The Loud Halo by Lillian Beckwith Read Free Book Online

we first thought we was startin’ back. Well, then we met up with some lads we knew and we had a good drink with them so we didn’t wake up in time to get goin’ the next day. The lads came again the next night so we stayed and had another good drink. We’d forgotten about the chickens, you see.’
    â€˜I didn’t forget tsem,’ repudiated Hector who was beginning to doze in his chair. ‘I gave tsem a wee taste of oatmeal I scraped up from tse linings of my pockets.’
    Morag snorted. ‘For all the good that would be to them you might just as well have left it here,’ she told him.
    â€˜Well, as I was sayin’,’ resumed Erchy, ‘we didn’t think about the chickens until sometime last evenin’ when Hector says all of a sudden: “My God! What about them chickens?” So we fetched them out of the wheelhouse where they’d been all the time and we had a look at them. They didn’t look bad and they was makin’ plenty of noise but they was huddled together just as though they was feelin’ the cold.’
    â€˜Sure they was feelin’ the cold,’ interpolated Morag. ‘The poor wee creatures.’
    â€˜What did you do then?’ I encouraged.
    â€˜We didn’t know what to do,’ said Erchy. ‘We had no coal on the boat to put on a fire and no other way of warmin’ them, until Hector said we should try would we warm them with our own breath. So that’s what we did. We took it in turns just to go and give them a good breathin’ on every now and then. Is that not the way of it, Hector?’
    Hector again roused himself to confirm his own brilliance.
    â€˜But how did they get drunk?’ I persisted.
    â€˜Ach, well you know how it is, Miss Peckwitt. These lads we met, they came down again and they’d brought a few bottles with them, so we started drinkin’ again. We minded not to forget the chickens though an’ we kept openin’ the lids of their boxes and givin’ them a good warmin’ with our breaths. I remember thinkin’ one time that they looked to be gettin’ sleepy. Their eyes was closin’ and they stared staggerin’ and lyin’ down with their legs stretched out. I thought they must be dyin’ all right but Hector said no, they was lyin’ down because they were goin’ to sleep as they should.’ He laughed. ‘Ach, I think we was both pretty drunk then.’
    â€˜I would have expected Johnny Comic to have mothered them like a hen,’ I said.
    â€˜He didn’t know a thing about them,’ said Erchy. ‘As soon as he stepped back on the boat he rolled himself in his oilskins and lay in the bunk there and he stirred only to eat one of the hard-boiled eggs Kirsty had given him when he came away. Honest, she gave him three dozen of them!’
    â€˜They’re no’ lyin’ down any more,’ said Morag, taking another peep into the boxes. ‘They’re no’ very strong but they’re up on their feets.’
    â€˜Am I not after tellin’ you it was just drunk they was. Drunk on too much whisky fumes,’ said Tom-Tom who, since finishing his meal, had sat smiling foolishly at the coloured plates on the dresser as though he was watching a chorus of dancers.
    â€˜The poor wee things,’ said Morag again. ‘Day-old chicks and so drunk I’m thinkin’ they’ll not reach a day older before they’re dead.’
    But she was wrong. ‘The poor wee things’ not only survived but thrived exceedingly well. They seemed to be immune from all the maladies that can effect young chickens and not even Morag had ever known such wonderful layers.

Tourists
    Nelly Elly, her son Duncan, Erchy and Hector were all looking slightly baffled when I called at the Post Office.
    â€˜It’s a glorious day,’ I greeted them enthusiastically, and though they were emphatic in their agreement that