For , as they flew away , what should they find but a nasty dead dog ? -- on which they all set to work , peeking and gobbling and cawing and quarrelling to their hearts ' content . But the moment afterwards , they all threw up their bills into the air , and gave one screech ; and then turned head over heels backward , and fell down dead , one hundred and twenty-three of them at once . For why ? The fairy had told the gamekeeper in a dream , to fill the dead dog full of strychnine ; and so he did . And after a while the birds began to gather at Allfowlsness , in thousands and tens of thousands , blackening all the air ; swans and brant geese , harlequins and eiders , harolds and garganeys , smews and goosanders , divers and loons , grebes and dovekies , auks and razor-bills , gannets and petrels , skuas and terns , with gulls beyond all naming or numbering ; and they paddled and washed and splashed and combed and brushed themselves on the sand , till the shore was white with feathers ; and they quacked and clucked and gabbled and chattered and screamed and whooped as they talked over matters with their friends , and settled where they were to go and breed that summer , till you might have heard them ten miles off ; and lucky it was for them that there was no one to hear them but the old keeper , who lived all alone upon the Ness , in a turf hut thatched with heather and fringed round with great stones slung across the roof by bent-ropes , lest the winter gales should blow the hut right away . But he never minded the birds nor hurt them , because they were not in season ; indeed , he minded but two things in the whole world , and those were , his Bible and his grouse ; for he was as good an old Scotchman as ever knit stockings on a winter 's night : only , when all the birds were going , he toddled out , and took off his cap to them , and wished them a merry journey and a safe return ; and then gathered up all the feathers which they had left , and cleaned them to sell down south , and make feather - beds for stuffy people to lie on . Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether they would take Tom to Shiny Wall : but one set was going to Sutherland , and one to the Shetlands , and one to Norway , and one to Spitzbergen , and one to Iceland , and one to Greenland : but none would go to Shiny Wall . So the good-natured petrels said that they would show him part of the way themselves , but they were only going as far as Jan Mayen 's Land ; and after that he must shift for himself . And then all the birds rose up , and streamed away in long black lines , north , and north-east , and north-west , across the bright blue summer sky ; and their cry was like ten thousand packs of hounds , and ten thousand peals of bells . Only the puffins stayed behind , and killed the young rabbits , and laid their eggs in the rabbit-burrows ; which was rough practice , certainly ; but a man must see to his own family . And , as Tom and the petrels went north-eastward , it began to blow right hard ; for the old gentleman in the gray great-coat , who looks after the big copper boiler , in the gulf of Mexico , had got behindhand with his work ; so Mother Carey had sent an electric message to him for more steam ; and now the steam was coming , as much in an hour as ought to have come in a week , puffing and roaring and swishing and swirling , till you could not see where the sky ended and the sea began . But Tom and the petrels never cared , for the gale was right abaft , and away they went over the crests of the billows , as merry as so many flying-fish . And at last they saw an ugly sight -- the black side of a great ship , waterlogged in the trough of the sea . Her funnel and her masts were overboard , and swayed and surged under her lee ; her decks were swept as clean as a barn floor , and there was no living soul on board . The petrels flew up to her , and wailed round her ; for they were very sorry indeed , and also they expected to find some salt pork ; and Tom scrambled on board of her and looked round , frightened and sad . And there , in a little cot , lashed tight under the bulwark , lay a baby fast asleep ; the very same baby , Tom saw at once , which he had seen in the singing lady 's arms . He went up to it , and wanted to wake it ; but behold , from under the cot out jumped a little black and tan terrier dog , and began barking and snapping at Tom , and would not let him touch the cot . Tom knew the dog 's teeth could not hurt him : but at least it could shove him away , and did ; and he and the dog fought and struggled , for he wanted to help the baby , and did not want to throw the poor dog overboard : but as they were struggling there came a tall green sea , and walked in over the weather side of the ship , and swept them all into the waves . `` Oh , the baby , the baby ! ''
screamed Tom : but the next moment he did not scream XXXXX all ; for he saw the cot settling down through the green water , with the baby , smiling in it , fast asleep ; and he saw the fairies come up from below , and carry baby and cradle gently down in their soft arms ; and then he knew it was all right , and that there would be a new water-baby in St. Brandan 's Isle .
So after at into like on over that under while