When the carriage drove off, it was still starlight,—morning starlight, pale, dreary, and excessively cold; but now a faint coloured streak of dawn began to put the stars out, and creep up and up behind the curves of the eastern hills. Gradually the daylight increased,—it was clear enough to see things, though everything looked cheerless and gray. The grass and heather were not merely damp, but soaking wet, and over the loch and its low-lying shores was spread a shroud of white mist. There was something almost painful in the intense stillness; it felt as if all the world were dead and buried, and when suddenly a cock crew from the farm, he startled one as if he had been a ghost.
But the mountains,—the mountains! Turning eastward, to look at them, all the dullness, solitude, and dreariness of the lower world vanished. They stood literally bathed in light, as the sun rose up behind them, higher and higher, brighter and brighter, every minute. Suddenly an arrow of light shot across the valley, and touched the flat granite boulder on which, after a rather heavy climb, Sunny’s mamma had succeeded in perching herself like a large bird, tucking her feet under her, and wrapping herself up as tightly as possible in her plaid, as some slight protection against the damp cold. But when the sunshine came, chilliness and cheerlessness vanished. And as the beam broadened, it seemed to light up the whole world.
How she longed for her child, not merely for company, though that would have been welcome in the extreme solitude, but that she might show her, what even such baby eyes could not but have seen,—the exceeding beauty of God’s earth, and told her how it came out of the love of God, who loved the world and all that was in it. How He loved Sunny, and would take care of her all her life, as He had taken care of her, and of her mamma, too. How, if she were good and loved Him back again, He would be sure to make for her, through all afflictions, a happy life; since, like the sunrise, “His mercies are new every morning, and His compassions fail not.”
Warmer and warmer the cold rock grew; a few birds began to twitter, the cocks crowed from the farmyard, and from one of the cottages a slender line of blue peat smoke crept up, showing that somebody else was awake besides Sunny’s mamma; which was rather a comfort,—she was getting tired of having the world all to herself.
Presently an old woman came out of a cottage-door, and went to the burn for water, probably to make her morning porridge. A tame sheep followed her, walking leisurely to the burn and back again, perhaps with an eye to the porridge-pot afterward. And a lazy pussy-cat also crept out, and climbed on the roof of the cottage, for a little bit of sunshine before breakfast. Sunny’s mamma also began to feel that it was time to see about breakfast, for sunrise on the mountains makes one very hungry.
Descending the hill was worse than ascending, there being no regular track, only some marks of where the sheep were in the habit of climbing. And the granite rocks presented a flat, sloping surface, sometimes bare, sometimes covered with slippery moss, which was not too agreeable. Elsewhere, the ground was generally boggy with tufts of heather between, which one might step or jump. But as soon as one came to a level bit it was sure to be bog, with little streams running through it, which had to be crossed somehow, even without the small convenience of stepping-stones.
Once, when her stout stick alone saved her from a sprained ankle, she amused herself with thinking how in such a case she might have shouted vainly for help, and how bewildered the old woman at the cottage would have been on finding out that the large creature, a sheep as she had probably supposed, sitting on the boulder overhead, which she had looked up at once or twice, was actually a wandering lady!
It was now half-past seven, and the usual breakfast party on the door-step was due at eight. Welcome was the sound of little voices, and the patter of small eager feet along the gravel walk. Sunny’s mamma had soon her own child in her arms and the other children around her, all eating bread and butter and drinking milk with the greatest enjoyment. The sun was now quite warm, and the mist had furled off the loch, leaving it clear and smooth as ever.
Suddenly Eddie’s sharp eyes caught something there which quite interrupted his meal. It was a water-fowl, swimming in and out among the island of water-lilies, and even coming as close inshore as the pier. Not one of the nine geese, certainly; this bird was dark coloured, and small, yet seemed larger than the water-hens, which also were familiar to the children. Some one suggested it might possibly be a wild duck.
Eddie’s eyes brightened. “Then might I ‘low’ in a boat, with papa’s gun, and go and shoot it?”