Out Stealing Horses Read Online Free PDF

the tiny muffled boom each time a bee hit a flower. I heard the ants crawling in the heather, and the path we followed rose with the hillside; I took deep breaths through my nose and thought that no matter how life should turn out and however far I travelled I would always remember this place as it was just now, and miss it. When I turned round I could see across the valley through a lattice of fir and pine, I saw the river winding and glittering below, I saw the red-tiled roof of Barkald's sawmill further south by the river bank and several small farmsteads on the green patches beside the narrow band of water. I knew the families who lived in them and knew how many people there were in each house, and if I did not see our cottage on the far bank I could point out exactly behind which trees it lay, and I wondered if my father was still asleep, or if he was walking around looking for me and without worrying wondering where I had gone, whether I would come home soon, whether perhaps he should start making breakfast, and I could suddenly feel how hungry I was.
    'Here it is,' Jon said. 'There.' He pointed out a big spruce a little way from the path. We stood still.
    'It's a big one,' I said.
    'It's not that,' Jon said. 'Come.' He walked over to the tree and started to climb. It was not difficult, the lowest branches were strong and long, hung heavily down and were easy to get hold of, and in no time he was several metres up, and I followed. He climbed quickly, but after about ten metres he stopped and sat there waiting until we were at the same height, and there was plenty of room, we could sit side by side each on our thick branch. He pointed to a place further out on the branch he sat on, where it divided into two. A bird's nest hung down from the fork, it was like a deep bowl or almost an ice-cream cone. I had seen many nests but never such a tiny one, so light, so perfectly formed of moss and feathers. And it did not hang. It hovered.
    'It's the goldcrest,' said Jon in a low voice. 'Second brood.' He bent forward, stretched out his hand towards the nest and put three fingers down in the feather-covered opening, then brought up an egg that was so little I could only sit there staring. He balanced the egg in his fingertips and held it towards me so I could look at it closely, and it made me dizzy to see and to think that in just a few weeks this tiny oval would be transformed into a living bird with wings that could take off from the high branches and dive down and yet never hit the ground but with will and instinct shoot upwards and nullify the force of gravity. And I said it aloud:
    'Christ,' I said. 'It's weird that something so little can come alive and just fly away,' and maybe it was not that well put and certainly far less than the rushing, airy feeling I felt inside me. But something happened at that moment that I had no way of understanding, for when I raised my eyes and looked up at Jon's face it was strained and totally white. Whether it was the few words I had uttered, or the egg he was holding, I shall never know, but something made him change so suddenly, and he looked me straight in the eye as if he had never seen me before, and for once he did not squint, and his pupils were big and black. And then he opened his hand and dropped the egg. It fell along the trunk, and I followed it with my eyes and saw it hit one of the branches further down and break and dissolve into little pale fragments that swirled around on all sides, and they fell like snowflakes, almost weightless, and gently drifted away. Or that is the way I remember it, and I could not recall anything ever making me so desperate. I looked up at Jon again, and he had already bent forward, and with one hand he tore the nest free of the split in the branches, held it out at arm's length and crushed it to powder between his fingers only a few centimetres from my eyes. I wanted to say something but could not utter a word. Jon's face was a chalk-white mask