For miles about, the little sleigh explored the country: main-road, worn smooth by countless farmer-sleighs; by-roads, through which the pony had to wallow belly-deep, making a new track. Not the mere pleasure of driving lured them out—that amounted to little after the week of novelty—but something of the spirit of exploration was in it. Duke always accompanied them, plunging powerfully through the deepest drifts, exulting in the snow, rolling in it, frisking in it in all directions, racing down the road and back, glad to be alive and warm this freezing weather. One day in a patch of woods he came to an abrupt halt. The boys, watching, saw his eye fixed, his upper lip snarl back the least in the world, his tail stiffen except at its quivering tip, his whole body lengthen and half-crouch and turn rigid. And as the sleigh wallowed near him, suddenly, with an immense scattering of snow and a startling roar, an old cock-partridge burst from beneath the surface of the snow and hurtled away through the frozen trees.
Some days when the wind blew keen and sharp as knives across the broad reaches, it was almost impossible for the boys to keep warm. The heated soap-stone wrapped up at their feet, the warm buffalo robes under and over them, their thick overcoats and fur caps alike proved inadequate. Then one took his turn at driving, while the other crouched entirely covered beneath the robes. The wind drove the hard, sparse flakes from the low leaden sky like so many needles against the driver's face, filling his eyes with tears, causing his skin to glow and smart. Even in this was a certain joy and adventure. But again the sun would shine, the bells jingle louder in the clarified air. Probably, however, the boys liked best of all the warm, still snowstorms, when all the world was muffled in the shoes of silence; when nature held her finger on hushed lips; when deliberately, without haste the great white flakes zigzagged down from the soft gray above, obscuring and softening the landscape, rendering dear and mysterious the commonest things. Then sounds came, subdued as in a sanctuary, and people approaching showed portentous as through a mist, and the boys, looking upward, caught big wet flakes on their lashes as they tried in vain to determine the point at which the snowflakes became visible. There existed no such point. The snowflakes did not approach as other things approach, beginning small with distance, and becoming larger as they neared. They flashed into sight full-grown. It was as though they had fallen wrapped in invisibility until the great Magician had uttered the word. That was Bobby's secret thought, which he told nobody. Often he imagined he could hear the word repeated all about him, presto! presto! presto! presto! like the distant hushed falling of waters. And as the charm was said, he, looking skyward, could see the big soft flakes flash into view out of nothing.
XXII
THE MURDER
So successful did the friendship between the two boys turn out to be that next autumn Johnny English was invited to visit the Ordes at Monrovia. He accepted very promptly, and, as the distance was short, brought with him the cart and pony. The country around Monrovia was very interesting to them. Riverland, marshland, swampland, shore and meadow, all offered themselves in the most diversified forms. The sandy roads wound over the hills, down the ravines, along the corduroys and float-bridges. Life was varied. The boys, armed with their Flobert rifle, wandered far afield.
They did not get very much, it is true, but they popped away steadily, and did a grand amount of sneaking and looking. And they managed first and last to see a great deal. In the snipe marshes they knew when the first flight dropped in—and murdered a killdeer as he stood. Out in the sloughs they marked the earnest red-heads from the north—and accomplished two mud-hens, a ruddy duck, and a dozen blackbirds. In the uplands they knew almost to a feather how many partridge each thicket had bred; to a covey where the quail used; and once in a great while, by strategy on their own side and foolishness on the part of the quarry, they caught one sitting and brought it down. What is quite as much to the point, they felt the season as it changed. The gradual transformation from the green of summer to the brown and lilac of late autumn, the low swinging of the sun, the mellowing of the days, the broad-hung curtain of sweet smoke-breeze, the hushing of the vital forces of the world in anticipation of winter—all these passed near them and, passing, touched their eyes. They were too busy to notice such things consciously, however. The influence sank deep and became part of the permanent background against which their lives were to be thrown.
At first some doubt was expressed as to the wisdom of that Flobert rifle. To turn two small boys loose with a deadly weapon seemed to Mrs. Orde a rather strong temptation of Providence. Mr. Kincaid spoke for them. In the end it was decided, though with many misgivings and more admonitions.
"Keep the muzzle pointed up; never get excited; never shoot at anything unless you know what it is," was Mr. Kincaid's summing up.
These three precepts were so constantly impressed that to the boys their practice ended by becoming second nature.