Jim contrived a little aviary for the bird--if so grand a word could be applied to the wire erection down among the rocks, where the bird could get salt-baths at high water, and fish in the pools left by the retiring tide--by the side of which Pat spent hours every day teaching the gull to come and take food from his hands, and gradually establishing a freemasonry between them, which developed at last into a real friendship, so that the little boy could go fearlessly into the cage at the wider and taller end against the house, and call the gull to perch upon his knee, and take bits of fish even from between his lips, and take any liberties he chose with his captive without fear of a rebuff. This new pastime was a source of immense pleasure to the little boy through the long dreary days of winter. He never felt dull in his strange home; and with Jim to talk to, the lamp to watch, and his bird to teach and tame, the days flew by all too fast, and he could scarcely believe when Christmas was actually upon them. It was a queer Christmas, spent amongst the sounds and sights of the Lone Rock, with the wild waves lashing the walls of his home, and the moaning of the wind for the only music. But Pat was growing used to the life, and did not call it queer now. It seemed far stranger to think of going back to the crowded court, where they never saw or heard the sea, and where even the sky and the air seemed quite different. [Illustration: "At last, on the third day, it began to feed from his hand."--_Page 79._] But it was interesting to explain to Jim about Christmas Day being Jesus's birthday; and the child discovered to his great satisfaction and surprise that it was Jim's own birthday, too. He had been born on Christmas Day, just as Pat had been born on Patrick's Day, to the great satisfaction of his Irish mother; and so the festival of Christmas was kept as brightly as it was possible, and neither Nat nor his wife could fail to remark how changed in many ways Jim was from what he had been in the spring, when first they had come to the rock. "I believe it's the love of the Lord coming into his heart that's doing it," said Nat, as he sat over the fire with his Bible, when Pat had gone to bed, and Jim was up aloft. "He took first to the child, and the child has led him to the Lord. It's often the way with us poor frail human creatures. We seem as though we must have some human hand to lead us, though the Lord is holding out His wounded hand all the while, and bidding us take that. It's wonderful true those words of His about the babes and sucklings. It seems to me that the heart of a little child is coming in place of the hard heart Jim seemed to have before. May be the Lord has a work for him to do yet. It may be we were sent here partly for him. One never knows where the work will meet one in the vineyard; but we must try to be ready for it when it comes." [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER V _A TERRIBLE NIGHT_