Slim and in a childish way slightly awkward in movements, he went hand in hand with the man continually throwing up his head to glance at his companion and talking something in a clear voice with lively boyish intonations. His big brown eyes were sparkling, and his auburn hair was showing from under his knitted cap giving his lovely face a bit mischievous yet serious expression — that of an experienced traveller.
The boy's companion was a burly man with green eyes and dark hair. He had recently reached the age of John Bonham — the unexcelled genius of drum-craft who passed away in a desolate cottage in 1980 being thirty-one years old and was now the subject of a conversation between the two.
'Was John Bonham born by a mummy, like me?' the boy asked.
'Of course, kiddy.'
'And Robert Plant too?'
'And Robert Plant too.'
'And Jimmie Page too?'
'And Jimmie Page too, and John Paul Jones too. All the people are born by their mothers. So don't ask all the same about each.'
'I see,' said the boy, customarily throwing up his head and giving the man a look of his brown eyes. 'Do you know why I like him? Because I like the way he plays drums… Oh, let's go here!' he shouted when they got to the very brink of a steep ravine, and pointed downwards, at a lazily flowing brook.
'Why here?' the man asked.
'Cause I want,' the boy responded, in a-matter-of-course way, but not capriciously — just trying to explain the reason of his choice.
They cautiously descended the steep slope and stopped by the babbling flow for a minute. Then the boy pointed upwards, at the opposite brink of the ravine:
'Let's go there.'
Now they had to surmount an almost vertical ascent. Having clasped the boy's hand tight the man began to scramble up the slope, with his free hand clinging to stones and stems of trees and tall grass. Soon they stood on a path which stretched along between the brink of the ravine and a dense wall of young pine trees. The boy went to the right; having covered about thirty yards he stopped and looked back at the man who was after him.
The place where the boy lingered occurred to be a tiny glade of regular octangular form. Pines surrounding it restrained gusts of cold wind and filled the space with calming murmur, and their spreading crowns formed a kind of an almost impenetrable vault.
'Daddy, look what I've found!' the boy shouted not taking his eyes off the man who was approaching him.
'"Well, what have you found?' the man asked with a smile on his face.
"Daddy, that'll be our castle and we shall live here,' the boy declared standing in the middle of the glade. 'You know, Daddy, I've been looking for a place like this for such a long time. I say, that'll ekzactly be our castle.'