Wedded Bliss 363 



shifted capriciously with snarHng squalls round against 

 the sun into the north-east. And this change seemed 

 to .bring to the minds (or what fills that office in birds) 

 of the two Pigeons a duty that must be performed 

 without further delay. For no sooner had the old 

 barque been put upon the other tack, and all hands 

 set busily to work replacmg such sails as were essential, 

 than they took two or three quick turns round her, 

 as if fixing her outhnes in their memories, and then 

 mounting high in air, poised for a moment, and shot 

 off due south for Prince Edward's Isle. They reached 

 it before dusk, and a bleak, forbidding, storm-lashed 

 place it was, to all human ideas. But the pretty little 

 seafarers swept together into a sheltered corner between 

 two gigantic boulders quite out of reach of the biting 

 blasts and fitful showers of snow, and there for the 

 first time for many weeks they nestled down together 

 on the firm earth in closest companionship away 

 from the surface of the never-resting sea. Little 

 twitterings sounded contentedly through the gloom 

 of the place, and bright eyes twinkling from snug 

 crevices revealed the presence of many companions 

 here on the same conjugal and familiar errand. And 

 so the rugged savage rocks became beautified by the 

 presence of happy life, and their usefulness as a shelter 

 overtopped the sense of their exceedingly terrible 

 aspect. 



That night the little visitors slept soundly and 

 unusually ; for it is a peculiarity of the lives of fish 

 and birds — at least sea-birds — that sleep, which is so 

 urgent a necessity to all land animals, is with them 

 a luxury which may apparently be dispensed with 

 for long periods without causing them any incon- 

 venience. At least in any reasonable quantity, for 

 one can hardly call the exceedingly brief snatches 



