“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?”