This being a too irregular proceeding, Sunny’s mamma proposed a medium course, namely, that Eddie should inform his papa that there was a bird supposed to be a wild duck, and then he might do as he thought best about shooting it.
Maurice and Eddie were accordingly off like lightning; three of Maurice’s worms which had taken the opportunity of crawling out of his pocket and on to the tray, being soon afterward found leisurely walking over the bread and butter plate. Franky and Austin Thomas took the excitement calmly, the one thinking it a good chance of eating up his brothers’ rejected shares, and the other proceeding unnoticed to his favourite occupation of filling the salt-cellar with sand from the walk.
Soon Donald, who had also seen the bird, appeared, with his master’s gun all ready, and the master, having got into his clothes in preternaturally quick time, hurried down to the loch, his boys accompanying him. Four persons, two big and two little, after one unfortunate bird! which still kept swimming about, a tiny black dot on the clear water, as happy and unconscious as possible.
The ladies, too, soon came out and watched the sport from the terrace; wondering whether the duck was within range of the gun, and whether it really was a wild duck, or not. A shot, heard from behind the trees, deepened the interest; and when, a minute after, a boat containing Maurice, Eddie, their papa, and Donald, was seen to pull off from the pier, the excitement was so great that nobody thought about breakfast.
“It must be a wild duck; they have shot it; it will be floating on the water, and they are going after it in the boat.”
“I hope Eddie will not tumble into the water, in his eagerness to pull the bird out.”
“There,—the gun is in the boat with them! Suppose Maurice stumbles over it, and it goes off and shoots somebody!”
Such were the maternal forebodings, but nothing of the sort happened, and by and by, when breakfast was getting exceedingly cold, a little procession, all unharmed, was seen to wind up from the loch, Eddie and Maurice on either side of their papa.
He walked between them, shouldering his gun, so that, loaded or not, it could not possibly hurt his little boys. But he looked extremely dejected, and so did Donald, who followed, bearing “the body”—of a poor little dripping, forlorn-looking bird.
“Is that the wild duck?” asked everybody at once.