“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