"Very likely not, but he is so ungainly and queer," said the biter, "he must be whacked."
"They are handsome children mother has," said the old duck with the rag round her leg; "all good looking except this one, and he is not a good specimen; it"s a pity you can"t make him over again."
"That can"t be done, your grace," said the mother duck; "he is not handsome, but he is a thorough good creature, and he swims as beautifully as any of the others; nay, I think I might venture even to add that I think he will improve as he goes on, or perhaps in time he may grow smaller! he was too long in the egg, and so he has not come out with a very good figure." And then she patted his neck and stroked him down. "Besides, he is a drake," said she; "so it does not matter so much. I believe he will be very strong, and I don"t doubt but he will make his way in the world."
"The other ducklings are very pretty," said the old duck. "Now make yourselves quite at home, and if you find the head of an eel you may bring it to me!"
After that they felt quite at home. But the poor duckling which had been the last to come out of the sh.e.l.l, and who was so ugly, was bitten, pushed about, and made fun of both by the ducks and the hens.
"He is too big," they all said; and the turkey-c.o.c.k, who was born with his spurs on, and therefore thought himself quite an emperor, puffed himself up like a vessel in full sail, made for him, and gobbled and gobbled till he became quite red in the face. The poor duckling was at his wit"s end, and did not know which way to turn; he was in despair because he was so ugly and the b.u.t.t of the whole duckyard.
So the first day pa.s.sed, and afterwards matters grew worse and worse.
The poor duckling was chased and hustled by all of them; even his brothers and sisters ill-used him, and they were always saying, "If only the cat would get hold of you, you hideous object!" Even his mother said, "I wish to goodness you were miles away." The ducks bit him, the hens pecked him, and the girl who fed them kicked him aside.
Then he ran off and flew right over the hedge, where the little birds flew up into the air in a fright.
"That is because I am so ugly," thought the poor duckling, shutting his eyes, but he ran on all the same. Then he came to a great marsh where the wild ducks lived; he was so tired and miserable that he stayed there the whole night.
In the morning the wild ducks flew up to inspect their new comrade.
"What sort of a creature are you?" they inquired, as the duckling turned from side to side and greeted them as well as he could. "You are frightfully ugly," said the wild ducks; "but that does not matter to us, so long as you do not marry into our family!" Poor fellow! he had no thought of marriage; all he wanted was permission to lie among the rushes, and to drink a little of the marsh water.
He stayed there two whole days; then two wild geese came, or, rather, two wild ganders; they were not long out of the sh.e.l.l, and therefore rather pert.
"I say, comrade," they said, "you are so ugly that we have taken quite a fancy to you; will you join us and be a bird of pa.s.sage? There is another marsh close by, and there are some charming wild geese there; all sweet young ladies, who can say quack! You are ugly enough to make your fortune among them." Just at that moment, bang! bang! was heard up above, and both the wild geese fell dead among the reeds, and the water turned blood red. Bang! bang! went the guns, and whole flocks of wild geese flew up from the rushes and the shot peppered among them again.
There was a grand shooting-party, and the sportsmen lay hidden round the marsh; some even sat on the branches of the trees which overhung the water; the blue smoke rose like clouds among the dark trees and swept over the pool.
The water-dogs wandered about in the swamp--splash! splash! The rushes and reeds bent beneath their tread on all sides. It was terribly alarming to the poor duckling. He twisted his head round to get it under his wing, and just at that moment a frightful big dog appeared close beside him; his tongue hung right out of his mouth and his eyes glared wickedly. He opened his great chasm of a mouth close to the duckling, showed his sharp teeth, and--splash!--went on without touching him.
"Oh, thank Heaven!" sighed the duckling, "I am so ugly that even the dog won"t bite me!"
Then he lay quite still while the shot whistled among the bushes, and bang after bang rent the air. It only became quiet late in the day, but even then the poor duckling did not dare to get up; he waited several hours more before he looked about, and then he hurried away from the marsh as fast as he could. He ran across fields and meadows, and there was such a wind that he had hard work to make his way.
Towards night he reached a poor little cottage; it was such a miserable hovel that it could not make up its mind which way to fall even, and so it remained standing. The wind whistled so fiercely round the duckling that he had to sit on his tail to resist it, and it blew harder and harder; then he saw that the door had fallen off one hinge and hung so crookedly that he could creep into the house through the crack, and by this means he made his way into the room. An old woman lived there with her cat and her hen. The cat, which she called "Sonnie," could arch his back, purr, and give off electric sparks--that is to say, if you stroked his fur the wrong way. The hen had quite tiny short legs, and so she was called "Chuckie-low-legs."
She laid good eggs, and the old woman was as fond of her as if she had been her own child.
In the morning the strange duckling was discovered immediately, and the cat began to purr and the hen to cluck.
"What on earth is that!" said the old woman, looking round; but her sight was not good, and she thought the duckling was a fat duck which had escaped. "This is a capital find," said she; "now I shall have duck"s eggs if only it is not a drake. We must find out about that!"
So she took the duckling on trial for three weeks, but no eggs made their appearance. The cat was the master of the house and the hen the mistress, and they always spoke of "we and the world," for they thought that they represented the half of the world, and that quite the better half.
The duckling thought there might be two opinions on the subject, but the cat would not hear of it.
"Can you lay eggs?" she asked.
"No!"
"Will you have the goodness to hold your tongue, then!"
And the cat said, "Can you arch your back, purr, or give off sparks?"
"No."
"Then you had better keep your opinions to yourself when people of sense are speaking!"
The duckling sat in the corner nursing his ill-humor; then he began to think of the fresh air and the sunshine, an uncontrollable longing seized him to float on the water, and at last he could not help telling the hen about it.
"What on earth possesses you?" she asked. "You have nothing to do; that is why you get these freaks into your head. Lay some eggs or take to purring, and you will get over it."
"But it is so delicious to float, on the water," said the duckling; "so delicious to feel it rushing over your head when you dive to the bottom."
"That would be a fine amus.e.m.e.nt," said the hen. "I think you have gone mad. Ask the cat about it, he is the wisest creature I know; ask him if he is fond of floating on the water or diving under it. I say nothing about myself. Ask our mistress yourself, the old woman; there is no one in the world cleverer than she is. Do you suppose she has any desire to float on the water or to duck underneath it?"
"You do not understand me," said the duckling.
"Well, if we don"t understand you, who should? I suppose you don"t consider yourself cleverer than the cat or the old woman, not to mention me. Don"t make a fool of yourself, child, and thank your stars for all the good we have done you! Have you not lived in this warm room, and in such society that you might have learned something? But you are an idiot, and there is no pleasure in a.s.sociating with you.
You may believe me I mean you well, I tell you home truths, and there is no surer way than that of knowing who are one"s friends. You just see about laying some eggs, or learn to purr, or to emit sparks."
"I think I will go out into the wide world," said the duckling.
"Oh, do so by all means!" said the hen.
So away went the duckling; he floated on the water and ducked underneath it, but he was looked askance at by every living creature for his ugliness. Now the autumn came on, the leaves in the woods turned yellow and brown; the wind took hold of them, and they danced about. The sky looked very cold, and the clouds hung heavy with snow and hail. A raven stood on the fence and croaked Caw! Caw! from sheer cold; it made one shiver only to think of it. The poor duckling certainly was in a bad case.
One evening the sun was just setting in wintry splendor when a flock of beautiful large birds appeared out of the bushes. The duckling had never seen anything so beautiful. They were dazzlingly white with long waving necks; they were swans; and, uttering a peculiar cry, they spread out their magnificent broad wings, and flew away from the cold regions to warmer lands and open seas. They mounted so high, so very high, and the ugly little duckling became strangely uneasy; he circled round and round in the water like a wheel, craning his neck up into the air after them. Then he uttered a shriek so piercing and so strange that he was quite frightened by it himself. Oh, he could not forget those beautiful birds, those happy birds! And as soon as they were out of sight he ducked right down to the bottom, and when he came up again he was quite beside himself. He did not know what the birds were or whither they flew, but all the same he was more drawn towards them than he had ever been by any creatures before. He did not even envy them in the least. How could it occur to him even to wish to be such a marvel of beauty; he would have been thankful if only the ducks would have tolerated him among them--the poor ugly creature!
The winter was so bitterly cold that the duckling was obliged to swim about in the water to keep it from freezing, but every night the hole in which he swam got smaller and smaller. Then it froze so hard that the surface ice cracked, and the duckling had to use his legs all the time, so that the ice should not close in round him; at last he was so weary that he could move no more, and he was frozen fast into the ice.
Early in the morning a peasant came along and saw him; he went out onto the ice and hammered a hole in it with his heavy wooden shoe, and carried the duckling home to his wife. There it soon revived. The children wanted to play with it, but the duckling thought they were going to ill-use him, and rushed in his fright into the milk pan, and the milk spurted out all over the room. The woman shrieked and threw up her hands; then it flew into the b.u.t.ter cask, and down into the meal tub and out again. Just imagine what it looked like by this time!
The woman screamed and tried to hit it with the tongs, and the children tumbled over one another in trying to catch it, and they screamed with laughter. By good luck the door stood open, and the duckling flew out among the bushes and the new fallen snow, and it lay there thoroughly exhausted.
But it would be too sad to mention all the privation and misery it had to go through during that hard winter. When the sun began to shine warmly again the duckling was in the marsh, lying among the rushes; the larks were singing, and the beautiful spring had come.
Then all at once it raised its wings, and they flapped with much greater strength than before and bore him off vigorously. Before he knew where he was he found himself in a large garden where the apple-trees were in a full blossom, and the air was scented with lilacs, the long branches of which overhung the indented sh.o.r.es of the lake. Oh! the spring freshness was so delicious!
Just in front of him he saw three beautiful white swans advancing towards him from a thicket; with rustling feathers they swam lightly over the water. The duckling recognized the majestic birds, and he was overcome by a strange melancholy.
"I will fly to them, the royal birds, and they will hack me to pieces, because I, who am so ugly, venture to approach them! But it won"t matter; better be killed by them than be snapped at by the ducks, pecked by the hens, or spurned by the henwife, or suffer so much misery in the winter."
So he flew into the water, and swam towards the stately swans; they saw him, and darted towards him with ruffled feathers.
"Kill me, oh, kill me!" said the poor creature, and bowing his head towards the water he awaited his death. But what did he see reflected in the transparent water?
He saw below him his own image; but he was no longer a clumsy, dark, gray bird, ugly and ungainly. He was himself a swan! It does not matter in the least having been born in a duckyard if only you come out of a swan"s egg!
He felt quite glad of all the misery and tribulation he had gone through; he was the better able to appreciate his good-fortune now, and all the beauty which greeted him. The big swans swam round and round him, and stroked him with their bills.