5
Two days later, all the five young ones were out.
The young mother saw with pride how smart they were. Already, they stretched out their feet, which had a delicate web between the toes, yawned, lifted their little wings and even quacked a bit.
“You must go to the beach at once,” she said. “I am sure that there are no prettier children on the whole rock. But, should you meet your wretch of a father, mind you look the other way.”
She went down the rock and the five little ones followed so nimbly that it was a joy to see. Half-way down, she met her aunt:
“I was just coming up to see you,” said the old lady. “I say, what darlings your five children are!”
“Aren’t they dears?” said the mother, who forgot all her rage when she heard her aunt’s praises.
“Let me take one of them to walk with,” said auntie.
“Not while I live!” said the mother, severely. “I know too well how flighty you are, auntie. My children are mine and nobody else’s and mine they shall remain.”
At that moment, a shot rang out through the air.
It was a silly shot, fired at random by a silly boy who wanted to show off his father’s gun. But the gun was loaded and the shot spread and Mother Eider-Duck sank to the ground with a scream.
“My young ones! My young ones!” she moaned.
“They’re all right, all five of them,” said auntie. “Be easy. But what’s the matter?”
“I’m dying,” said the mother. “I am full of shot. I know for certain that I’m dying. Oh, my children, my children!”
“Never mind about them,” said auntie. “I shall be a mother to them in your stead and look after them as if they were my own.”
“Oh, auntie,” said the mother, in a feeble voice, “you are so terribly frivolous. I have seen you myself from up there, playing and fooling about with the men and the girls on the beach. How can a mother trust her children to you?”
“What do you mean?” asked auntie. “Surely, it’s quite different when one has children to care for. You just die in peace, do you hear?”
And that is what Mother Eider-Duck did.
She sank into herself and only just had time to take a last look at her children. But her aunt did not even wait till she was quite dead. She forgot everything, except that she had suddenly got five beautiful children, and at once walked off with them to the beach. She knew the nearest way, because she had already been there several times with children. She made the road easy for them and helped them in every possible manner, fondling them with her beak and praising or scolding them according to their deserts.
By the time that their mother had closed her eyes, the children were down on the beach.
They at once swam and dived in a way that was a joy to see. Auntie watched over them and almost burst with pride. An old beau came up and asked her to take a walk with him, but she gave him a smart rap with her beak:
“Don’t you see the children, you old coxcomb?” she said. “Get out of this, or I’ll teach you!”
And she remained with the children until they were able to take care of themselves. She travelled to the South with them, winter after winter, and listened to the men courting them and befooling them, just as their father had done to their mother. She showed them good places for their nests, paid wedding-visits and was honoured and esteemed all over the rock, until, one day, a sea-eagle came and caught her and gobbled her up.
THE END
[FOOTNOTES:]
[1] Danish: Edderkop.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.