then she turned sleepy. The little Maymie’s apron being secretly produced, she, laughing a little, began to suck it, under cover of mamma’s shawl. Soon she fell asleep, and lay for nearly an hour in perfect peace, her eyes shut upon mountains, sea, and sky; and the sun shining softly upon her little face and her gold curls, that nestled close into mamma’s shoulder. Such a happy child!

Almost cruel it seemed to wake her up, but necessary; for there came another change. The Iona’s voyage was done. The next stage of the journey was through a canal, where were sights to be seen so curious that papa and mamma were as much interested in them as the little girl, who was growing quite an old traveller now. She woke up, rubbed her eyes, and, not crying at all, was carried ashore, and into the middle of another crowd. There was a deal of talking and scrambling, and rushing about with bags and cloaks, then all the heavier luggage was put into two gigantic wagons, which four great horses walked away with, and the passengers walked in a long string of twos and threes, each after the others, for about a quarter of a mile, till they came to the canal-side. There lay a boat, so big that it could only go forward and backward,—I am sure if it had wanted to turn itself around it could not possibly have done so! On board of it all the people began to climb. Very funny people some of them were.

There was one big tall gentleman in a dress Sunny had never seen before,—a cap on his head with a feather in it, a bag with furry tails dangling from his waist, and a petticoat like a little girl. He had also rather queer shoes and stockings, and when he took out from his ankle, as it seemed, a shiny-handled sort of knife, and slipped it back again, Sunny was very much surprised.

“Mamma,” she whispered, “what does that gentleman keep his knife in his stocking for?” A question to which mamma could only answer “that she really didn’t know. Perhaps he hadn’t got a pocket.”