The White Drake and Other Tales (Mermaids Classics)

Ann Scott-Moncrieff

Description

The White Drake and Other Tales by Ann Scott-Moncrieff (1914-1943) is childrens book which was first published in 1936. It was illustrasted by Rojan and contains a volume of short stories including:

- THE WHITE DRAKE
- FIRKIN AND THE GREY GANGSTERS (EIGHT CHAPTERS)
- FURTHER ADVENTURES OF FIRKIN
- THE SHEEP WHO WASN'T A SHEEP

Mermaids Classics, an imprint of Mermaids Publishing brings the very best of old classic literature to a modern era of digital reading by producing high quality books in ebook format. All of the Mermaids Classics epublications are reproductions of classic antique books that were originally published in print format, mostly over a century ago and are now republished in digital format as ebooks. Begin to build your collection of digital books by looking for more literary gems from Mermaids Classics.

Sujets

• Environmental Protection
• Environmental Conservation
• Nature

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 18 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456617035
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE WHITE DRAKE
AND OTHER TALES  
By Ann Scott Moncrieff
 
Title: The White Drake And Other Tales Author: Ann Scott Moncrieff Illustrator: Rojan Published in 2013 by Mermaids Classics, an imprint of Mermaids Publishing
Mermaids Classics, an imprint of Mermaids Publishing brings the very best of old book classics to a modern era of digital reading by producing high quality books in ebook format.  
CONTENTS
DEDICATION  
THE WHITE DRAKE  
FIRKIN AND THE GREY GANGSTERS  
I  
II  
III  
IV  
V  
VI  
VII  
VIII  
FURTHER ADVENTURES OF FIRKIN  
THE SHEEP WHO WASN'T A SHEEP  
DEDICATION
 

 
 
TO MY FATHER
 
THE WHITE DRAKE

 
In a dark corner of a barn on a Perthshire farm, a stout broodie hen sat fidgeting on her nest. There were fifteen eggs to hatch out, three more than usual, and these three so much larger than the other twelve that she could in nowise settle herself comfortably.
'Cluck-cluck-cluck-CLUCK!' she complained. 'Not at all what I've been accustomed to. The mistress has been most inconsiderate.'
An old white hen, sunk in her feathers on the earthy floor, looked round crossly at the noise. But the broodie hen went on clucking aggrievedly, 'Duck eggs, indeed! What do we want with ducks on this farm? We've never had them before, and why I should be picked on to begin them, dear only knows. I should never lay anything so vulgar as these great green things, and I don't see why I should be called upon to sit on them. Drat them, how nobbly they are!'
The old white hen raised herself from her shallow bed and hirpled over to the broodie's nest.
'Is a poor body never to get a wink of sleep?' she grumbled. 'Many's the time I've had to sit on duck eggs, and not just twa-three but a whole nestful. Let me set them for you, and then maybe we'll get peace and quiet.'
She poked under the warm feathery breast until the three duck eggs lay neat and unobtrusive.
'That's better,' agreed the broodie hen, settling herself plumply. But she still wanted to air her wrongs. 'What am I to do with them when they do hatch out? I don't know the first thing about ducks, and I don't want to either.'
'If you don't haud your tongue, they'll come to nought,' said the old white hen crossly.
The broodie shrilled with indignation. 'Indeed, indeed, you moth-eaten hag, let me tell you I've never had a failure yet!' The old white hen spryly eluded the sharp peck aimed at her, and, cackling sarcastically, made off to her bed. All night long the broodie hen kept up such a clucking and clacking and complaining that none of the inmates of the barn got a wink of sleep. That is the way of broodie hens.
In due course, the family of chickens began to appear. By twos and by threes, the white and the brown and the speckled egg-shells broke, but there was never a sign of life from the large pale-green ones. Half mortified and half relieved, the broodie hen was just about to give them up when there was a chip and then a crack in one of them, and out staggered the baldest, scraggiest, most unattractive child she had ever seen. She nearly killed the little monster on the spot, but fear of the farmer's wife restrained her.

 
Later she wailed to the old white hen who came to inquire after her health, 'Oh, I am not at all well. I would as soon be harbouring a viper as the thing that came out of the duck egg. I was struck all of a heap when it broke—the thirteenth egg, mind you, and a nasty big green one it was too. Out stepped the thing as bold as brass, most forward and most unnatural. Goodness knows who the parents could have been, but if you ask me,'—the broodie hen lowered her voice—'the thing is not quite right in the head.'
'Let me have a look at it,' said the old white hen; and then when the duckling had been produced, 'Nonsense, a fine strong boy it is, a very fair specimen, if you care for that kind of bird.'
'I don't,' said the broodie hen firmly, pushing the duckling into a draughty corner.
And as the days passed, she found herself caring less and less.
When she paraded her brood in the yard for the first time, it was the duckling who spoilt the triumphant occasion. All the other hens were gathered to envy and congratulate: the little chickens bobbed about her like yellow puffballs, timid and joyous, squealing tinily, behaving in the most becoming manner: she herself was twice as stout, twice as red, and twice as fussy as she usually was. She had left the duckling in the barn, but he came to join them on his own—somewhat unsteadily, heeling first to one side, then to the other. His beak was cocked absurdly high to sniff the strange new spring air, and at every step he threatened to turn turtle. The farmyard began to giggle, then to roar. He seemed to mock the fat fussy hen with his independence. In a moment what should have been a royal procession became a circus turn with the duckling for clown.

 
The next day the duckling returned home plastered and smelling from his first paddle in a miry pool. He was excluded for ever from the nest, and after that the mother hen was concerned only with protecting her own little ones from his bad influence, snubbing and pecking him when she got the chance. 'Nasty dirty thing that you are!' she would shrill at mealtimes. 'You eat more than all the rest put together. No table manners to speak of! Stop your greedy gobbling at once!'
The duckling led a lonely, comfortless life. At night he slept on the hard cold floor of the barn: sometimes the old white hen would allow him to creep in beside her, but she did not do it often for fear of his foster-mother's anger. During the day, he spent most of his time on the shell-sand heap at the back of the barn, where there was a trickle of a burn to bathe in, comparative solitude, and a grey-white background against which he was almost indistinguishable. There he escaped from the scoldings and peckings, the laughter of the other hens, and the taunts of the young chickens. 'Sandy, sandy, dirty old shell-sandy,' they used to chorus when he came back to the barn. And so he got the name of Sandy.
Sandy acquired a puzzled, unhappy look. He could not understand why he was born different from the rest, nor why they laughed and were cruel to him because of this; why they spent so much time in merely gossiping, and never went outside the farmyard, and hated the sweet rain, and thought there was nothing so important as laying eggs. He wondered miserably if he must grow up like that too, and live always as they did. The answer to this question very soon came his way.
One day at dinner-time, the mother hen was in noticeable good humour. She preened herself often, chuckling into her ruff of feathers. The reason was that the farmer's wife had spared the life of her one male child; more than that—had decreed that he should be bred up to be the king cock of the farmyard. It was a great honour—very gratifying.
'Eat up, Sandy,' crowed the mother hen when she saw the duckling's eyes hungry upon a second helping. 'Eat as much as you can, my boy, and grow big and fat and strong.'
Sandy gobbled at the food eagerly, and then he was suddenly still, suspicious and surprised by her kindness. But before he could say anything, she had moved off, chuckling to herself.
One of his foster-sisters hopped close to him, and whispered maliciously, 'Haven't you heard? Brother Percy is to be king, and your neck is to be thrawn instead of his. Mother says we must let you eat and eat and eat until you can hardly waddle at all. Then snick, sneck and you'll swing till your dead!' The chicken tee-heed.
Sandy's eyes started from his head with horror: the fatal food stuck in his thrapple: without a word he turned and fled for the sand pit, there to rage and weep at the unfairness of his fate.
It was true that he seemed out of place among the hens and of not much use to anybody; he could never lay eggs in return for his keep; and he was not even ornamental. Yet he felt himself to be a kinder, worthier, more intelligent kind of bird than the chickens, and so he ought to live and die less senselessly than they did. Not just end in the pot when he was big and fat enough.
Well then, he would never get big and fat enough. That would show them! The idea came to him suddenly and brilliantly. His sobs subsided to sniffs as he considered it; and soon he was quite happy and absorbed in making plans. Carrying them out was not such a happy business.
In the warm June sunlight, Sandy raced round and round the steading—twice, six times, ten times—until the sweat poured off him and his young whitening feathers began to moult. By the end of the afternoon, he felt he had lost ounces of superfluous flesh. He bathed, resisting the temptation to fish, for fishing meant eating; and when the time for the evening meal came round, Sandy was not in the farmyard. He was lying on the shell-sand heap, exhausted and hungry, but hopeful for his life.
Sandy's plan was drastically successful. After a fortnight of over-exercising and under-eating, he was as lean as a rake, bald and scabbit, weak as water. He sometimes thought triumphantly yet mournfully that not even a chicken would deign to eat him if it got the chance; he was such a poor thing that they got no fun out of teasing him, and even his foster-mother let him alone. He had certainly managed to save his life, but now it seemed hardly worth saving.
His early miseries seemed petty by comparison. How well off he had been! Eating twice a day until he felt as round and solid as an indiarubber ball; then bouncing off in pursuit of other more delicate and exciting food—fat worms and slimy swimming things; in between times racing and diving and fighting the chickens. Now there was nothing but lying on the shell-sand heap, feeling always hungry and always weary.
One evening as he was making his way slowly across the yard to his bed in the barn, the farmer's wife and her daughter came to stand at the back door, knitting and