Labrador the sailors used to
lay a plank from the rock on board the thing called their ship, and
drive us along the plank by hundreds, till we tumbled down into the
ship's waist in heaps; and then, I suppose, they ate us, the nasty
fellows! Well--but--what was I saying? At last, there were none of us
left, except on the old Gairfowlskerry, just off the Iceland coast, up
which no man could climb. Even there we had no peace; for one day, when
I was quite a young girl, the land rocked, and the sea boiled, and the
sky grew dark, and all the air was filled with smoke and dust, and down
tumbled the old Gairfowlskerry into the sea. The dovekies and marrocks,
of course, all flew away; but we were too proud to do that. Some of us
were dashed to pieces, and some drowned; and those who were left got
away to Eldey, and the dovekies tell me they are all dead now, and that
another Gairfowlskerry has risen out of the sea close to the old one,
but that it is such a poor flat place that it is not safe to live on:
and so here I am left alone."

This was the Gairfowl's story, and, strange as it may seem, it is every
word of it true.

"If you only had had wings!" said Tom; "then you might all have flown
away too."

"Yes, young gentleman: and if people are not gentlemen and ladies, and
forget that _noblesse oblige_, they will find it as easy to get on in
the world as other people who don't care what they do. Why, if I had not
recollected that _noblesse oblige_, I should not have been all alone
now." And the poor old lady sighed.

"How was that, ma'am?"

"Why, my dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and after we had been
here some time, he wanted to marry--in fact, he actually proposed to me.
Well, I can't blame him; I was young, and very handsome then, I don't
deny: but you see, I could not hear of such a thing, because he was my
deceased sister's husband, you see?"

"Of course not, ma'am," said Tom; though, of course, he knew nothing
about it. "She was very much diseased, I suppose?"

"You do not understand me, my dear. I mean, that being a lady, and with
right and honourable feelings, as our house always has had, I felt it my
duty to snub him, and howk him, and peck him continually, to keep him at
his proper distance; and, to tell the truth, I once pecked him a little
too hard, poor fellow, and he tumbled backwards off the rock,
and--really, it was very unfortunate, but it was not my fault--a shark
coming by saw him flapping, a