st, till all was out of sight.

And he swam northward again, day after day, till at last he met the King
of the Herrings, with a curry-comb growing out of his nose, and a sprat
in his mouth for a cigar, and asked him the way to Shiny Wall; so he
bolted his sprat head foremost, and said:

"If I were you, young gentleman, I should go to the Allalonestone, and
ask the last of the Gairfowl. She is of a very ancient clan, very nearly
as ancient as my own; and knows a good deal which these modern upstarts
don't, as ladies of old houses are likely to do."

[Illustration: "There he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on
the Allalonestone, all alone."--_P. 201._]

Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the Herrings told him very
kindly, for he was a courteous old gentleman of the old school,
though he was horribly ugly, and strangely bedizened too, like the old
dandies who lounge in the club-house windows.

But just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he called after him: "Hi! I
say, can you fly?"

"I never tried," says Tom. "Why?"

"Because, if you can, I should advise you to say nothing to the old lady
about it. There; take a hint. Good-bye."

And away Tom went for seven days and seven nights due north-west, till
he came to a great codbank, the like of which he never saw before. The
great cod lay below in tens of thousands, and gobbled shell-fish all day
long; and the blue sharks roved about in hundreds, and gobbled them when
they came up. So they ate, and ate, and ate each other, as they had done
since the making of the world; for no man had come here yet to catch
them, and find out how rich old Mother Carey is.

And there he saw the last of the Gairfowl, standing up on the
Allalonestone, all alone. And a very grand old lady she was, full three
feet high, and bolt upright, like some old Highland chieftainess. She
had on a black velvet gown, and a white pinner and apron, and a very
high bridge to her nose (which is a sure mark of high breeding), and a
large pair of white spectacles on it, which made her look rather odd:
but it was the ancient fashion of her house.

And instead of wings, she had two little feathery arms, with which she
fanned herself, and complained of the dreadful heat; and she kept on
crooning an old song to herself, which she learnt when she was a little
baby-bird, long ago--

"_Two little birds they sat on a stone,
One swam away, and then there was one,