Leather smiled faintly.
“They are very quiet, like most birds in the heat of the day, and are sitting up among the leaves, huddled up and with their feathers all loose, so that you don’t see the bright underpart, and their backs and sides are all green like the leaves. It wants practice to see them.”
“When is the best time, then?”
“Early in the morning, when it is cool and fresh, and they are just off to feed. You hear them whistling and shrieking to each other then.”
“But do you think you could show me one now?”
“I’ll try if you like, sir,” said Leather quietly. “One of the blacks would soon show you, but my eyes are not so well trained as theirs.”
The man led on, and Nic followed on tiptoe, thinking of how different he was, and wondering why so strong a feeling of dislike to him had sprung up: why, too, a man of bad character and a convict should be able to speak so well and take so much interest in the things about him.
“You need not walk so carefully, sir,” he said; “and you can talk. The birds will not fly off. They trust to their colours keeping them hidden. These sheep look well, sir.”
“Yes,” replied Nic, without glancing at the white-fleeced creatures feeding about, for he was thinking of the scene of the day before and felt afraid that Leather would allude to it.
But he did not, for he seemed disposed to talk quietly and respectfully of the different things about them as they went on through the openly wooded region for about a mile.