1
IT was winter.
The leaves were gone from the trees and the flowers from the hedge. The birds too were gone, that is to say the more important ones; they had all departed for the South.
But some, of course, had remained behind.
There was the everlasting sparrow, for instance, and the nimble little titmouse, besides the crow and the raven, who looked twice as black and hungry against the snow. There were also a few birds who preferred to take the rough with the smooth rather than travel so far afield.
Down on the beach there was more life than in summer.
There were the gulls who plunged about, in great flocks, wherever a hole had been made in the ice. And there were the wild-duck, who swam in the open water and quacked and dived and flew up whenever a shot was heard from the fishermen’s guns.
“What a crowd!” said the sparrow.
“They come from the North,” said the gull. “From Norway and the Faroe Islands, where it is a hundred times colder than here. As soon as there is the least bit of a change in the temperature, they fly back again. Do you know those two who are coming this way over the ice?”
“How should I know them?” said the sparrow. “I was born last summer and I only wish I were back in the nest!”
“They are eider-ducks,” said the gull. “Look, there’s one more coming.”
So there was. And he was a very handsome bird. He had a green neck, a white throat and a white breast, with a pink sheen on it, and lovely yellow legs.
“That is the drake,” said the gull. “The other two are females and not so smart, although they don’t look bad either.”
The three eider-ducks had now come so near that the sparrow and the gull could hear what they were talking about.
“Dear lady,” said the drake, “I cannot understand why you stay on the ice. Do come to the open water and let us all enjoy ourselves.”
“I must stay with my niece,” said the elder eider-duck. “She is my sister’s child.”
“And why should not Miss Eider-Duck come too?” said the drake. “In the summer, she was the gayest of us all in the Faroes.”
“That was then,” said Miss Eider-Duck. “But now I have begun to think of other and more serious things.”
The drake tried just a little longer to persuade them, but to no purpose. Then he flew back across the ice.
“Are there no cliffs here, auntie?” asked the young eider-duck. “I am dying to get married and to build a nest.”
“If I may venture to make a remark,” said the sparrow, “I should say that it is still a little too cold. And there are no cliffs in this country.”
“But you can brood in the sand,” said the gull.
“Thank you for the information, my good women,” said Aunt Eider-Duck. “But it is only a fancy of my niece’s. She is three years old now and marriageable.”
“Lord!” said the sparrow. “I was born last summer and, if it was only a little warmer, I could get married at once.”
“It’s easier for one than for another,” said the aunt.
“Let us fly home to the Faroes and get married, auntie,” said the young duck.
“In a month’s time, my child,” said auntie. “But I must decline the honour for myself. I have now been married seven times and have had enough of it. Still, I will gladly chat about it with you. That is so awfully interesting.”
“The trees will not be green yet in a month,” said the sparrow. “This is only January.”
“We have no trees in the Faroes, my girl,” said auntie, “and we don’t want them either.”
“Has the young lady a sweetheart?” asked the gull.
“Not yet,” said auntie. “But he’ll come. You can get sweethearts for the asking. She has spent her three years dancing on the sea and having a good time. One must see a little life first.”
“If only she hits upon the right one,” said the gull.
“All men are alike, my good woman,” said auntie. “They court you and marry you and, perhaps, just lend a hand with the nest and then they go off and leave the rest to us.”
“I can’t say that I agree with you, ma’am,” said the gull. “My husband has always helped me faithfully.”
“And I got lots of flies from my father when I was in the nest,” said the sparrow.
“Then you were luckier than we,” said auntie. “Not one of my seven husbands so much as saw his young ones.”
“Lord!” said the sparrow.
“Shall we be going home to the Faroes soon?” asked Miss Eider-Duck.
“Dear, dear, how interesting youth is!” said auntie and flapped her wings.
Then they flew into the water; but, the next day, they came again and this happened every day until well into February. The young eider-duck’s longing for home grew ever greater and her aunt never tired of talking to her about it.
“Now it’s coming, now it’s coming!” said she. “It’s getting almost too hot here to bear.”
“I don’t think so,” said the sparrow, shivering and longing for the spring.
One day, a charming young eider-drake came and sat beside the two ladies on the ice.
“If he proposes to you, accept him,” whispered auntie. “He has the greenest neck I’ve seen for many a year.”
“If only he would!” said the young girl.
And he did.
After sitting for a while and talking of indifferent things, as long as etiquette required—and etiquette does not demand half as much of eider-duck as it does of men—he asked the young lady if she would be his wife. He went on to talk of birds’-nests and cliffs and dear little eggs and so on, but she stopped him:
“Yes,” she said; and so they were engaged.
He was awfully eloquent and swore to be faithful to her all his life and to build a nest for her and to sit on the eggs for her and to feed the children from morn till night. She nodded and could not speak for sheer happiness.
“Every word that he says is a lie,” said auntie. “But, lord, how charming it is!”
“It’s terrible!” said the sparrow and the gull. “Such a dear young lady!”
“Fiddle!” said auntie. “We all have to go through it. My seven husbands all said the same and not one of them kept his promise. But they were charming, for all that. Only they had not such green necks as this one. He’s splendid. I could fall in love with him myself.”
“When do we start?” asked Miss Eider-Duck.
“To-morrow early, my darling, if the wind is fair,” said her beau.
“I’ll go with you,” said auntie. “In the first place, it’s more proper. And then it’s so charming to see young people so happy.”
They started the next morning.
It was not yet light when the birds began their passage. Thousands of eider-duck flew along in successive flocks, while thousands more came up from every side. The gull and the sparrow woke up when they heard the screaming and singing in the air.
“Fancy going north in weather like this!” said the sparrow, shivering. “Why, it’s colder than ever!”
“There’s spring in the air when one’s in love,” said the gull.