His Island Home. 41 



the night they have been foraging in the darkness, 

 follow now the windings of the river, their flying 

 figures dark upon the sunlit sky. They quicken their 

 pace a little as they pass overhead, although the 

 watchful figure in the boat makes no movement to 

 disturb them. They have passed the rock ; they have 

 gained the open sea. 



Suddenly, from the brow of the long cliff whose 

 rocky barrier stretches far out into the bay, sweeps 

 down a bird. By his powerful flight and the bold 

 markings of his plumage you will know him well. It 

 is a peregrine ; and the frightened teal, too, know well 

 the rush of those terrible wings. 



They make a desperate effort to sheer off and beat 

 out from the shore ; but it is too late. The keen- 

 eyed falcon has marked his bird. There is a scream ; 

 a little cloud of feathers that float upon the air, and 

 then, with laboured flight, the peregrine with his booty 

 in his clutches turns seaward too, in the track of the 

 vanished teal. 



It is a safe retreat to which the robber bears his 

 prey. Straight up from the water rise the rugged 

 cliffs, their seagirt steep whitened by the shingle of 

 a single landing-place — elsewhere an unbroken wall 

 that many a time in bygone days has made the little 

 islet a safe refuge from pursuit. 



Here it was that Gildas spent seven years of 

 solitude among the birds who shared with him his 

 lonely rock, until the rude manners of the Orcadian 



