Up he went, higher and higher. He passed the branch where he had so often sat to listen to the wind roaring like the sea through the great, swaying branches, he passed the place where he had carved his name to mark the highest point that any boy had ever reached, yet still he went on, up and up. His brown head came out at last amid the thinner green at the very top, where he could feel the sun hot upon his neck and where he could look out across meadow and hillside, past the harbour and the headlands to the wide, blue, open sea. He could see, too, like a picture spread below him, Master Simon’s garden with its square flowerbeds, its green hedges and its winding paths. He saw the door of the house fly open and his mother, with flying skirts and ruffled hair, come running across the lawn. Somehow she had got wind of the trouble and was hastening to interfere.
“Come down, you treacherous boy,” shouted Sergeant Branderby again, “or I have that here which will make you.”
Glancing down over his shoulder, Stephen saw that the officer had dropped his axe and was levelling his great, clumsy horse-pistol.
“When I say ‘three,’” called the angry soldier, “I will fire, unless you have begun to descend. One—”
Stephen glanced about him desperately. He had been almost certain that the man would not harm him, but now he was none too sure. It was a fair, wide world that he was looking out upon, one that he should hate to leave so abruptly.
“Two!” bellowed the Sergeant, his voice growing louder as his rage increased.
“Stephen, Stephen!” Mistress Alisoun’s voice, anxious and troubled, sounded directly below him.
“Mother,” he called wildly, “do not order me to come down, for I cannot and will not.” But Stephen had misjudged his mother.
“Hold fast, boy,” she answered. “I will deal with this fellow here. He has no notion of hurting you, for though he pretends to aim his pistol, he has also shut his eyes.”
She stepped forward, and with a quick, determined movement, struck up the Sergeant’s hand just as he was shouting:
Stephen ducked his head and screwed up his eyes, but no report came. Looking down, he saw that the soldier had taken out both his pistols and with a great, low bow was presenting them to Mistress Alisoun.