“I suppose,” said the Parson, “it must be that wealth, though a temptation to evil, may be used in God’s service, and that it occasionally, though rarely, is so used. ‘Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations.’”
“I think we may as well top our booms,” said the Captain, whose cigar was finished; “the people will be all asleep on board the steamer, and, besides—”
“Besides what?”
“Why we promised to let Marie have the eider down, and Ullitz’s people will be in bed, too. You know we sail at daybreak?”
“O-ho, that’s the business is it? Well, then, call the men together, and see that they leave nothing behind them.”
That was soon done, for nothing had been landed beyond the cooking and dining apparatus, and the boats dashed along the still fjord, leaving behind them three rippling lines of sparkling light, as if the Ljus Alfar were dancing in their wakes.
In little more than an hour they were alongside the steamer, where their whole travelling paraphernalia had been stowed in their respective berths. Of these, the Parson and Birger, tired with their long day’s work, were very shortly the occupants; the Captain, more energetic, collected the ducks, and, accompanied by Tom and Torkel, landed at the wharf; but what Marie said, on receiving so large an accession to her stores, and what the Captain said to her, and how he contrived to say it, are points upon which history is silent. Certain it is, that when the Parson awoke from his first sleep, which was not till the steamer began to tumble about on the swell outside, the Captain was snoring loudly in the next berth, while the three attendants were equally fast asleep on the cabin deck.
While this book was in the press, the author met with “Lloyd’s Scandinavian Adventures,” in which there is not only a description, but a print of eider duck shooting under sail. It would be presumptuous in him to go against the experience of a sportsman who has resided in these countries for more years than the author has months. Possibly in the north, where the birds are less hunted, they may be less cautious, and may allow a boat to approach them in a breeze. The author can, however, write only from personal experience. The foregoing chapter, so far as the facts are concerned, is merely a transcript from his journal; and as far as his own experience goes, he would say, that the setting in of a breeze sufficient to enable the lightest boat to carry sail, would utterly preclude all chance of success in eider duck hunting.