4
One day, the husband came and sat down by the nest. He looked very spruce with his green neck and his bright eyes.
“Well, how are you getting on?” he asked.
“I despise you,” she said. “Go away and never show your face to me again. You coaxed me with your fair promises and not one of them have you kept. I have had to pluck all the down I wanted from my own breast. I’ve been sitting here alone, day after day, while you’ve been amusing yourself with all those revellers on the beach. You haven’t brought me a bite of food.”
“Tush!” he said, scratching in the sand with his fine, yellow feet. “I shall be pleased to bring you a small mussel from time to time, if that gives you any satisfaction. But, for goodness’ sake, don’t be so formal! Do you really imagine that men weigh their words when they’re engaged?”
“Get out of this!” she screamed. “I don’t want my children to see their unnatural father.”
“Oh, as for that, I wouldn’t give a straw to see that callow brood,” he replied. “And, upon my word, you’re no beauty yourself! You’re so lean and full of bald spots. You’re very different from the pretty girl I fell in love with.”
She was about to fly up out of the nest and give him one for himself; but she lay as though rooted to the floor and stared at a man who put his head over the edge of the cliff. Her husband flew away with a loud scream and auntie did the same. But the man hardly gave them a glance. He scrambled up the rock and set down a great basket, which he carried, beside the nest.
“What a fine nest!” he said. “There’s down enough here to stuff a little pillow with.”
“What do you want?” asked the eider-duck.
“I shan’t hurt you,” said the man. “It would be silly of me to do you any harm; why, I put the box here for you myself. I only want the down that’s in your nest.”
“Never!” cried the bird, spreading out her wings and holding on to the nest as fast as she could. “What should I do with my children?”
“Why, pluck some more down from your pretty breast, my dear,” said the man, kindly. “Now stand aside and let me get by, without any nonsense. After all, I’m the stronger of the two and the nest belongs to me.”
But the young eider-duck did not stir from her place. She pecked at his hands with her beak and cried:
“Go down to the beach and catch my husband and my old aunt! Kill them, if you like, and take all their down. It’s only what they deserve. But you must let my down be!”
“Stuff, my pet!” said the man. “The best down is what a mother plucks from her breast. We all know that. And, if your children have to do without, it will come in useful for other children, dainty little human children, whose parents can afford to buy the softest little pillows for them.”
“At least, wait until my children are ready!” cried the eider-duck in despair.
“A nice thing!” said the man. “What, let you lie there and spoil the down? Come, clear out!”
He pushed her aside, took all the down, put it in his basket and went away, saying:
“Pluck some more feathers if you want them for your young. That’s what a good mother always does.”
Then she went to the edge of the rock and looked out.
The eider-duck were disporting themselves gloriously. She could distinctly see her husband and her aunt diving and amusing themselves as though life were a sheer enjoyment. And all the others were doing the same: not one of them thought that there was a man up above emptying all the nests of their precious down.
“Come up here and pluck your breast!” she screamed. “Now is the time to keep some of your promises. Your eggs are lying bare and cold, while you are enjoying yourself down there, you wretch!”
But her voice died away in the noise of the wind and surf. No one heard her cries or beheld her despair. She remembered that the eggs were really getting cold, while she stood there, and she hurried back to the nest.
One of the eggs began to burst and soon a tiny beak peeped out of the hole in the shell. She now flew to help the little chap out. She stood gazing at him for a moment and saw what a darling he was. And then, like a mad thing, she began to pluck the last remaining feathers from her breast and every part of her and laid them round the little fellow. She ceased complaining and thought only of how she could make her children warm and comfortable.