Owlet

“ I did hear Ducky Darling holler, and then I went stone dead, and so near heaven that I did hear the angels playing on cymbals through my whole head. And then I knowed nothing till I come to life this minute, right here,” Owlet said, quite simply.
“Now, don’t you know that you are talking the beastliest nonsense that ever was heard? If anybody had killed you stone dead how could you come to life again? Tell me that,” Hanson said. ”

“ Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place
(Portentous sight) the owlet, Atheism,
Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,
Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close,
And, hooting at the glorious sun in heaven,
Cries out, "where is it?" ”

“ The Owlet of a month before would not have hesitated to stop the busiest man on the sidewalk and ask to be directed, but the Owlet of to-day was sad, subdued and timid, and so she walked a long distance down Broadway, until she came in sight of the trees in City Hall Park, and was ready to drop with fatigue, for she was still very weak. She had not found courage to speak to any of the crowd, until, at length, she saw an old woman, very old, very dirty, and very ragged, sitting on a cellar door, against the wall of a house, and with a huge bundle of foul smelling rags on her lap. ”

“ He is very sleepy. And I will bring you all the things you want to pack in the bag,” Owlet insisted. And she laid her pet in his nest, and came and stood before her benefactress in an attitude of attention.
“But I have quite finished now, dear, and there is nothing more to do,” Roma explained.
“Well, if I can’t be useful I might as well be dead,” said Owlet with an aggrieved air.
“Dear child! Why should you say such things?”
“I heard Mrs. Brown talking to somebody, and she said people who are of no use in the world had better be out of it.” ”

“ OWLET HARPS UPON HER ’VENTURES In the morning, when both awoke almost simultaneously to a new sense of their reunion, the sun was shining through their front windows.
340When they arose from bed, Roma would have begun to wash and dress little Owlet, just from the impulse of passionate affection, intensified by the startling loss and sudden recovery of the child; but the changeling, independent and self-reliant as ever, insisted that she both could and would wash and dress her “own self.” ”

“ I only see Oolie at rare intervals, and she is as cool as ever. She does not know—the little owlet—that I hold the memory of that fluttering kiss. But why can I not lure her to my side again? Mrs. Austin seems more melancholy and retired than ever, but is most undoubtedly anxious that I should care for Oolie, and perhaps this acting on her sensitive nature makes an involuntary revolt. ”

“ A person ought not to eat anything to make them sick; any person who does that is not possessed of common sense,” said Owlet authoritatively.
“I think you are quite right, ma’am,” said Roma, smiling.
“What makes you always call me ma’am? I’m not a married woman.” ”

“ If you won’t let Ducky Darling come in here and learn along with me, tell me so, and I’ll take my primer and go out in the garden and learn my lesson along with her, and teach it to her, too,” said Owlet.
“My dear, you may bring Dorcas in, and we will begin with her. I really do not know whether I can teach her anything. She does not appear to be very intelligent.”
Before Roma had quite finished her speech Owlet had darted out of the room. In a very few minutes she returned with the little black child, who waddled into the room very much in movement like her namesake, the duck. ”

“ That is the call of the pigmy collared owlet. The owlet itself is a tiny creature, about the size of a sparrow. Like several other little owls, it sometimes shows itself during the daytime. Once at Mussoorie I noticed a pigmy collared owlet sitting as bold as brass on a conspicuous branch about midday and making grimaces at me. The other species likely to be heard at hill stations are the brown wood-owl (Syrnium indrani) , the call of which has been syllabised to-whoo, and the little spotted Himalayan scops owl (Scops spilocephalus) , of which the note is double whistle who-who. ”

“ The owlet shows considerable shrewdness in its engagements with other birds; for when surrounded by too great a number, it throws itself on its back, and so, resisting with its feet, and rolling up its body into a mass, defends itself with the beak and talons; until the hawk, attracted by a certain natural affinity, comes to its assistance, and takes its share in the combat. Nigidius says, that the incubation of the owlet lasts sixty days, during the winter, and that it has nine different notes. ”

“ And kaimd her yellow hair,
And aye she blessd the hostler’s wife,
That wysit her in at the door.
Compare D 13, 15.
291 CHILD OWLET
‘Childe Owlet,’ Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, I, 27; Motherwell’s MS., p. 572.
Lady Erskine invites Child Owlet to be her paramour. Child Owlet revolts at the suggestion; he is sister’s son to Lord Ronald. The lady cuts herself with a penknife sufficiently to draw blood; Lord Ronald hears her moaning, comes in, and asks what blood this is; his wife gives him to understand that Child Owlet has offered her violence. ”

“ The morning was glorious—a jubilee of heaven and earth; the world flooded with sunshine; woods, groves and gardens in full leaf and blossom; the grass starred with daisies; the air full of the fragrance of flowers and the songs of birds.
“We will go to church to-day,” Roma said to her 171little protégée, as they sat together at the breakfast table.
“To church? Oh, that will be good! I never was at church in all my life. Mamma used to go to early mass, sometimes, but she never took me,” Owlet exclaimed.
“You shall go now.”
“And may Ducky Darling go, too?” anxiously demanded Owlet. ”

“ On their way down Four and One-half Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, Owlet chattered to her friend:
“I do thank you ever so much for being so good to me. I shall be sure to tell Lady all about you, and she will thank you, too, oh! ever so much! And so will Ducky Darling, though she can’t say much, poor little thing. She is so little, and so ignorant, you know. And, oh! I hope your dear mother will soon get well, and you will come to see me and Lady. ”

“ Oh, the innocent arsks me why I don’t take a bath and put on clean clothes! Oh, he, he, he!” chuckled the ragpicker.
“Lady bathes and changes her clothes every blessed day. And so do I. Why don’t you?” persisted Owlet, in the interests of health and cleanliness and—of her own nose.
“She and you is rich belike, and I be poor,” replied the crone.
“But water is cheap enough. Everybody can get as much water as they want to wash with. Why don’t you?” ”

“ Then he died, when little Owlet was but three months old. Well, all that is past and gone these five years ago. One must not dwell on one’s past sorrows if one means to live and work in this world.”
“Pardon me for asking so many questions, but I feel very deeply interested in this matter,” said Roma, as she gazed on the miniature. ”

“ This species is smaller than the Yāplāq.
Little Owl (Spotted owlet?) .— [The author next mentions a small owl that he styles Bāya-qūsh or Chug͟hd. In the Panjab, the spotted owlet (Athene Brama) is known by the latter name. [101] The author says of this species:] —It frequents old ruins. A young shāhīn, intended for the flight of the stone-plover, should first be given two or three pigeons from the hand, and then flown at a wild chug͟hd or two. After that it may be entered to stone-plover. The chug͟hd is useful for no other purpose but this. ”

“ Roma felt a strong disposition to give Owlet a lecture on good behavior, but refrained, partly from the 177reluctance of the strong and powerful to hurt in any way the weak and dependent, and partly from despair of such a lecture doing the child any good. ”

“ Inglis's collectors shot one specimen in immature plumage.
Athene brama, Temm. (Spotted Owlet) .—This little Owl is very common, and several pairs are nearly always to be found in any large tree. They are very quarrelsome, always fighting among themselves, and making a considerable noise both day and night. I once watched the courtship of a pair of them. During this time the male bird was most attentive to the female, and kept feeding her on large beetles. ”

“ Owlet is ‘possessed of common sense,’ to use her own quaint phrase. Besides, I do not believe one word about her being ‘ill, dying, and sure to die unless restored to me.’ Above all, more than all, she is a child in the safe hands of the Lord, and, living or dying, she cannot be lost out of them.”
Roma took up the letter again, to tear it into fragments; but on second thought she determined to keep it, and show it to her two venerable friends and supporters—Parson Shaw and Lawyer Merritt. ”

“ The back and upper plumage are pale grey. The tail is buff, and there is a good deal of buff scattered about the rest of the plumage; it is on this account that the bird is called flammea.
The barn owl is, I believe, common in all parts of India, but it is not often seen owing to its strictly nocturnal habits. It ventures not forth into the dazzling light of day as does that noisy little clown, the spotted owlet (Athene brama) . Should it happen to be abroad in daylight the crows make its life a burden. Friend Corvus is a very conservative individual. ”

“ Launt rallied a while, but help had come too late, and one October day we laid him in the little church-yard. Before the snow of December fell his mother lay at rest beside him. And then in the glad New-Year I took my little owlet to my heart.
The clouds had passed and left the shining sky. I make my home at Greyrock now; but would you believe that Oolie still denies that she kissed me when I lay helpless? She says she wouldn't take advantage of any one. Dr. Mills is going on his old round of duty, and Arthur Lee is married to his sister Mary. John Austin grows bent and old. ”

“ BIRDS WHICH ARE BORN WITH THE TAIL FIRST.
Among foreigners, a person called Hylas is thought to have written the best treatise on the subject of augury. He informs us that the owlet, the horned owl, the woodpecker, which makes holes in trees, the trygon, and the crow, are produced from the egg with the tail2943 first; for the egg, being turned upside down through the weight of the head of the chick, presents the wrong end to be warmed by the mother as she sits upon it. ”

“ The birds of the night also have crooked talons, such as the owlet,2938 the horned owl, and the screech-owl, for instance; the sight of all of which is defective in the day-time. The horned owl is especially funereal, and is greatly abhorred in all auspices of a public nature: it inhabits deserted places, and not only desolate spots, but those of a frightful and inaccessible nature: the monster of the night, its voice is heard, not with any tuneful note, but emitting a sort of shriek. ”

“ As soon as the first touch of the afternoon coolness is felt the clamour acquires fresh vigour and does not cease until the sun has set in a dusty haze, and the spotted owlets have emerged and begun to cackle and call as is their wont. ”

“ As the shades of night begin to fall family parties of spotted owlets issue from holes in trees or buildings. The baby birds squat on the ground in silence, while the parents make sallies into the air after flying insects which they bring to the young birds. ”

“ He seems the most bored, the most indifferent spectator there; but only wait till the chiefs on both sides have concluded their eloquent bamboozling of the jury; mark my Lord Owlett settle his wig and his petticoats then, sort and unfold the notes he has been lazily (so it seemed) scrawling from time to time, and in a piping, quavering voice, begin to read from them. You marvel at the force, the clarity, the perspicuity of the grand old man; you stand abashed before the intellect, clear as crystal, at an age when man’s mind as well as his body is oft-times but labour and sorrow ”

“ Sometimes his wife would sigh and tell how tired she was of sitting still, and how glad she would be when the eggs were hatched and she could go more with him. When she began to speak of that, the Great Horned Owl would get ready for another flight and go off saying: "It is too bad. I am so sorry for you. But then, one would never have young Owlets if one didn't stick to the nest." He was always proud of his children, and he thought himself a very good husband. Perhaps he was; still he had never taken his place on the nest while his wife went hunting. ”

“ Warmer days came, and livelier times were stirring among the tenants of the barn. Far up on her own beam Mrs. Barn Owl tended and fed two young downy owlets faithfully. Of course the owl mother knew the beam to be quite a safe spot for baby owls, but somehow she distrusted the skulking old ferret, whom she occasionally caught sight of; besides, rats sometimes climb beams, and once, before the owl eggs had hatched, something had stolen one egg ”

“ Now it fortuned, that the house where Owlglass and his mother did live, lay hard by the river Saale, and Owlglass did go up into the garret of the house, and there did learn to dance upon a rope, until that his mother did find him going to and fro upon the rope, and did so belabour him with a cudgel, that he fled through the window of the garret on to the roof, where she could not follow him. And this often came to pass, until he grew older, and she became weak and of no strength to have power over him. ”

“ Yet on p. 179 he still speaks of the Little Owl as having occurred in Flintshire. If it could be proved that Pennant's Overton Owl was Carine noctua, the much-debated question as to the admission of the Little Owl to the British list might be considered settled; at that period it is unlikely that it could have been an escaped or imported bird. Now, to sum up the evidence. So far as we know only one Little Owl has been obtained in North Wales. (Dr. Dobie records another at Gresford, but suggests a doubt as to species.) ”