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

“I never tried,” said 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 northwest, till he came to a great cod-bank, the like of which he never saw before.

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; [Footnote:  The great auks were dark above and white beneath, and had huge white spots about their eyes.] 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.

Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his bow; and the first thing she said was: 

“Have you wings?  Can you fly?”

“Oh, dear, no, ma’am; I should not think of such a thing,” said cunning little Tom.

“Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to you, my dear.  It is quite refreshing nowadays to see anything without wings.  They must all have wings, forsooth, now, every new upstart sort of bird, and fly.  What can they want with flying, and raising themselves above their proper station in life?  In the days of my ancestors no birds ever thought of having wings, and did very well without; and now they all laugh at me because I keep to the good old fashion.”

And so she was running on, while Tom tried to get in a word edgeways; and at last he did, when the old lady got out of breath, and began fanning herself again.  And then he asked if she knew the way to Shiny Wall.

“Shiny Wall?  Who should know better than I?  We all came from Shiny Wall, thousands of years ago, when it was decently cold, and the climate was fit for gentlefolk; but now, we have quite gone down in the world, my dear, and have nothing left but our honour.  And I am the last of my family.  A friend of mine and I came and settled on this rock when we were young, to be out of the way of low people.  Once we were a great nation, and spread over all the Northern Isles.  But men shot us so, and knocked us on the head and took our eggs—­why, if you will believe it, they say that on the coast of 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 in 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