other, and hold the one precious egg on the
rock while she goes for a fly, a swim, a bite, and a sup. As there are
five hundred other parents on the same rock, and the eggs look to be
only a couple of inches apart, the scene must be distracting, and I have
no doubt we should find, if statistics were gathered, that thousands of
guillemots die of nervous prostration.

Willie and I interpreted the clamour somewhat as follows:--

[Between parent birds.]

"I am going to take my foot off. Are you ready to put yours on? Don't be
clumsy! Wait a minute, I'm not ready. I'M NOT READY, I TELL YOU! NOW!!"

[Between rival mothers.]

"Your egg is so close to mine that I can't breathe---"

"Move your egg, then, I can't move mine!"

"You're sitting so close, I can't stretch my wings."

"Neither can I. You've got as much room as I have."

"I shall tumble if you crowd me."

"Go ahead and tumble, then! There is plenty of room in the sea."

[From one father to another ceremoniously.]

"Pardon me, but I'm afraid I shoved your wife off the rock last night."

"Don't mention it. I remember I shoved off your wife's mother last
year."

We walked among the tiny whitewashed low-roofed cots, each with its
silver-skinned fishes tacked invitingly against the door-frame to dry,
until we came to my favourite, the corner cottage in the row. It has
beautiful narrow garden strips in front,--solid patches of colour in
sweet gillyflower bushes, from which the kindly housewife plucked a
nosegay for us. Her white columbines she calls 'granny's mutches'; and
indeed they are not unlike those fresh white caps. Dear Robbie Burns,
ten inches high in plaster, stands in the sunny window in a tiny box of
blossoming plants surrounded by a miniature green picket fence. Outside,
looming white among the gillyflowers, is Sir Walter, and near him is
still another and a larger bust on a cracked pedestal a foot high,
perhaps. We did not recognise the head at once, and asked the little
woman who it was.

"Homer, the graund Greek poet," she answered cheerily; "an' I'm to have
anither o' Burns, as tall as Homer, when my daughter comes hame frae
E'nbro'."

If the shade of Homer keeps account of his earthly triumphs, I think he
is proud of his place in that humble Scotchwoman's gillyflower garden,
with his head under the drooping petals of granny's white mutches.

What do you think her 'mon' is called in the village! John o' Mary! But
he is not alone in his me