With a fal-lal-la-lady._

"_The other swam after, and then there was none,
And so the poor stone was left all alone;
With a fal-lal-la-lady._"

It was "flew" away, properly, and not "swam" away: but, as she could not
fly, she had a right to alter it. However, it was a very fit song for
her to sing, because she was a lady herself.

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 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. Why, the very marrocks and
dovekies have got wings, the vulgar creatures, and poor little ones
enough they are; and my own cousins too, the razor-bills, who are
gentlefolk born, and ought to know better than to ape their inferiors."

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, what with the heat, and what with these
vulgar-winged things who fly up and down and eat everything, so that
gentlepeople's hunting is all spoilt, and one really cannot get one's
living, or hardly venture off the rock for fear of being flown against
by some creature that would not have dared to come within a mile of one
a thousand years ago--what was I saying? Why, 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