houghts of marriage; all he wanted was permission
to lie among the rushes and drink some of the water on the moor. After
he had been on the moor two days, there came two wild geese, or rather
goslings, for they had not been out of the egg long, which accounts for
their impertinence. "Listen, friend," said one of them to the duckling;
"you are so ugly that we like you very well. Will you go with us and
become a bird of passage? Not far from here is another moor, in which
there are some wild geese, all of them unmarried. It is a chance for you
to get a wife. You may make your fortune, ugly as you are."

"Bang, bang," sounded in the air, and the two wild geese fell dead
among the rushes, and the water was tinged with blood. "Bang, bang,"
echoed far and wide in the distance, and whole flocks of wild geese rose
up from the rushes.

The sound continued from every direction, for the sportsmen surrounded
the moor, and some were even seated on branches of trees, overlooking
the rushes. The blue smoke from the guns rose like clouds over the dark
trees, and as it floated away across the water, a number of sporting
dogs bounded in among the rushes, which bent beneath them wherever they
went. How they terrified the poor duckling! He turned away his head to
hide it under his wing, and at the same moment a large, terrible dog
passed quite near him. His jaws were open, his tongue hung from his
mouth, and his eyes glared fearfully. He thrust his nose close to the
duckling, showing his sharp teeth, and then "splash, splash," he went
into the water, without touching him.

"Oh," sighed the duckling, "how thankful I am for being so ugly; even a
dog will not bite me."

And so he lay quite still, while the shot rattled through the rushes,
and gun after gun was fired over him. It was late in the day before all
became quiet, but even then the poor young thing did not dare to move.
He waited quietly for several hours and then, after looking carefully
around him, hastened away from the moor as fast as he could. He ran over
field and meadow till a storm arose, and he could hardly struggle
against it.

Towards evening he reached a poor little cottage that seemed ready to
fall, and only seemed to remain standing because it could not decide on
which side to fall first. The storm continued so violent that the
duckling could go no farther. He sat down by the cottage, and then he
noticed that the door was not quite closed, in consequence of one of