“I should rather call it the ‘Skerry of Shrieks,’” said Harry; “for in all my living days I have never heard a finer assortment of varied yells than I heard here last night. It must be a jolly place in summer, when the nights are light and the weather comfortable.”
“It ain’t bad fer such as like it,” was Grim’s non-committal reply.
“And do you know,” Magnus put in eagerly, “during the early fall the island is quite covered with eider-ducks’ nests, so that you can hardly move your feet without stepping into them. All those little round depressions up on the slope there are such nests; and thousands of dollars have been made here in times past by gathering the down with which the eider-duck lines her nest; and it is even possible during the brooding season to catch the bird alive and pull the down from her breast; though I think that would be cruel, as she probably needs all she has left after having picked herself for the benefit of her young.”
“The eider-duck must be very tame,” Harry observed.
“Yes, it is very tame, indeed, because people rarely molest it,” said Magnus; “the peasants have a kind of superstitious respect for it, and they won’t allow anyone to kill it. It is very much the same kind of feeling as they have for the swallow. They think a misfortune will befall him who robs or pulls down a swallow’s nest.”
Several boats were by this time within hailing distance, and they were easily persuaded to run up and take the shipwrecked company on board. They insisted, however, upon drawing their nets before returning, and thus it happened that it was nearly noon before the party set foot on shore. They now learned that a great many boats besides their own had been wrecked during yesterday’s storm, and that some fifty or sixty men had been drowned. Many dead bodies were washed ashore during the day, and some were even drawn up in the nets and sent home to their sorrowing widows. Sad, indeed, was the sight of the little fleet of boats which sailed southward that afternoon, each with a tarred pine box showing above its gunwales. The three boys, although they would scarcely have admitted that the disaster had discouraged them, concluded, after a short consultation, that the experience they had already had of the fisheries was an instructive one and would probably last them for the remainder of their lives. They therefore, without much regret, induced Grim to hoist the sails and pilot them safely home.