With a rush and a scramble, she was up over the round back of the buttress before I had time to understand that she meant as usual to take the lead. If she could but have sent me back a portion of her skill, or lightness, or nerve, or whatever it was, just to set me off with a rush like that! But I stood preparing at once and hesitating. She turned and looked over the battlements of the tower.
‘Never mind, Wilfrid,’ she said; ‘I’ll fetch you presently.’
‘No, no,’ I cried. ‘Wait for me. I’m coming.’
I got astride of the buttress, and painfully forced my way up. It was like a dream of leap-frog, prolonged under painfully recurring difficulties. I shut my eyes, and persuaded myself that all I had to do was to go on leap-frogging. At length, after more trepidation and brain-turning than I care to dwell upon, lest even now it should bring back a too keen realization of itself, I reached the battlement, seizing which with one shaking hand, and finding the other grasped by Clara, I tumbled on the leads of the tower.
‘Come along!’ she said. ‘You see, when the girls like, they can beat the boys—even at their own games. We’re all right now.’
‘I did my best,’ I returned, mightily relieved. ‘I’m not an angel, you know. I can’t fly like you.’
She seemed to appreciate the compliment.
‘Never mind. I’ve done it before. It was game of you to follow.’
Her praise elated me. And it was well.
‘Come along,’ she added.