"He's our sheep-dog, and Jonas is the shepherd," replied Gratian.
"They're sometimes alone with the sheep for days and days--out on the
moors. It's so strange--I've been with them sometimes--it's like another
world--to see the moors all round, ever so far, like the sea, I
suppose--only I've never seen the sea--and not a creature anywhere,
except some wild birds sometimes."
"Stop," said Fergus, closing his eyes; "yes, I can see it now. Go on,
Gratian--is the sky gray, or blue with little white clouds?"
"Gray just now," said the boy, "and there's no wind that you can feel
blowing. But it's coming--you know it's coming--now and then Watch
pricks up his ears, for he can tell it much farther off than we can, and
old Jonas pats him a little. Jonas has an old blue round cap--a
shepherd's cap--and his face is browny-red, but his hair is nearly
white, and his eyes are very blue. Can you see him, Fergus? And the
sheep keep on browsing--they make a little scrumping noise when you are
quite, quite close to them. And just before the wind really comes a
great bird gives a cry--up, very high up--and it swoops down for a
moment and then goes up again, till it looks just a little black speck
against the sky. And all the time you know the wind is coming. Can you
see it all, Fergus?"
"All," said the boy; "it's beautiful. You must tell me pictures often,
Gratian, till I can go out again. I never had any one who could make
them come so, except mother's music--they come with that. Haven't you
noticed that they come with music?"
"I don't know," said Gratian. "I've never seen any real
pictures--painted ones in big gold frames."
"There are some here," said Fergus; "not very many, but some. I like a
few of them--perhaps you will too. But I like the pictures that come and
go in one's fancy best. That's the kind that mother's music brings me."
"Yes," said Gratian, his eyes sparkling, "I understand."
"I was sure you would," said Fergus, with a tiny touch of patronising in
his tone, which Gratian was too entirely single-minded to see, or rather
perhaps to object to if he did see it. "I knew the minute I saw you,
you'd suit me. I'm very glad that other fellow didn't come instead of
you. But, by the bye, you haven't told me about that--mother said you'd
tell me."
Gratian related the story of his satchel of stones. Fergus was boy
enough to laugh a little, though he called it a mean trick; but when
Gratian told of having found his books again, he looked puzzled.
"How could you find them?" he asked. "It was nearly dark, didn't you
say?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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