“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.