“But it is, I tell you.”
“No, sir; I’ve heard it before. It is only echoed from the hard, flat surface. Hah! what a number we might shoot if we wanted them!”
“What do you mean?”
“Wild fowl, sir. They’re not geese, or they would make a clanging noise. They must be ducks.”
“Ducks?” cried Steve, staring upwards and seeing nothing.
“Yes, sir. Another sign of the cold weather. They’re all banded together in one great flight, and are going south to the marshes of North Russia, where they’ll stay till it begins to freeze there, and then go farther south.”
“But are you sure? Oh, they wouldn’t take flight in the dark!”
“Sure, sir? Listen to the whistling of their wings, hundreds and thousands of them flying over as fast as they can go. Yes, they always fly in the night when they’re going from here south, and I believe birds come north in the same way, following after the frost as it is driven north. I’ve noticed it at home near Nordoe. To-day there would be no birds at all in the spring; next day there would be hundreds of them flying about. They must have come in the night.”
Steve had not a word to say, but stood there silent, listening to the whirring of the thousands of wings which echoed from the ice and the sides of the fiord, sounding so close that he felt disposed to stretch out his hand and try to touch that which seemed to be within reach. Then he began to wonder how many thousands there would be, and where they had come from; and then how it was that this plain, homely Norwegian should know so much better than he, and show that he had passed his life picking up knowledge peculiar to his surroundings, so that he was able to teach those around him again and again.
“Isn’t there going to be any end of them?” said the boy at last; for the peculiar whirring had been going on for quite half an hour.