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Electric Scotland News
Police Scotland criticise SNP Named Person plans
I confess to being somewhat concerned about this legislation and I would certainly urge the people of Scotland to learn more about this.
POLICE Scotland has criticised the SNP government’s controversial plans to have state-appointed guardians for every child, stating that “there is a lack of clarity” about the role of the force in overseeing the scheme.
The force warned that the recently merged single service may not have the capacity and resources to cope with policing the plan, to have one point of contact for all under-18s.
You can read the article at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politic...lans-1-3818002
Watch dramatic moment Queen's Guard points gun at face of show-off tourist pestering him
THIS is the dramatic moment a show-off tourist had a gun pointed in his face after he pestered a Queen's Guard while he was on official duty.
See http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk...-guard-5952345
Scottish Government reduces North Sea oil forecasts
THE Scottish Government has finally revised its oil forecasts downwards by several billion pounds from the estimates it used during the independence campaign.
The SNP administration’s latest edition of its oil and gas bulletin conceded that North Sea tax revenue could be as low as £2.4 billion from 2016/17 to 2019/20.
"These figures blow full fiscal autonomy out of the water" said Jackie Baillie, Labour
The figure, based on an oil price of 70 US dollars per barrel and a 5 per cent production decline per year, was the most pessimistic scenario outlined by the document.
The best-case scenario assumed oil price would go up to $100 per barrel. Combined with an increase in production, this would generate £10.8 billion in tax receipts between 2016/17 and 2019/20.
The figures released yesterday contrasted with the government’s last oil and gas bulletin, published last year a few months before the referendum.
In May 2014, the Scottish Government’s most optimistic scenario predicted that £38.7 billion would be generated between 2014/15 and 2018/19.
Last year’s most pessimistic scenario was that £15.8 billion would be generated, a figure that comfortably exceeds yesterday’s most positive projection.
The dramatic fall in the oil price to below $50 a barrel, experienced after Scotland voted against independence, has hit the North Sea industry hard with thousands of jobs being lost from the sector.
It has also prompted criticism of the SNP for making the case for independence based on the oil price estimate of $110 per barrel contained in its independence White Paper.
The government has also been criticised for the delay in updating its own forecasts. Opponents claimed ministers were reluctant to make clear how the falling oil price had damaged the case for independence.
The bulletin noted that from June 2014, the price of oil “fell by approximately 60 per cent, to around 48 US dollars in January 2015”.
Since then, the document said there had been a “rebound” in the first quarter of 2015. Currently the price is around $60 per barrel.
The bulletin said that prices remained “substantially lower” then predicted by forecasters 12 months ago.
Labour accused ministers of “sneaking” the report out on the last day of the parliamentary term. Labour finance spokesperson Jackie Baillie said: “These projections are bad news for the oil industry, and both the SNP government and the UK government should explore all options to protect jobs that are directly affected and further down the supply chain.
“It is ridiculous that the SNP tried to sneak this report out on the last day of parliament. It’s clear that they have put their own political interests ahead of industry concerns. These new figures blow the SNP’s policy of full fiscal autonomy out of the water.
“We know cutting ourselves off from UK-wide taxes would blow a £7.6 billion hole in Scotland’s finances.”
Ms Baillie added: “Last week the SNP trooped through the lobbies with the extreme right wing of the Tory party to vote for full fiscal autonomy. It is as clear as day now that they knew the policy would be a disaster for Scotland – the SNP government’s own figures prove it.”
The Scottish Conservative enterprise spokesman Murdo Fraser said: “It’s clear to see we dodged a bullet when Scotland voted ‘no’ last September. The SNP government were criticised at the time for making over-projected figures.
“Now it is confirmed. If Scotland was independent we would now have a massive financial black hole to deal with. The SNP attempted to keep the public in the dark and mislead on oil prices. When will the Scottish people get an apology?
“The figures published today prove that we would face the same challenge under full fiscal autonomy. With cuts in public services and tax rises.”
The Scottish Government said that there were “considerable opportunities” to extend oil production with up to 23 billion recoverable barrels of oil equivalent remaining in the UK continental shelf (UKCS).
Deputy First Minster John Swinney said there was “no disputing” the industry has faced “a very challenging year”, adding that the Scottish Government was working relentlessly to safeguard jobs and retain skills.
He added: “These figures show considerable opportunities to extend production remain in the UKCS and, properly supported, the industry can boost production over the next five years.
“Indeed, over the longer term, the full and swift implementation of the Wood Review’s recommendations could help to bring three to four billion barrel of oil equivalent of reserves into production over the next 20 years.”
Mr & Mrs Cupples
I spent a lot of time this week researching this husband and wife team of authors. Most days more was discovered and so there were several updates on their page. For more about them see below.
Electric Canadian
Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years
Continuing to add more chapters to this book.
We are now up to Chapter XXI and in Chapter XVIII we get a view of the Forrest Wealth of Canada...
Having been accustomed to gardening all my life, I have taken great pleasure in roaming the bush in search of botanical treasures of all kinds, and have often thought that it would be easy to fill a large and showy garden with the native plants of Canada alone.
But of course, her main vegetable wealth consists in the forests with which the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario were formerly clothed. In the country around the Georgian Bay, especially, abound the very finest specimens of hardwood timber. Standing on a hill overlooking the River Saugeen at the village of Durham, one sees for twenty miles round scarcely a single pine tree in the whole prospect. The townships of Arran and Derby, when first surveyed, were wonderfully studded with noble trees. Oak, elm, beech, butternut, ash and maple, seemed to vie with each other in the size of their stems and the spread of their branches. In our own clearing in St. Vincent, the axemen considered that five of these great forest kings would occupy an acre of ground, leaving little space for younger trees or underbrush.
I once saw a white or wainscot oak that measured fully twelve feet in circumference at the butt, and eighty feet clear of branches. This noble tree must have contained somewhere about seven thousand square feet of inch boarding, and would represent a value approaching one hundred and thirty pounds sterling in the English market. White and black ash, black birch, red beech, maple and even basswood or lime, are of little, if any, less intrinsic worth. Rock elm is very valuable, competing as it does with hickory for many purposes.
You can read this at http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...pson/index.htm
Enigma Machine
The whole collection can be found at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/lifestyle/enigma. We're currently working on puzzle 108.
Canada Day
For those that don't know Canada Day is celebrated on the 1st July each year.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today delivered the following remarks at the Canada Day celebration on Parliament Hill:
“Thank you very much.
“Governor General and Sharon Johnston, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
“Happy 148th Canada Day, everyone!
“We have a great crowd and we’ve got the sun.
“Which just goes to show a little bit of bad weather is never going to keep Canadians down!
“Once again, ladies and gentlemen, as we celebrate this special day this year, we have much to be proud of and much to be thankful for.
“We are a prosperous and optimistic country.
“We are a kind and generous society.
“And we are a compassionate friend and a reliable ally.
“This is our Canada!
“A country that is confident on the world stage.
“A country where people live in freedom.
“A country where hard work and entrepreneurship mean more than where you come from or the people you know.
“These are all reasons to be grateful because friends, when we look around the world, we see that Canada stands unique among the nations.
“In times of never-ending economic and political turmoil in the world, our country is an island of stability.
“At this moment in our history, there is no better place in the world to live, to work and to raise a family.
“No better place in the world than this country, Canada!
“Ours is a story of heroic effort over many generations: by our first, Aboriginal peoples; by the many explorers, like Sir John Franklin and his crew; by the pioneers who settled a vast, untamed land; thanks to the visionaries, our Fathers of Confederation, who united our territory and joined it together with a ribbon of steel; by the waves of immigrants who helped raise great cities out of the wilderness, by the athletes and performers who makes us so proud.
“All of whom have built what Canada is today: more confident, more prosperous, more united than ever, the best country in the world!
“Ladies and gentlemen, the greatness of this country is no accident.
“It is built on an unshakeable foundation of values: freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, which is what draws people here from around the world.
“And those are the values for which our men and women in uniform put everything on the line, every day, in our defence.
“I recently met some of these heroes who defend this country, our Canadian Armed Forces personnel.
“In the Baltic and in Eastern Europe, they are supporting our friends and allies who face Russian aggression.
“And in Iraq and in Kuwait, they are fighting the terrorists there, to keep us safe here.
“Now friends, as we saw right here in our Parliament, this threat is everywhere today.
“But we have faced great threats before, many times, and we have overcome them.
“And we shall overcome them once more.
“So, let’s hear it for the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces!
“Ladies and gentlemen, today as we celebrate the Canada that we are so fortunate to call home, let us honour the hard work of all the everyday heroes, of the many generations who have built this country.
“And let us also honour them, as we approach the 150th anniversary of Confederation, by continuing their work.
“Let us pledge to pass on a better Canada to future generations.
“Canada, our home and native land, past, present, and future, strong, proud, and free.
“Happy Canada Day, everyone.”
Electric Scotland
Why the Indian soldiers of WW1 were forgotten
Approximately 1.3 million Indian soldiers served in World War One, and over 74,000 of them lost their lives. But history has mostly forgotten these sacrifices, which were rewarded with broken promises of Indian independence from the British government, writes Shashi Tharoor.
Exactly 100 years after the "guns of August" boomed across the European continent, the world has been extensively commemorating that seminal event. The Great War, as it was called then, was described at the time as "the war to end all wars". Ironically, the eruption of an even more destructive conflict 20 years after the end of this one meant that it is now known as the First World War. Those who fought and died in the First World War would have had little idea that there would so soon be a Second.
But while the war took the flower of Europe's youth to its premature grave, snuffing out the lives of a generation of talented poets, artists, cricketers and others whose genius bled into the trenches, it also involved soldiers from faraway lands that had little to do with Europe's bitter traditional hatreds.
The role and sacrifices of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Africans have been celebrated for some time in books and novels, and even rendered immortal on celluloid in award-winning films like Gallipoli. Of the 1.3 million Indian troops who served in the conflict, however, you hear very little.
As many as 74,187 Indian soldiers died during the war and a comparable number were wounded. Their stories, and their heroism, have long been omitted from popular histories of the war, or relegated to the footnotes.
India contributed a number of divisions and brigades to the European, Mediterranean, Mesopotamian, North African and East African theatres of war. In Europe, Indian soldiers were among the first victims who suffered the horrors of the trenches. They were killed in droves before the war was into its second year and bore the brunt of many a German offensive.
It was Indian jawans (junior soldiers) who stopped the German advance at Ypres in the autumn of 1914, soon after the war broke out, while the British were still recruiting and training their own forces. Hundreds were killed in a gallant but futile engagement at Neuve Chappelle. More than 1,000 of them died at Gallipoli, thanks to Churchill's folly. Nearly 700,000 Indian sepoys (infantry privates) fought in Mesopotamia against the Ottoman Empire, Germany's ally, many of them Indian Muslims taking up arms against their co-religionists in defence of the British Empire.
The most painful experiences were those of soldiers fighting in the trenches of Europe. Letters sent by Indian soldiers in France and Belgium to their family members in their villages back home speak an evocative language of cultural dislocation and tragedy. "The shells are pouring like rain in the monsoon," declared one. "The corpses cover the country, like sheaves of harvested corn," wrote another.
These men were undoubtedly heroes - pitchforked into battle in unfamiliar lands, in harsh and cold climatic conditions they were neither used to nor prepared for, fighting an enemy of whom they had no knowledge, risking their lives every day for little more than pride. Yet they were destined to remain largely unknown once the war was over: neglected by the British, for whom they fought, and ignored by their own country, from which they came.
Part of the reason is that they were not fighting for their own country. None of the soldiers was a conscript - soldiering was their profession. They served the very British Empire that was oppressing their own people back home.
The British raised men and money from India, as well as large supplies of food, cash and ammunition, collected both by British taxation of Indians and from the nominally autonomous princely states. In return, the British had insincerely promised to deliver progressive self-rule to India at the end of the war. Perhaps, had they kept that pledge, the sacrifices of India's First World War soldiers might have been seen in their homeland as a contribution to India's freedom.
But the British broke their word. Mahatma Gandhi, who returned to his homeland for good from South Africa in January 1915, supported the war, as he had supported the British in the Boer War. The great Nobel Prize-winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, was somewhat more sardonic about nationalism. "We, the famished, ragged ragamuffins of the East are to win freedom for all humanity!" he wrote during the war. "We have no word for 'nation' in our language."
India was wracked by high taxation to support the war and the high inflation accompanying it, while the disruption of trade caused by the conflict led to widespread economic losses - all this while the country was also reeling from a raging influenza epidemic that took many lives. But nationalists widely understood from British statements that at the end of the war India would receive the Dominion Status hitherto reserved for the "White Commonwealth".
It was not to be. When the war ended in triumph for Britain, India was denied its promised reward. Instead of self-government, the British imposed the repressive Rowlatt Act, which vested the Viceroy's government with extraordinary powers to quell "sedition" against the Empire by silencing and censoring the press, detaining political activists without trial, and arresting without a warrant any individuals suspected of treason against the Empire. Public protests against this draconian legislation were quelled ruthlessly. The worst incident was the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre of April 1919, when Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire without warning on 15,000 unarmed and non-violent men, women and children demonstrating peacefully in an enclosed garden in Amritsar, killing as many as 1,499 and wounding up to 1,137.
The fact that Dyer was hailed as a hero by the British, who raised a handsome purse to reward him for his deed, marked the final rupture between British imperialism and its Indian subjects. Sir Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood to the British in protest against "the helplessness of our position as British subjects in India". He did not want a "badge of honour" in "the incongruous context of humiliation".
With British perfidy providing such a sour ending to the narrative of a war in which India had given its all and been spurned in return, Indian nationalists felt that the country had nothing to thank its soldiers for. They had merely gone abroad to serve their foreign masters. Losing your life or limb in a foreign war fought at the behest of your colonial rulers was an occupational hazard - it did not qualify to be hailed as a form of national service.
India's absence from the commemorations, and its failure to honour the dead, were not a major surprise. Nor was the lack of First World War memorials in the country: the general feeling was that India, then freshly freed from the imperial yoke, was ashamed of its soldiers' participation in a colonial war and saw nothing to celebrate.
The British, however, went ahead and commemorated the war by constructing the triumphal arch known as India Gate in New Delhi. India Gate, built in 1931, is a popular monument, visited by hundreds daily who have no idea that it commemorates the Indian soldiers who lost their lives fighting in World War One.
In the absence of a national war memorial, many Indians like myself see it as the only venue to pay homage to those who have lost their lives in more recent conflicts. I have stood there many times, on the anniversaries of wars with China and Pakistan, and bowed my head without a thought for the men who died in foreign fields a century ago.
As a member of parliament, I twice raised the demand for a national war memorial (after a visit to the hugely impressive Australian one in Canberra) and was told there were no plans to construct one here. It was therefore personally satisfying to me, and to many of my compatriots, when the government of India announced in its budget for 2014-15 its intention finally to create a national war memorial. We are not a terribly militaristic society, but for a nation that has fought many wars and shed the blood of many heroes, and whose resolve may yet be tested in conflicts to come, it seems odd that there is no memorial to commemorate, honour and preserve the memories of those who have fought for India.
The centenary is finally forcing a rethink. Remarkable photographs have been unearthed of Indian soldiers in Europe and the Middle East, and these are enjoying a new lease of life online. Looking at them, I find it impossible not to be moved - these young men, visibly so alien to their surroundings, some about to head off for battle, others nursing terrible wounds. My favourite picture is of a bearded and turbaned Indian soldier on horseback in Mesopotamia in 1918, leaning over in his saddle to give his rations to a starving local peasant girl. This spirit of compassion has been repeatedly expressed by Indian peacekeeping units in United Nations operations since, from helping Lebanese civilians in the Indian battalion's field hospital to treating the camels of Somali nomads during the UN operation there. It embodies the ethos the Indian solider brings to soldiering, whether at home or abroad.
For many Indians, curiosity has overcome the fading colonial-era resentments of British exploitation. We are beginning to see the soldiers of World War One as human beings, who took the spirit of their country to battlefields abroad. The Centre for Armed Forces Historical Research in Delhi is painstakingly working to retrieve memorabilia of that era and reconstruct the forgotten story of the 1.3 million Indian soldiers who served in the First World War. Some of the letters are unbearably poignant, especially those urging relatives back home not to commit the folly of enlisting in this futile cause. Others hint at delights officialdom frowned upon - some Indian soldiers' appreciative comments about the receptivity of Frenchwomen to their attentions, for instance.
Astonishingly, almost no fiction has emerged from or about the perspective of the Indian troops. An exception is Mulk Raj Anand's Across the Black Waters, the tale of a sepoy, Lalu, dispossessed from his land, fighting in a war he cannot understand, only to return to his village to find he has lost everything and everyone who mattered to him. The only other novel I have read about Indians in the war, John Masters' The Ravi Lancers, inevitably is a Briton's account, culminating in an Indian unit deciding to fight on in Europe "because we gave our word to serve".
But Indian literature touched the war experience in one tragic tale. When the great British poet Wilfred Owen (author of the greatest anti-war poem in the English language, Dulce et Decorum Est) was to return to the front to give his life in the futile First World War, he recited Tagore's Parting Words to his mother as his last goodbye. When he was so tragically and pointlessly killed, Owen's mother found Tagore's poem copied out in her son's hand in his diary:
When I go from hence
let this be my parting word,
that what I have seen is unsurpassable.
I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus
that expands on the ocean of light,
and thus am I blessed
---let this be my parting word.
In this playhouse of infinite forms
I have had my play
and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.
My whole body and my limbs
have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch;
and if the end comes here, let it come
- let this be my parting word.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains war cemeteries in India, mostly commemorating the Second World War rather than the First. The most famous epitaph of them all is inscribed at the Kohima War Cemetery in North-East India. It reads, "When you go home, tell them of us and say! For your tomorrow, we gave our today".
The Indian soldiers who died in the First World War could make no such claim. They gave their "todays" for someone else's "yesterdays". They left behind orphans, but history has orphaned them as well. As Imperialism has bitten the dust, it is recalled increasingly for its repression and racism, and its soldiers, when not reviled, are largely regarded as having served an unworthy cause.
But they were men who did their duty, as they saw it. And they were Indians. It is a matter of quiet satisfaction that their overdue rehabilitation has now begun.
Stories in the Scottish Dialect
This is a collection of stories we're adding over time from the pen of Alexander (Black) Harley. We've added a section for these at the foot of his page.
Added "Maister Ridhorn's Toilet" and "The Pig In A Poke" this week which you can read at:http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/harley.htm
Lucy Bethia Colquhoun
Added Chapter VI. Edinburgh Society in the Fifties to this book which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...clair_john.htm
Dinsmore or Dinsmoor
Found a book giving a history of this name so created a page for the name and added a link to the book from it. You can get to this athttp://www.electricscotland.com/webc.../dinsmore.html
Mr and Mrs George Cupples
I came across a mention of George Cupples in the James Stirling book and so thought I'd see if I could find out anything about him. This ended up being a bit of a project and I enlisted the help of John Henderson to try and find out more about him and his wife.
Not only was Mr George Cupples a very good author but he also wrote a book about navy life which went through more than one edition. I then discovered his wife, who wrote under the name of Mrs George Cupples, was a children's author and had produced some 50 books.
And so as I got up information on them both I found I was adding more information daily as I discovered more of their books and John found some small biographies about them.
I read the book "Norrie Seaton" which is about a boy who ran away from home to go to sea. I got rather involved with the book and ended up reading the whole book at one sitting and so clearly enjoyed it. The book was written in 1869 but for all that I think children of today would enjoy reading it.
Back in these days children's stories would have some moral theme included within them and so you will also find in her books.
And so while I got the initial page up John did some genealogy research on the family which I added to the page and then a day later he found short biographies of both of them which I added and then some of their books which I've added links to. On another day I also got a complete bibliography of her books which I again added to their page.
And so we now have lots of information up on both of them with links to a number of their books in pdf format for you to read.
You can get to all this at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...er/cupples.htm
The Thistle
A Scottish Patriotic Magazine. Discovered the first two volumes of this publication.
You can read these at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...rs/thistle.htm
Hylton Newsletter
Got in the newsletter of a visit to the UK, issue 14, which you can read at: http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...olis/index.htm
THE STORY
This is one of the stories from Mrs George Cupples book "SINGULAR CREATURES" entitled "TAPPY AND HER CHICKS"...
"She's the bonniest hen in a' the kintry-side, mem; an' see till her tap."
This was what old Janet Keddie said when I went to buy a brood-hen from her, as she stood with her bare shining arms akimbo, looking down with a loving, critical eye upon her favorite,—a buxom Dorking, in color a rich mottled brown, with a much lighter breast, and on her head a spreading tuft or crest of the same yellowish hue.
"Yes, she has certainly a fine top-knot, Janet, but what I want is a good clocking-hen, one that will bring up chickens well. Now, can you recommend her for that?"
"Ay, that wull I!" said Janet, heartily; "see till her yersel', mem, hoo fast she is sittin' on the eggs I shoved in aneath her, just to keep her pleased till I get a gude settin' for her. For ye see, mem, she's an uncommon big hen, an'll tak' sixteen eggs in aneath her as easy as anither can tak' twa', —she's worth takin' pains wi'."
Accordingly Mrs. Tappy was lifted out of the barrel in which she sat; and after much pecking and dabbing at her old mistress’s hard red arms, she was placed in my basket; the egg being put under her "to make her feel at home,” as Janet said. We carried her tenderly, and when we had put some nice soft straw in the bottom of an old tub, we opened the lid very carefully to let her out. Mrs. Tabby must have known we were strangers, for the moment the lid was opened, out she flew with an angry cluck, and had the outhouse door been left open there is not the slightest doubt she would have flown straight back to her old home, for we discovered Mrs. Tappy was an uncommonly wise fowl.
"What’s to be done now?” I cried, in despair; "we shall never get her to sit; see how her feathers are ruffled with anger.”
My little Bervant Barbara, however, knew a great deal about hens, and their ways also; so taking a few of the eggs, she put them in the nest, and gently coaxed Mrs. Tappy over to that part of the shed. No sooner did she see the eggs than, with a deep cluck-cluck and a long whir of delight, in she walked, and after a few shakes to her ruffled feathers, she spread out her wings over them, and sat quietly.
We then put the eggs down one by one, and after looking at each of them, first with one eye and then with the other, as if she were meditating whether or not a chicken would come out of it, Mrs. Tappy laid her bill on it, hooked it towards her soft fawn-colored breast, and with a low coo of intense satisfaction, lifted herself up a little, drew in the egg, and so on till all were taken in.
She was so fond of her eggs that she had to be lifted off every other day and made to take her food, and it was with the greatest difficulty we could prevail upon her to cool her wings in the nice soft sand we had procured. Mrs. Tappy knew quite well that the sand was for her, and the fresh grass also, only she grudged to be away for a minute from her lovely eggs; but when she saw we were determined she should make herself comfortable, she gave up making a fuss, and lay down in the sand, rolling and fluttering it all over her back, and stretching out her legs in it, as if she were swimming. Then up she would come with her great top-knot hanging over her eyes in a most dishevelled way, and with a queer look turned up to us as if she were saying, "Well, it is very refreshing, but now that I’ve had enough, you will allow me to return to my duty.” Thereupon she would shake out the sand from her feathers, and away to her nest once more.
After this had gone on with variations for three weeks, the morning of the magical twenty-first day arrived, on which it was expected, according to all rule, that the chicks should appear. We listened very quietly for a few minutes, when Barbara suddenly whispered, "I heard a cheep, mem!”
"Are you sure, Barbara?” I said. "It may be Tappy herself; she sometimes chirps to her eggs.” But while I was speaking, a tiny bill projected itself from the very centre of Tappy’s breast, and then the bill was followed by the smallest and brightest of yellow heads. We lifted Mrs. Tappy very gently, but we found she had only this little yellow one as yet, so we left her till the afternoon^ When we returned again she had eight, this being her whole brood, for the other eggs were addled, or, as Barbara emphatically said, "rotten.” It was not Tappy’s fault she had brought out so few, for she certainly gave them all full justice, sitting a whole day beyond her time to see what she could make of the defaulters, for the maternal instinct was terribly strong in Mrs. Tappy. She would no doubt have sat a month, had we not taken the useless eggs out of her sight, and left her with her seven dark chickens and the little canary-colored one.
That very afternoon a hen belonging to a woman in our village brought out twelve chickens, and a few hours afterwards died. Mrs. Brown came to tell me of her loss and offered to sell me the whole brood, saying, "Your tappit hen would maybe tak’ to them.” I agreed to the proposal, provided our worthy Dorking approved of the addition to her family; and accordingly the twelve little motherless chickens were brought over; whereupon Mrs. Brown, haying great experience in the rearing of poultry, managed to get them slipped under Mrs. Tappy, without one of them having been seen by that wise hen, or, at any rate, having been taken any notice of. Mrs. Brown, indeed, drew attention to the manner in which the “hen" bumfled up her wings to make more room; and the good woman left, remarking that Tappy was "a grand crater.” For a few days she appeared to be very happy, and if one of the chicks throve more than another, it was "Tiny,” the little yellow one. This was the only light-colored chick of the whole twenty, and because of this it seemed to give itself airs, and must have felt we took more notice of it than of the others. Tappy, too, appeared to be very fond of it, and bore with patience its little impudent ways, when it mounted on her back, or flew up on her top, and forced it down over her eyes, thus tickling her poor old nose somewhat.
But when they were ten days old, it became necessary to confine poor Mrs. Tappy in a coop. She had got into a habit of wandering from home, and bringing her chickens back bedraggled and exhausted, not to speak of the destruction she caused to our neighbors’ gardens. I cannot say she liked this arrangement at all, because her chicks would disappear round the corner beyond her sight, forcing her to stretch her neck between the bars of the coop, and to strain her old legs to get out to them, in attitudes which were almost affecting, and certainly humiliating. She went on cluck-clucking all the time, but with little effect; and, as a last resource, she would cry cluck-cluck-cluck very fast indeed, pretending she had found a delicate sweet morsel, which would bring the chickens flying back from all quarters; and so busy was she looking about in the bottom of her coop, that they would even condescend to wait for a little, to see what all this scratching and clucking would turn up. There were a few of the chickens, however, who began to understand Mrs. Tappy and her false alarms, and foremost among them was yellow Tiny. Such an impudent chicken it was, to be sure. When it saw all the others running off as fast as their little legs could carry them, it would hold its small tail more erect, and strut about by itself, or take advantage of the quietness to have a good scrape in the soft earth which a stronger companion had stirred. As Barbara used to say, it was a most forward chicken to think of its having a tail at all when none of the others had any as yet. But this just suited its impudence; and for her part she wondered the others did not fall upon it, and pluck every feather out by the root.
Every day Tappy’s imprisonment became more irksome, and her chickens more unmanageable. Instead of coming in every now and then to be "clocked up,” as Barbara called it, they would nestle down under a bush, sometimes stretching their necks to look at their mother, wondering, no doubt, why she did not come to them. They would all go to their proper bed, however, when the nestling-in hour arrived, regularly enough; for the evenings were chilly, and by far the most comfortable place was under their mother’s soft breast. It was then delightful to see the recovered complacency and intense happiness of poor Tappy. She seemed to have forgotten all the various frets and slights of the past, with her anxieties and alarms when rats might be supposed to lie in ambush at a corner, or hawks to be hovering above the trees. Now she swelled herself out in peace over the whole twenty, with a sort of cooing or purring of high satisfaction, composing herself and them to rest for the night; though, to be sure, here and there were to be seen sticking out the legs or taila of some, while the heads of others were visible on the other side, as if Tappy were supported by them, so to speak, as the great brazen laver was borne by the circle of brazen bulls in the old Bible picture.
Miss Tiny was generally the first to return home to secure a good place, for it required a little contrivance to "clock up” twenty chickens even with the willing help of Barbara. This operation was generally performed after our little maid had brought in the tea-things; and one evening, while engaged making the tea, I was startled by hearing a scream from Barbara, at which, laying down the teapot, I hastened out. There I found her on her knees before the coop, holding the little yellow chicken close to her breast.
"O, you horrid thing!” I heard her say, shaking her fist at Tappy; "you cruel hen, ye, to turn out your bonniest chicken, yer ain, tae, an’ the cleverest o’ them a'. Here, noo, tak’ her in, like a gude Tappy, an’ we’ll say nae mair aboot it.” With this Barbara tried to pop the chicken into the coop, but Tappy pounced down upon it and gave it such a peck that she was forced to draw it away.
"Jest see to that, mem,” said Barbara, becoming aware of my presence; "Tappy’ll no allow wee Tiny in aneath her! What ails ye, hen, I wonder?” At my suggestion Tiny was carried away and was put down at the end of the walk out of Tappy’s sight, and allowed to go back to the coop by herself; for we supposed a hen had a very short memory, and Tappy would no doubt have forgotten her ill-nature. But our "tappit Dorking,” as I said before, was not an ordinary hen, by any means. Little Tiny was vezy sleepy, and no sooner was she put down than off she ran to the coop once more; but Mrs. Tappy was as sharp as a needle, and at whatever hole poor Tiny tried to pop in her head, it was barred by her mother’s sharp bill. Tiny went back a little, and stood looking in bewilderment; then she stuck up her tail and began to walk about, as much as to say, This is certainly a very funny time for our mother to be giving lessons. After walking about, making a pretence to be looking for flies, she made another attempt to get in, but still with the same result; and she was forced to see it wasn’t fun, and no doubt agreed with Barbara in fancying her mother must either have eaten something that had disagreed with her, or that she had offended her unwittingly.
Barbara waited patiently for another hour, but the hen, instead of getting better, seemed to grow worse, and Tiny had to be brought into the house and kept warm till it was quite dark, when Barbara managed very cleverly to slip the poor little chicken in, unknown to Tappy, as she supposed. However, when the next night came, the hen went on in the very same way except that while Barbara was present she did not try to peck at it then, but sat quite quiet. But the moment Barbara turned to go away, Mrs, Tappy rose up, and shaking all the chickens out from her wings and breast, she caught poor Tiny by the wing, and giving it a great twist, dashed the little creature on the ground and then flung it out of the coop.
Tappy’s behavior always remained a mystery, unless it is to be accounted for by the fact of her imprisonment and the number of chickens with which she had to deal, perhaps making her more martial in her discipline, and more Roman in her conduct.
The little wing was dislocated, and stuck up in a most uncomfortable manner, making poor Tiny look to a stranger quite grotesque, even though.it was a sad spectacle. We had to roll her in flannel, and put her in a little round basket; but she chirped so pitifully, and kept pushing up her head so constantly, that we determined to find out how we could make up to her for the loss of her mother. It was not till after the first night that we discovered she liked a heavy weight laid over her. We thereupon contrived to fasten a piece of wood to the basket, so that when she pushed up her head to the flannel she would fancy it was her mother’s body.
Although Tiny continued to play and feed with the other chickens, it was very amusing to see how, instead of walking round with the others to "clock up,” she hop-hopped up the front steps of the house, and into the parlor, where, after picking up all the crumbs, she would give a peculiar "twirr-twirr,” and peck at my gown as a signal that she wished to go to bed. Sometimes, if tea was not quite over, I would roll her in flannel and stuff her into my Garibaldi jacket, when I could feel her creeping under my arm till she felt the weight of it; then, with a very satisfied twirr, she would quietly drop off to sleep.
Tiny was known to every child in the little hamlet near us. When they saw me going down to the post-office they would come running from all quarters, knowing that Tiny would either be following me like a little dog, or be perched on my shoulder. She would allow the children to stroke her back, and would eat out of their hands; and when they tried to imitate the chuck-chuck of a hen, she would look at them with a side glance, and twirr-twirr back in reply. One day a woman happened to be passing, and came forward to have a peep at the little group; but when she saw Tiny she declared it ought to be put to death, for it would never grow to anything, and what was the use of a deformed hen? The children were so indignant, the boys especially, that I had some difficulty in keeping them from hooting her out of the village. "O, the cruel crater!” said one of the boys, "she’d daur to thraw (draw) wee Tiny’s neck! She should try how she likes throw-in’ her ain.”
"But, David,” I replied, "the woman does not know how clever our Tiny is. Speaking of cruelty, there’s many a boy here thinks nothing of taking the nests from my garden and drawing the necks of the poor little sparrows.” Whereupon David mumbled something about a sparrow being a very different thing from wee Tiny; but as the birds were rather a sore subject, he did not continue the conversation further.
Tiny did not seem to grow very fast; indeed, her little body scarcely grew at all; but when the other chickens got the length of roosting, she astonished us one evening by hopping on to a stool, and then fluttering up on to the back of a kitchen chair, where she quietly settled herself. Barbara was not quite sure that this was a good arrangement, fearing that when the fire died out Tiny would feel the cold; but when she went forward to lift her down, our little maid got nothing but a good peck for her kindness. So we came to the conclusion that Tiny knew what was best for her, and, as Barbara said, she was the first hatched, and naturally did not like the idea of being more backward than her neighbors.
A few days after this one of Tappy’s fosterchickens caught a severe cold. Barbara brought it into the house and tried all sorts of cures, putting snuff and butter down its throat, giving it a hot bath every two hours, and various other things. It really was very distressing to hear it, breathing just like a child ill with the croup; and had it not been for Barbara, I should certainly have had it killed to put it out of pain. But if Barbara was attentive to it, poor Tiny was devoted. She would not go away, but sat on the fender close to the little basket where the chicken lay, chirp-chirping, coo-cooing, twirr-twirring, the whole day long. With all this good nursing, the little sick chicken got gradually better, and by the second night was able to perch on the chair beside Tiny, who was delighted to have a companion; indeed, she kept pushing and squeezing it so hard, to show how glad she was of its society, that she pushed it off altogether. We were therefore obliged to give them a small clothes-screen for a roost, and it was very curious and amusing to see Tiny take up her position at the end of the bar farthest from the wall, till, with Barbara’s assistance, her little companion was placed at the other end; then she would creep along and seat herself as close to the chicken as possible, and stuff her head under its wing. As nothing would induce Miss Tiny to leave the chicken, not even to snatch a mouthful of fresh air, Barbara was obliged to let her stay in till the invalid was well enough to go out for an hour or two in the sunny part of the day. Accordingly, as the chicken got gradually better, Barbara waited for the first extra fine day, and put them both out. In an hour or two she brought them in again, apparently much the better for the fresh air. I had just returned from a visit to them in the kitchen, when the parlor door opened, and in rushed Barbara, somewhat unceremoniously crying, —
"O, mem, what dae ye think wee Tiny did the noo (justnow)?”
"I really could not say,” I replied. "Pushed the chicken off its perch again, perhaps?” .
”No, she just tried to craw like a cock, mem!” said Barbara, almost in a whisper.
"Well, Barbara,” I said, "nothing very wrong in that, I hope, though there is a saying that crowing hens are no canny.”
"But what if she is a cock, mem?” said Barbara, with a gasp; "no hen at a’.”
The thought of such an idea flashed upon me for the first time, and my look of surprise must have expressed itself in my face to Barbara, who said, "I never thocht the crater could be onything but a hen. It’s awfu’!”
This was certainly a rather alarming piece of news, and what no one had ever supposed could happen; but as Tiny continued to crow every day, it became evident to all that the "crater” was really a cock after all; and, as Barbara said, "It was just another proof of its impudence, to deceive folk that way so lang!” Its name was formally changed from that of Tiny to one suggested by Barbara, why, I cannot say, namely, Abram; and as the little black chicken, though now quite well, continued to come in every night to roost beside him, she in her turn naturally took the title of Sara.
They were always to be seen together, these two chickens; and when outside, they kept themselves quite apart from the other poultry. Abram was as yet about the size of a bantam, never having grown much, and was in color of a similar lively red; while Sara was pure black, promising to become one of the largest hens of the whole brood. She stood up for her little friend on all occasions, fighting for him if they were compelled to pass the other fowls. She even saved the daintiest morsels for him, as if she had almost come to consider him her own chicken.
For some time he had seemed to be so happy with Sara, that he would not follow me to the post-office; but one day he repented, and after allowing me to go as far as the gate, he came flying down as fast as his little deformed wing would permit, and with a great effort flew up on my outstretched hand and thence on to my shoulder. There he cooed and twittered into my face just as he had done when a tiny chicken, and made so much of me, that in joke I said,—
"What’s the meaning of all this, chickie? You are surely not going to leave me, or go off to the hen-house to become a common vulgar fowl?”
He took no notice of Sara in passing up again, but came into the house with me and picked up the crumbs on the parlor floor; then he lay down on my skirt as if he were a lapdog, and fell asleep with his head under his sound wing. In an hour or two Sara came in at the open door to look for him, and they trotted away together into the open fields, Abram twirring up into her face as if apologizing for his desertion.
When evening came they did not return at their usual hour, and Barbara went to look for them. She found Sara coming up the walk with her feathers all ruffled and patches torn out, evidently in a state of agitation; but Abram was nowhere to be seen.
The whole hamlet was searched, and every field for half a mile round our cottage was examined by the willing helpers, regardless of the crops; but Abram was not found. We offered a reward of a shilling to any one who could find him and restore him alive, or a sixpence for his poor little dead body; but neither reward was ever claimed.
We missed the chicken more than we thought could be possible. I am not ashamed to say we even shed tears when night closed in and our eyes fell on the little empty perch by the kitchen fire; for poor Sara, who could not get over her loss at all, refused to roost in-doors any more. She would not go into the hen-house either, but preferred to sit by herself on one of the branches of a tree in the front plot. Fowls upon the whole are stupid and uninteresting to look at, and until now I had never imagined they were the least intelligent; but, strange though it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that Sara, after losing her little companion, pined every day more and more, till at last she refused to eat any food whatever. About a fortnight after Abram disappeared, she died.
"It’s weel kent” (known), said Barbara, with the tears standing in her kind, honest gray eyes, "what Sara has died o’, mem, an’ that’s nothing but a broken heart, for she was the brawest hen in a’ the village afore Abram was lost, an’ nothing ailed her that I could see.”
We made a grave for the poor hen at the foot of the tree where she and her little companion used to scrape and scratch, and lie stretched out in the sun. Somehow the children in our hamlet heard what we were about, and first one little face peeped through the railings and then another, till all were present.
"They’ve come to the burial, mem,” said Barbara, evidently much gratified by the attention. "May I let them in?”
Permission was at once granted, and they stood round with sobered faces, while we laid Sara tenderly in her grave; but when it came to covering her up with the earth, Barbara fairly gave way, and cried out, "I canna thol’t (bear it), mem; ye can bury her wha likes, I canna do it.” Whereupon one of the boys, saying, "Such havers!” stepped briskly forward, shovelled in the earth, and so Sara was buried.
"I declare to gudeness,” said Barbara, when they had all gone away, "that Davie Cleark must hae a heart o’ stane. To see the way he happet puir Sara in, and he wad likely hae done the same to wee Tiny! It’s awfu’ hoo laddies can be sae cruel.”
It was some satisfaction to Barbara to be allowed to plant a rose-bush and some pretty creepers on Sara’s grave; but though she had a good deal of work attending to the poultry generally, she never ceased to lament the untimely fate of her two little favorites.
And that's it for this week and hope you all enjoy your weekend.
Alastair
http://www.electricscotland.com/
Electric Scotland News
Police Scotland criticise SNP Named Person plans
I confess to being somewhat concerned about this legislation and I would certainly urge the people of Scotland to learn more about this.
POLICE Scotland has criticised the SNP government’s controversial plans to have state-appointed guardians for every child, stating that “there is a lack of clarity” about the role of the force in overseeing the scheme.
The force warned that the recently merged single service may not have the capacity and resources to cope with policing the plan, to have one point of contact for all under-18s.
You can read the article at:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politic...lans-1-3818002
Watch dramatic moment Queen's Guard points gun at face of show-off tourist pestering him
THIS is the dramatic moment a show-off tourist had a gun pointed in his face after he pestered a Queen's Guard while he was on official duty.
See http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk...-guard-5952345
Scottish Government reduces North Sea oil forecasts
THE Scottish Government has finally revised its oil forecasts downwards by several billion pounds from the estimates it used during the independence campaign.
The SNP administration’s latest edition of its oil and gas bulletin conceded that North Sea tax revenue could be as low as £2.4 billion from 2016/17 to 2019/20.
"These figures blow full fiscal autonomy out of the water" said Jackie Baillie, Labour
The figure, based on an oil price of 70 US dollars per barrel and a 5 per cent production decline per year, was the most pessimistic scenario outlined by the document.
The best-case scenario assumed oil price would go up to $100 per barrel. Combined with an increase in production, this would generate £10.8 billion in tax receipts between 2016/17 and 2019/20.
The figures released yesterday contrasted with the government’s last oil and gas bulletin, published last year a few months before the referendum.
In May 2014, the Scottish Government’s most optimistic scenario predicted that £38.7 billion would be generated between 2014/15 and 2018/19.
Last year’s most pessimistic scenario was that £15.8 billion would be generated, a figure that comfortably exceeds yesterday’s most positive projection.
The dramatic fall in the oil price to below $50 a barrel, experienced after Scotland voted against independence, has hit the North Sea industry hard with thousands of jobs being lost from the sector.
It has also prompted criticism of the SNP for making the case for independence based on the oil price estimate of $110 per barrel contained in its independence White Paper.
The government has also been criticised for the delay in updating its own forecasts. Opponents claimed ministers were reluctant to make clear how the falling oil price had damaged the case for independence.
The bulletin noted that from June 2014, the price of oil “fell by approximately 60 per cent, to around 48 US dollars in January 2015”.
Since then, the document said there had been a “rebound” in the first quarter of 2015. Currently the price is around $60 per barrel.
The bulletin said that prices remained “substantially lower” then predicted by forecasters 12 months ago.
Labour accused ministers of “sneaking” the report out on the last day of the parliamentary term. Labour finance spokesperson Jackie Baillie said: “These projections are bad news for the oil industry, and both the SNP government and the UK government should explore all options to protect jobs that are directly affected and further down the supply chain.
“It is ridiculous that the SNP tried to sneak this report out on the last day of parliament. It’s clear that they have put their own political interests ahead of industry concerns. These new figures blow the SNP’s policy of full fiscal autonomy out of the water.
“We know cutting ourselves off from UK-wide taxes would blow a £7.6 billion hole in Scotland’s finances.”
Ms Baillie added: “Last week the SNP trooped through the lobbies with the extreme right wing of the Tory party to vote for full fiscal autonomy. It is as clear as day now that they knew the policy would be a disaster for Scotland – the SNP government’s own figures prove it.”
The Scottish Conservative enterprise spokesman Murdo Fraser said: “It’s clear to see we dodged a bullet when Scotland voted ‘no’ last September. The SNP government were criticised at the time for making over-projected figures.
“Now it is confirmed. If Scotland was independent we would now have a massive financial black hole to deal with. The SNP attempted to keep the public in the dark and mislead on oil prices. When will the Scottish people get an apology?
“The figures published today prove that we would face the same challenge under full fiscal autonomy. With cuts in public services and tax rises.”
The Scottish Government said that there were “considerable opportunities” to extend oil production with up to 23 billion recoverable barrels of oil equivalent remaining in the UK continental shelf (UKCS).
Deputy First Minster John Swinney said there was “no disputing” the industry has faced “a very challenging year”, adding that the Scottish Government was working relentlessly to safeguard jobs and retain skills.
He added: “These figures show considerable opportunities to extend production remain in the UKCS and, properly supported, the industry can boost production over the next five years.
“Indeed, over the longer term, the full and swift implementation of the Wood Review’s recommendations could help to bring three to four billion barrel of oil equivalent of reserves into production over the next 20 years.”
Mr & Mrs Cupples
I spent a lot of time this week researching this husband and wife team of authors. Most days more was discovered and so there were several updates on their page. For more about them see below.
Electric Canadian
Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years
Continuing to add more chapters to this book.
We are now up to Chapter XXI and in Chapter XVIII we get a view of the Forrest Wealth of Canada...
Having been accustomed to gardening all my life, I have taken great pleasure in roaming the bush in search of botanical treasures of all kinds, and have often thought that it would be easy to fill a large and showy garden with the native plants of Canada alone.
But of course, her main vegetable wealth consists in the forests with which the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario were formerly clothed. In the country around the Georgian Bay, especially, abound the very finest specimens of hardwood timber. Standing on a hill overlooking the River Saugeen at the village of Durham, one sees for twenty miles round scarcely a single pine tree in the whole prospect. The townships of Arran and Derby, when first surveyed, were wonderfully studded with noble trees. Oak, elm, beech, butternut, ash and maple, seemed to vie with each other in the size of their stems and the spread of their branches. In our own clearing in St. Vincent, the axemen considered that five of these great forest kings would occupy an acre of ground, leaving little space for younger trees or underbrush.
I once saw a white or wainscot oak that measured fully twelve feet in circumference at the butt, and eighty feet clear of branches. This noble tree must have contained somewhere about seven thousand square feet of inch boarding, and would represent a value approaching one hundred and thirty pounds sterling in the English market. White and black ash, black birch, red beech, maple and even basswood or lime, are of little, if any, less intrinsic worth. Rock elm is very valuable, competing as it does with hickory for many purposes.
You can read this at http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...pson/index.htm
Enigma Machine
The whole collection can be found at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/lifestyle/enigma. We're currently working on puzzle 108.
Canada Day
For those that don't know Canada Day is celebrated on the 1st July each year.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today delivered the following remarks at the Canada Day celebration on Parliament Hill:
“Thank you very much.
“Governor General and Sharon Johnston, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
“Happy 148th Canada Day, everyone!
“We have a great crowd and we’ve got the sun.
“Which just goes to show a little bit of bad weather is never going to keep Canadians down!
“Once again, ladies and gentlemen, as we celebrate this special day this year, we have much to be proud of and much to be thankful for.
“We are a prosperous and optimistic country.
“We are a kind and generous society.
“And we are a compassionate friend and a reliable ally.
“This is our Canada!
“A country that is confident on the world stage.
“A country where people live in freedom.
“A country where hard work and entrepreneurship mean more than where you come from or the people you know.
“These are all reasons to be grateful because friends, when we look around the world, we see that Canada stands unique among the nations.
“In times of never-ending economic and political turmoil in the world, our country is an island of stability.
“At this moment in our history, there is no better place in the world to live, to work and to raise a family.
“No better place in the world than this country, Canada!
“Ours is a story of heroic effort over many generations: by our first, Aboriginal peoples; by the many explorers, like Sir John Franklin and his crew; by the pioneers who settled a vast, untamed land; thanks to the visionaries, our Fathers of Confederation, who united our territory and joined it together with a ribbon of steel; by the waves of immigrants who helped raise great cities out of the wilderness, by the athletes and performers who makes us so proud.
“All of whom have built what Canada is today: more confident, more prosperous, more united than ever, the best country in the world!
“Ladies and gentlemen, the greatness of this country is no accident.
“It is built on an unshakeable foundation of values: freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, which is what draws people here from around the world.
“And those are the values for which our men and women in uniform put everything on the line, every day, in our defence.
“I recently met some of these heroes who defend this country, our Canadian Armed Forces personnel.
“In the Baltic and in Eastern Europe, they are supporting our friends and allies who face Russian aggression.
“And in Iraq and in Kuwait, they are fighting the terrorists there, to keep us safe here.
“Now friends, as we saw right here in our Parliament, this threat is everywhere today.
“But we have faced great threats before, many times, and we have overcome them.
“And we shall overcome them once more.
“So, let’s hear it for the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces!
“Ladies and gentlemen, today as we celebrate the Canada that we are so fortunate to call home, let us honour the hard work of all the everyday heroes, of the many generations who have built this country.
“And let us also honour them, as we approach the 150th anniversary of Confederation, by continuing their work.
“Let us pledge to pass on a better Canada to future generations.
“Canada, our home and native land, past, present, and future, strong, proud, and free.
“Happy Canada Day, everyone.”
Electric Scotland
Why the Indian soldiers of WW1 were forgotten
Approximately 1.3 million Indian soldiers served in World War One, and over 74,000 of them lost their lives. But history has mostly forgotten these sacrifices, which were rewarded with broken promises of Indian independence from the British government, writes Shashi Tharoor.
Exactly 100 years after the "guns of August" boomed across the European continent, the world has been extensively commemorating that seminal event. The Great War, as it was called then, was described at the time as "the war to end all wars". Ironically, the eruption of an even more destructive conflict 20 years after the end of this one meant that it is now known as the First World War. Those who fought and died in the First World War would have had little idea that there would so soon be a Second.
But while the war took the flower of Europe's youth to its premature grave, snuffing out the lives of a generation of talented poets, artists, cricketers and others whose genius bled into the trenches, it also involved soldiers from faraway lands that had little to do with Europe's bitter traditional hatreds.
The role and sacrifices of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Africans have been celebrated for some time in books and novels, and even rendered immortal on celluloid in award-winning films like Gallipoli. Of the 1.3 million Indian troops who served in the conflict, however, you hear very little.
As many as 74,187 Indian soldiers died during the war and a comparable number were wounded. Their stories, and their heroism, have long been omitted from popular histories of the war, or relegated to the footnotes.
India contributed a number of divisions and brigades to the European, Mediterranean, Mesopotamian, North African and East African theatres of war. In Europe, Indian soldiers were among the first victims who suffered the horrors of the trenches. They were killed in droves before the war was into its second year and bore the brunt of many a German offensive.
It was Indian jawans (junior soldiers) who stopped the German advance at Ypres in the autumn of 1914, soon after the war broke out, while the British were still recruiting and training their own forces. Hundreds were killed in a gallant but futile engagement at Neuve Chappelle. More than 1,000 of them died at Gallipoli, thanks to Churchill's folly. Nearly 700,000 Indian sepoys (infantry privates) fought in Mesopotamia against the Ottoman Empire, Germany's ally, many of them Indian Muslims taking up arms against their co-religionists in defence of the British Empire.
The most painful experiences were those of soldiers fighting in the trenches of Europe. Letters sent by Indian soldiers in France and Belgium to their family members in their villages back home speak an evocative language of cultural dislocation and tragedy. "The shells are pouring like rain in the monsoon," declared one. "The corpses cover the country, like sheaves of harvested corn," wrote another.
These men were undoubtedly heroes - pitchforked into battle in unfamiliar lands, in harsh and cold climatic conditions they were neither used to nor prepared for, fighting an enemy of whom they had no knowledge, risking their lives every day for little more than pride. Yet they were destined to remain largely unknown once the war was over: neglected by the British, for whom they fought, and ignored by their own country, from which they came.
Part of the reason is that they were not fighting for their own country. None of the soldiers was a conscript - soldiering was their profession. They served the very British Empire that was oppressing their own people back home.
The British raised men and money from India, as well as large supplies of food, cash and ammunition, collected both by British taxation of Indians and from the nominally autonomous princely states. In return, the British had insincerely promised to deliver progressive self-rule to India at the end of the war. Perhaps, had they kept that pledge, the sacrifices of India's First World War soldiers might have been seen in their homeland as a contribution to India's freedom.
But the British broke their word. Mahatma Gandhi, who returned to his homeland for good from South Africa in January 1915, supported the war, as he had supported the British in the Boer War. The great Nobel Prize-winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, was somewhat more sardonic about nationalism. "We, the famished, ragged ragamuffins of the East are to win freedom for all humanity!" he wrote during the war. "We have no word for 'nation' in our language."
India was wracked by high taxation to support the war and the high inflation accompanying it, while the disruption of trade caused by the conflict led to widespread economic losses - all this while the country was also reeling from a raging influenza epidemic that took many lives. But nationalists widely understood from British statements that at the end of the war India would receive the Dominion Status hitherto reserved for the "White Commonwealth".
It was not to be. When the war ended in triumph for Britain, India was denied its promised reward. Instead of self-government, the British imposed the repressive Rowlatt Act, which vested the Viceroy's government with extraordinary powers to quell "sedition" against the Empire by silencing and censoring the press, detaining political activists without trial, and arresting without a warrant any individuals suspected of treason against the Empire. Public protests against this draconian legislation were quelled ruthlessly. The worst incident was the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre of April 1919, when Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire without warning on 15,000 unarmed and non-violent men, women and children demonstrating peacefully in an enclosed garden in Amritsar, killing as many as 1,499 and wounding up to 1,137.
The fact that Dyer was hailed as a hero by the British, who raised a handsome purse to reward him for his deed, marked the final rupture between British imperialism and its Indian subjects. Sir Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood to the British in protest against "the helplessness of our position as British subjects in India". He did not want a "badge of honour" in "the incongruous context of humiliation".
With British perfidy providing such a sour ending to the narrative of a war in which India had given its all and been spurned in return, Indian nationalists felt that the country had nothing to thank its soldiers for. They had merely gone abroad to serve their foreign masters. Losing your life or limb in a foreign war fought at the behest of your colonial rulers was an occupational hazard - it did not qualify to be hailed as a form of national service.
India's absence from the commemorations, and its failure to honour the dead, were not a major surprise. Nor was the lack of First World War memorials in the country: the general feeling was that India, then freshly freed from the imperial yoke, was ashamed of its soldiers' participation in a colonial war and saw nothing to celebrate.
The British, however, went ahead and commemorated the war by constructing the triumphal arch known as India Gate in New Delhi. India Gate, built in 1931, is a popular monument, visited by hundreds daily who have no idea that it commemorates the Indian soldiers who lost their lives fighting in World War One.
In the absence of a national war memorial, many Indians like myself see it as the only venue to pay homage to those who have lost their lives in more recent conflicts. I have stood there many times, on the anniversaries of wars with China and Pakistan, and bowed my head without a thought for the men who died in foreign fields a century ago.
As a member of parliament, I twice raised the demand for a national war memorial (after a visit to the hugely impressive Australian one in Canberra) and was told there were no plans to construct one here. It was therefore personally satisfying to me, and to many of my compatriots, when the government of India announced in its budget for 2014-15 its intention finally to create a national war memorial. We are not a terribly militaristic society, but for a nation that has fought many wars and shed the blood of many heroes, and whose resolve may yet be tested in conflicts to come, it seems odd that there is no memorial to commemorate, honour and preserve the memories of those who have fought for India.
The centenary is finally forcing a rethink. Remarkable photographs have been unearthed of Indian soldiers in Europe and the Middle East, and these are enjoying a new lease of life online. Looking at them, I find it impossible not to be moved - these young men, visibly so alien to their surroundings, some about to head off for battle, others nursing terrible wounds. My favourite picture is of a bearded and turbaned Indian soldier on horseback in Mesopotamia in 1918, leaning over in his saddle to give his rations to a starving local peasant girl. This spirit of compassion has been repeatedly expressed by Indian peacekeeping units in United Nations operations since, from helping Lebanese civilians in the Indian battalion's field hospital to treating the camels of Somali nomads during the UN operation there. It embodies the ethos the Indian solider brings to soldiering, whether at home or abroad.
For many Indians, curiosity has overcome the fading colonial-era resentments of British exploitation. We are beginning to see the soldiers of World War One as human beings, who took the spirit of their country to battlefields abroad. The Centre for Armed Forces Historical Research in Delhi is painstakingly working to retrieve memorabilia of that era and reconstruct the forgotten story of the 1.3 million Indian soldiers who served in the First World War. Some of the letters are unbearably poignant, especially those urging relatives back home not to commit the folly of enlisting in this futile cause. Others hint at delights officialdom frowned upon - some Indian soldiers' appreciative comments about the receptivity of Frenchwomen to their attentions, for instance.
Astonishingly, almost no fiction has emerged from or about the perspective of the Indian troops. An exception is Mulk Raj Anand's Across the Black Waters, the tale of a sepoy, Lalu, dispossessed from his land, fighting in a war he cannot understand, only to return to his village to find he has lost everything and everyone who mattered to him. The only other novel I have read about Indians in the war, John Masters' The Ravi Lancers, inevitably is a Briton's account, culminating in an Indian unit deciding to fight on in Europe "because we gave our word to serve".
But Indian literature touched the war experience in one tragic tale. When the great British poet Wilfred Owen (author of the greatest anti-war poem in the English language, Dulce et Decorum Est) was to return to the front to give his life in the futile First World War, he recited Tagore's Parting Words to his mother as his last goodbye. When he was so tragically and pointlessly killed, Owen's mother found Tagore's poem copied out in her son's hand in his diary:
When I go from hence
let this be my parting word,
that what I have seen is unsurpassable.
I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus
that expands on the ocean of light,
and thus am I blessed
---let this be my parting word.
In this playhouse of infinite forms
I have had my play
and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.
My whole body and my limbs
have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch;
and if the end comes here, let it come
- let this be my parting word.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains war cemeteries in India, mostly commemorating the Second World War rather than the First. The most famous epitaph of them all is inscribed at the Kohima War Cemetery in North-East India. It reads, "When you go home, tell them of us and say! For your tomorrow, we gave our today".
The Indian soldiers who died in the First World War could make no such claim. They gave their "todays" for someone else's "yesterdays". They left behind orphans, but history has orphaned them as well. As Imperialism has bitten the dust, it is recalled increasingly for its repression and racism, and its soldiers, when not reviled, are largely regarded as having served an unworthy cause.
But they were men who did their duty, as they saw it. And they were Indians. It is a matter of quiet satisfaction that their overdue rehabilitation has now begun.
Stories in the Scottish Dialect
This is a collection of stories we're adding over time from the pen of Alexander (Black) Harley. We've added a section for these at the foot of his page.
Added "Maister Ridhorn's Toilet" and "The Pig In A Poke" this week which you can read at:http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/harley.htm
Lucy Bethia Colquhoun
Added Chapter VI. Edinburgh Society in the Fifties to this book which you can read at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...clair_john.htm
Dinsmore or Dinsmoor
Found a book giving a history of this name so created a page for the name and added a link to the book from it. You can get to this athttp://www.electricscotland.com/webc.../dinsmore.html
Mr and Mrs George Cupples
I came across a mention of George Cupples in the James Stirling book and so thought I'd see if I could find out anything about him. This ended up being a bit of a project and I enlisted the help of John Henderson to try and find out more about him and his wife.
Not only was Mr George Cupples a very good author but he also wrote a book about navy life which went through more than one edition. I then discovered his wife, who wrote under the name of Mrs George Cupples, was a children's author and had produced some 50 books.
And so as I got up information on them both I found I was adding more information daily as I discovered more of their books and John found some small biographies about them.
I read the book "Norrie Seaton" which is about a boy who ran away from home to go to sea. I got rather involved with the book and ended up reading the whole book at one sitting and so clearly enjoyed it. The book was written in 1869 but for all that I think children of today would enjoy reading it.
Back in these days children's stories would have some moral theme included within them and so you will also find in her books.
And so while I got the initial page up John did some genealogy research on the family which I added to the page and then a day later he found short biographies of both of them which I added and then some of their books which I've added links to. On another day I also got a complete bibliography of her books which I again added to their page.
And so we now have lots of information up on both of them with links to a number of their books in pdf format for you to read.
You can get to all this at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...er/cupples.htm
The Thistle
A Scottish Patriotic Magazine. Discovered the first two volumes of this publication.
You can read these at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...rs/thistle.htm
Hylton Newsletter
Got in the newsletter of a visit to the UK, issue 14, which you can read at: http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...olis/index.htm
THE STORY
This is one of the stories from Mrs George Cupples book "SINGULAR CREATURES" entitled "TAPPY AND HER CHICKS"...
"She's the bonniest hen in a' the kintry-side, mem; an' see till her tap."
This was what old Janet Keddie said when I went to buy a brood-hen from her, as she stood with her bare shining arms akimbo, looking down with a loving, critical eye upon her favorite,—a buxom Dorking, in color a rich mottled brown, with a much lighter breast, and on her head a spreading tuft or crest of the same yellowish hue.
"Yes, she has certainly a fine top-knot, Janet, but what I want is a good clocking-hen, one that will bring up chickens well. Now, can you recommend her for that?"
"Ay, that wull I!" said Janet, heartily; "see till her yersel', mem, hoo fast she is sittin' on the eggs I shoved in aneath her, just to keep her pleased till I get a gude settin' for her. For ye see, mem, she's an uncommon big hen, an'll tak' sixteen eggs in aneath her as easy as anither can tak' twa', —she's worth takin' pains wi'."
Accordingly Mrs. Tappy was lifted out of the barrel in which she sat; and after much pecking and dabbing at her old mistress’s hard red arms, she was placed in my basket; the egg being put under her "to make her feel at home,” as Janet said. We carried her tenderly, and when we had put some nice soft straw in the bottom of an old tub, we opened the lid very carefully to let her out. Mrs. Tabby must have known we were strangers, for the moment the lid was opened, out she flew with an angry cluck, and had the outhouse door been left open there is not the slightest doubt she would have flown straight back to her old home, for we discovered Mrs. Tappy was an uncommonly wise fowl.
"What’s to be done now?” I cried, in despair; "we shall never get her to sit; see how her feathers are ruffled with anger.”
My little Bervant Barbara, however, knew a great deal about hens, and their ways also; so taking a few of the eggs, she put them in the nest, and gently coaxed Mrs. Tappy over to that part of the shed. No sooner did she see the eggs than, with a deep cluck-cluck and a long whir of delight, in she walked, and after a few shakes to her ruffled feathers, she spread out her wings over them, and sat quietly.
We then put the eggs down one by one, and after looking at each of them, first with one eye and then with the other, as if she were meditating whether or not a chicken would come out of it, Mrs. Tappy laid her bill on it, hooked it towards her soft fawn-colored breast, and with a low coo of intense satisfaction, lifted herself up a little, drew in the egg, and so on till all were taken in.
She was so fond of her eggs that she had to be lifted off every other day and made to take her food, and it was with the greatest difficulty we could prevail upon her to cool her wings in the nice soft sand we had procured. Mrs. Tappy knew quite well that the sand was for her, and the fresh grass also, only she grudged to be away for a minute from her lovely eggs; but when she saw we were determined she should make herself comfortable, she gave up making a fuss, and lay down in the sand, rolling and fluttering it all over her back, and stretching out her legs in it, as if she were swimming. Then up she would come with her great top-knot hanging over her eyes in a most dishevelled way, and with a queer look turned up to us as if she were saying, "Well, it is very refreshing, but now that I’ve had enough, you will allow me to return to my duty.” Thereupon she would shake out the sand from her feathers, and away to her nest once more.
After this had gone on with variations for three weeks, the morning of the magical twenty-first day arrived, on which it was expected, according to all rule, that the chicks should appear. We listened very quietly for a few minutes, when Barbara suddenly whispered, "I heard a cheep, mem!”
"Are you sure, Barbara?” I said. "It may be Tappy herself; she sometimes chirps to her eggs.” But while I was speaking, a tiny bill projected itself from the very centre of Tappy’s breast, and then the bill was followed by the smallest and brightest of yellow heads. We lifted Mrs. Tappy very gently, but we found she had only this little yellow one as yet, so we left her till the afternoon^ When we returned again she had eight, this being her whole brood, for the other eggs were addled, or, as Barbara emphatically said, "rotten.” It was not Tappy’s fault she had brought out so few, for she certainly gave them all full justice, sitting a whole day beyond her time to see what she could make of the defaulters, for the maternal instinct was terribly strong in Mrs. Tappy. She would no doubt have sat a month, had we not taken the useless eggs out of her sight, and left her with her seven dark chickens and the little canary-colored one.
That very afternoon a hen belonging to a woman in our village brought out twelve chickens, and a few hours afterwards died. Mrs. Brown came to tell me of her loss and offered to sell me the whole brood, saying, "Your tappit hen would maybe tak’ to them.” I agreed to the proposal, provided our worthy Dorking approved of the addition to her family; and accordingly the twelve little motherless chickens were brought over; whereupon Mrs. Brown, haying great experience in the rearing of poultry, managed to get them slipped under Mrs. Tappy, without one of them having been seen by that wise hen, or, at any rate, having been taken any notice of. Mrs. Brown, indeed, drew attention to the manner in which the “hen" bumfled up her wings to make more room; and the good woman left, remarking that Tappy was "a grand crater.” For a few days she appeared to be very happy, and if one of the chicks throve more than another, it was "Tiny,” the little yellow one. This was the only light-colored chick of the whole twenty, and because of this it seemed to give itself airs, and must have felt we took more notice of it than of the others. Tappy, too, appeared to be very fond of it, and bore with patience its little impudent ways, when it mounted on her back, or flew up on her top, and forced it down over her eyes, thus tickling her poor old nose somewhat.
But when they were ten days old, it became necessary to confine poor Mrs. Tappy in a coop. She had got into a habit of wandering from home, and bringing her chickens back bedraggled and exhausted, not to speak of the destruction she caused to our neighbors’ gardens. I cannot say she liked this arrangement at all, because her chicks would disappear round the corner beyond her sight, forcing her to stretch her neck between the bars of the coop, and to strain her old legs to get out to them, in attitudes which were almost affecting, and certainly humiliating. She went on cluck-clucking all the time, but with little effect; and, as a last resource, she would cry cluck-cluck-cluck very fast indeed, pretending she had found a delicate sweet morsel, which would bring the chickens flying back from all quarters; and so busy was she looking about in the bottom of her coop, that they would even condescend to wait for a little, to see what all this scratching and clucking would turn up. There were a few of the chickens, however, who began to understand Mrs. Tappy and her false alarms, and foremost among them was yellow Tiny. Such an impudent chicken it was, to be sure. When it saw all the others running off as fast as their little legs could carry them, it would hold its small tail more erect, and strut about by itself, or take advantage of the quietness to have a good scrape in the soft earth which a stronger companion had stirred. As Barbara used to say, it was a most forward chicken to think of its having a tail at all when none of the others had any as yet. But this just suited its impudence; and for her part she wondered the others did not fall upon it, and pluck every feather out by the root.
Every day Tappy’s imprisonment became more irksome, and her chickens more unmanageable. Instead of coming in every now and then to be "clocked up,” as Barbara called it, they would nestle down under a bush, sometimes stretching their necks to look at their mother, wondering, no doubt, why she did not come to them. They would all go to their proper bed, however, when the nestling-in hour arrived, regularly enough; for the evenings were chilly, and by far the most comfortable place was under their mother’s soft breast. It was then delightful to see the recovered complacency and intense happiness of poor Tappy. She seemed to have forgotten all the various frets and slights of the past, with her anxieties and alarms when rats might be supposed to lie in ambush at a corner, or hawks to be hovering above the trees. Now she swelled herself out in peace over the whole twenty, with a sort of cooing or purring of high satisfaction, composing herself and them to rest for the night; though, to be sure, here and there were to be seen sticking out the legs or taila of some, while the heads of others were visible on the other side, as if Tappy were supported by them, so to speak, as the great brazen laver was borne by the circle of brazen bulls in the old Bible picture.
Miss Tiny was generally the first to return home to secure a good place, for it required a little contrivance to "clock up” twenty chickens even with the willing help of Barbara. This operation was generally performed after our little maid had brought in the tea-things; and one evening, while engaged making the tea, I was startled by hearing a scream from Barbara, at which, laying down the teapot, I hastened out. There I found her on her knees before the coop, holding the little yellow chicken close to her breast.
"O, you horrid thing!” I heard her say, shaking her fist at Tappy; "you cruel hen, ye, to turn out your bonniest chicken, yer ain, tae, an’ the cleverest o’ them a'. Here, noo, tak’ her in, like a gude Tappy, an’ we’ll say nae mair aboot it.” With this Barbara tried to pop the chicken into the coop, but Tappy pounced down upon it and gave it such a peck that she was forced to draw it away.
"Jest see to that, mem,” said Barbara, becoming aware of my presence; "Tappy’ll no allow wee Tiny in aneath her! What ails ye, hen, I wonder?” At my suggestion Tiny was carried away and was put down at the end of the walk out of Tappy’s sight, and allowed to go back to the coop by herself; for we supposed a hen had a very short memory, and Tappy would no doubt have forgotten her ill-nature. But our "tappit Dorking,” as I said before, was not an ordinary hen, by any means. Little Tiny was vezy sleepy, and no sooner was she put down than off she ran to the coop once more; but Mrs. Tappy was as sharp as a needle, and at whatever hole poor Tiny tried to pop in her head, it was barred by her mother’s sharp bill. Tiny went back a little, and stood looking in bewilderment; then she stuck up her tail and began to walk about, as much as to say, This is certainly a very funny time for our mother to be giving lessons. After walking about, making a pretence to be looking for flies, she made another attempt to get in, but still with the same result; and she was forced to see it wasn’t fun, and no doubt agreed with Barbara in fancying her mother must either have eaten something that had disagreed with her, or that she had offended her unwittingly.
Barbara waited patiently for another hour, but the hen, instead of getting better, seemed to grow worse, and Tiny had to be brought into the house and kept warm till it was quite dark, when Barbara managed very cleverly to slip the poor little chicken in, unknown to Tappy, as she supposed. However, when the next night came, the hen went on in the very same way except that while Barbara was present she did not try to peck at it then, but sat quite quiet. But the moment Barbara turned to go away, Mrs, Tappy rose up, and shaking all the chickens out from her wings and breast, she caught poor Tiny by the wing, and giving it a great twist, dashed the little creature on the ground and then flung it out of the coop.
Tappy’s behavior always remained a mystery, unless it is to be accounted for by the fact of her imprisonment and the number of chickens with which she had to deal, perhaps making her more martial in her discipline, and more Roman in her conduct.
The little wing was dislocated, and stuck up in a most uncomfortable manner, making poor Tiny look to a stranger quite grotesque, even though.it was a sad spectacle. We had to roll her in flannel, and put her in a little round basket; but she chirped so pitifully, and kept pushing up her head so constantly, that we determined to find out how we could make up to her for the loss of her mother. It was not till after the first night that we discovered she liked a heavy weight laid over her. We thereupon contrived to fasten a piece of wood to the basket, so that when she pushed up her head to the flannel she would fancy it was her mother’s body.
Although Tiny continued to play and feed with the other chickens, it was very amusing to see how, instead of walking round with the others to "clock up,” she hop-hopped up the front steps of the house, and into the parlor, where, after picking up all the crumbs, she would give a peculiar "twirr-twirr,” and peck at my gown as a signal that she wished to go to bed. Sometimes, if tea was not quite over, I would roll her in flannel and stuff her into my Garibaldi jacket, when I could feel her creeping under my arm till she felt the weight of it; then, with a very satisfied twirr, she would quietly drop off to sleep.
Tiny was known to every child in the little hamlet near us. When they saw me going down to the post-office they would come running from all quarters, knowing that Tiny would either be following me like a little dog, or be perched on my shoulder. She would allow the children to stroke her back, and would eat out of their hands; and when they tried to imitate the chuck-chuck of a hen, she would look at them with a side glance, and twirr-twirr back in reply. One day a woman happened to be passing, and came forward to have a peep at the little group; but when she saw Tiny she declared it ought to be put to death, for it would never grow to anything, and what was the use of a deformed hen? The children were so indignant, the boys especially, that I had some difficulty in keeping them from hooting her out of the village. "O, the cruel crater!” said one of the boys, "she’d daur to thraw (draw) wee Tiny’s neck! She should try how she likes throw-in’ her ain.”
"But, David,” I replied, "the woman does not know how clever our Tiny is. Speaking of cruelty, there’s many a boy here thinks nothing of taking the nests from my garden and drawing the necks of the poor little sparrows.” Whereupon David mumbled something about a sparrow being a very different thing from wee Tiny; but as the birds were rather a sore subject, he did not continue the conversation further.
Tiny did not seem to grow very fast; indeed, her little body scarcely grew at all; but when the other chickens got the length of roosting, she astonished us one evening by hopping on to a stool, and then fluttering up on to the back of a kitchen chair, where she quietly settled herself. Barbara was not quite sure that this was a good arrangement, fearing that when the fire died out Tiny would feel the cold; but when she went forward to lift her down, our little maid got nothing but a good peck for her kindness. So we came to the conclusion that Tiny knew what was best for her, and, as Barbara said, she was the first hatched, and naturally did not like the idea of being more backward than her neighbors.
A few days after this one of Tappy’s fosterchickens caught a severe cold. Barbara brought it into the house and tried all sorts of cures, putting snuff and butter down its throat, giving it a hot bath every two hours, and various other things. It really was very distressing to hear it, breathing just like a child ill with the croup; and had it not been for Barbara, I should certainly have had it killed to put it out of pain. But if Barbara was attentive to it, poor Tiny was devoted. She would not go away, but sat on the fender close to the little basket where the chicken lay, chirp-chirping, coo-cooing, twirr-twirring, the whole day long. With all this good nursing, the little sick chicken got gradually better, and by the second night was able to perch on the chair beside Tiny, who was delighted to have a companion; indeed, she kept pushing and squeezing it so hard, to show how glad she was of its society, that she pushed it off altogether. We were therefore obliged to give them a small clothes-screen for a roost, and it was very curious and amusing to see Tiny take up her position at the end of the bar farthest from the wall, till, with Barbara’s assistance, her little companion was placed at the other end; then she would creep along and seat herself as close to the chicken as possible, and stuff her head under its wing. As nothing would induce Miss Tiny to leave the chicken, not even to snatch a mouthful of fresh air, Barbara was obliged to let her stay in till the invalid was well enough to go out for an hour or two in the sunny part of the day. Accordingly, as the chicken got gradually better, Barbara waited for the first extra fine day, and put them both out. In an hour or two she brought them in again, apparently much the better for the fresh air. I had just returned from a visit to them in the kitchen, when the parlor door opened, and in rushed Barbara, somewhat unceremoniously crying, —
"O, mem, what dae ye think wee Tiny did the noo (justnow)?”
"I really could not say,” I replied. "Pushed the chicken off its perch again, perhaps?” .
”No, she just tried to craw like a cock, mem!” said Barbara, almost in a whisper.
"Well, Barbara,” I said, "nothing very wrong in that, I hope, though there is a saying that crowing hens are no canny.”
"But what if she is a cock, mem?” said Barbara, with a gasp; "no hen at a’.”
The thought of such an idea flashed upon me for the first time, and my look of surprise must have expressed itself in my face to Barbara, who said, "I never thocht the crater could be onything but a hen. It’s awfu’!”
This was certainly a rather alarming piece of news, and what no one had ever supposed could happen; but as Tiny continued to crow every day, it became evident to all that the "crater” was really a cock after all; and, as Barbara said, "It was just another proof of its impudence, to deceive folk that way so lang!” Its name was formally changed from that of Tiny to one suggested by Barbara, why, I cannot say, namely, Abram; and as the little black chicken, though now quite well, continued to come in every night to roost beside him, she in her turn naturally took the title of Sara.
They were always to be seen together, these two chickens; and when outside, they kept themselves quite apart from the other poultry. Abram was as yet about the size of a bantam, never having grown much, and was in color of a similar lively red; while Sara was pure black, promising to become one of the largest hens of the whole brood. She stood up for her little friend on all occasions, fighting for him if they were compelled to pass the other fowls. She even saved the daintiest morsels for him, as if she had almost come to consider him her own chicken.
For some time he had seemed to be so happy with Sara, that he would not follow me to the post-office; but one day he repented, and after allowing me to go as far as the gate, he came flying down as fast as his little deformed wing would permit, and with a great effort flew up on my outstretched hand and thence on to my shoulder. There he cooed and twittered into my face just as he had done when a tiny chicken, and made so much of me, that in joke I said,—
"What’s the meaning of all this, chickie? You are surely not going to leave me, or go off to the hen-house to become a common vulgar fowl?”
He took no notice of Sara in passing up again, but came into the house with me and picked up the crumbs on the parlor floor; then he lay down on my skirt as if he were a lapdog, and fell asleep with his head under his sound wing. In an hour or two Sara came in at the open door to look for him, and they trotted away together into the open fields, Abram twirring up into her face as if apologizing for his desertion.
When evening came they did not return at their usual hour, and Barbara went to look for them. She found Sara coming up the walk with her feathers all ruffled and patches torn out, evidently in a state of agitation; but Abram was nowhere to be seen.
The whole hamlet was searched, and every field for half a mile round our cottage was examined by the willing helpers, regardless of the crops; but Abram was not found. We offered a reward of a shilling to any one who could find him and restore him alive, or a sixpence for his poor little dead body; but neither reward was ever claimed.
We missed the chicken more than we thought could be possible. I am not ashamed to say we even shed tears when night closed in and our eyes fell on the little empty perch by the kitchen fire; for poor Sara, who could not get over her loss at all, refused to roost in-doors any more. She would not go into the hen-house either, but preferred to sit by herself on one of the branches of a tree in the front plot. Fowls upon the whole are stupid and uninteresting to look at, and until now I had never imagined they were the least intelligent; but, strange though it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that Sara, after losing her little companion, pined every day more and more, till at last she refused to eat any food whatever. About a fortnight after Abram disappeared, she died.
"It’s weel kent” (known), said Barbara, with the tears standing in her kind, honest gray eyes, "what Sara has died o’, mem, an’ that’s nothing but a broken heart, for she was the brawest hen in a’ the village afore Abram was lost, an’ nothing ailed her that I could see.”
We made a grave for the poor hen at the foot of the tree where she and her little companion used to scrape and scratch, and lie stretched out in the sun. Somehow the children in our hamlet heard what we were about, and first one little face peeped through the railings and then another, till all were present.
"They’ve come to the burial, mem,” said Barbara, evidently much gratified by the attention. "May I let them in?”
Permission was at once granted, and they stood round with sobered faces, while we laid Sara tenderly in her grave; but when it came to covering her up with the earth, Barbara fairly gave way, and cried out, "I canna thol’t (bear it), mem; ye can bury her wha likes, I canna do it.” Whereupon one of the boys, saying, "Such havers!” stepped briskly forward, shovelled in the earth, and so Sara was buried.
"I declare to gudeness,” said Barbara, when they had all gone away, "that Davie Cleark must hae a heart o’ stane. To see the way he happet puir Sara in, and he wad likely hae done the same to wee Tiny! It’s awfu’ hoo laddies can be sae cruel.”
It was some satisfaction to Barbara to be allowed to plant a rose-bush and some pretty creepers on Sara’s grave; but though she had a good deal of work attending to the poultry generally, she never ceased to lament the untimely fate of her two little favorites.
And that's it for this week and hope you all enjoy your weekend.
Alastair
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