Percival calls the tune, starts the discussions, constructs the adventures. Rollo follows the lead, leaning on the quicker mind just as he relies on the stronger arm and the speedier foot when they are on their rambles together. It is Rollo who throws the acorn that hits the stout farm boy driving a milk cart beneath them, as they perch in a tree. It is Percival who scrambles down responsive to the insults of the enraged boy, and takes a most fearful battering that the stout boy's stout arms are able to inflict.
"I ought to have fought him," Rollo says half-tearfully, with shamed and shuddering glances at the bloody handkerchief held to the suffering nose, the lumped forehead and the blackened eye. "He said the one that hit him. It was my shot."
Percival, in terrible fury, muffled from behind the handkerchief: "How could you fight him? Dash those great clodhopping arms of his! A mile long! I'll have another go at him, I swear I will."
It is Rollo who cries: "Percival, it will kill us!" when the ram they have annoyed comes with a fourth shattering crash against the boards of the pigsty to which they have fled for safety. It is Percival who cries: "Run, when he sees us!" whips over the palisade, springs across the field, and takes the tail-end of an appalling batter as he hurls himself through the far gate.
"How ever could you dare?" Rollo asks, joining him in the road. "Has he hurt you frightfully?"
"How could you have escaped?" says Percival, limping. "He'd have got you in that sty. I knew I could beat him. Dash the brute, it stings! There's the kind of stick I want! I'll teach him manners!"
It is Rollo who gives an appealing look at Percival when Lord Burdon starts them in a race for sixpence. It is Percival who whispers as they run: "We'll make it a dead heat."
"It was awfully decent of you, Percival," Rollo exclaims, as they go to spend the prize at Mrs. Minnifie's sweet shop.
"Oh, it's rotten beating one another when people are looking on," Percival replies. "I vote for lemonade as well, don't you?"
It is the spirit between them that had its first evidence on the day when the visit was made to Mr. Hannaford to purchase the little black 'orse. Then Rollo hung back while Percival jumped to ride; then Percival brought him forward, encouraging him, to taste the fun. So now, as the years sunder their natures more sharply, and as affection more strongly bridges the gulf, the more sharply does the one lead, the other follow; the more naturally does the one support, the other rely.