It was late afternoon, nearing a gray twilight, when the lord of the flock sent a single trumpet tone ringing through the wetness-a wild and joyous note that stilled all gossip and lifted every head from the gleaning. For the call was the call of the sky lanes, and, as such, an order not to be denied. They were to quit the South and its rice fields on a quest for new pastures and for April. New lakes. Old friends. The sea-wind cleaving through a morning murk. Young grass. The savor of salt marshes. The spacious North.
The flock shifted and wove with eagerness. He had heard April. As he called again they rose; not circling, but slanting steadily toward the high lane of migration, where level, tireless flight would draw the North toward them as to a magnet.
Out of the gathering dusk answered another flock, and a second, swinging in from east and west. The flocks merged without confusion, melting into the flanks of the winged-V, until the pilgrims were some forty in number, driving northward with the Old One. They caught up the measured chant of flight that is passed to and fro along a company, and given to the best throats-so these may fling it onward to the waking stars, and downward to a drowsy world.
It is no chatter of the lesser peoples, but a timed resonance, clear and strong as a bugle; fraught with a meaning to stir the blood of earthlings. And many men, almost as many as have ever been, have pondered words to fit the message, and have sighed and gone their ways, finding but one. The word is freedom.
So chanting, the flock entered night. Save for the winnowing of their wings, the whistle of the chilliness through which they sped, and their own bugling, they moved for the most in a silence vast as the sea and softly dark as leaf loam. They seemed not to win forward, but to poise on a strong gust above the vanished world-for the sky was blind with rain and no stars peered, while the lights of farm and village might not thrust through the storm to twinkle at them, they held their measured distance from the earth, the lawful spacing of the flock neither dwindled grew.
Valiant was aware of his brother at his shoulder, and of the comely young goose at his right flank. His heart was glad with flight, and he timed his call to the Old One's. Thus they chanted, mile-high and hurtling: "Honk! a-honk! honk! honk!"
About this Author
David is the author of many articles including Best Friend Quotes and also the author of Best life quotes
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