“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the cousins, “it wasn’t a stickler. They never grow any bigger than these.”
“Look! look!” said Fred, pointing to something that was bobbing up and down in the pond, “there’s Harry’s floater.”
“So there is,” said Harry; “perhaps it will come in close enough to get hold of.”
But, instead of coming in any closer, the little coloured cork kept working away towards a deep, dark-looking part, right under a large beech-tree, whose arms hung over that portion of the pond.
“Get up the tree, Hal,” said Philip, “and creep along that bough. You’ll get it then.”
“No, don’t,” said Fred, “you’ll fall in; I’m sure you will. Don’t, pray don’t,” he continued, as Harry ran towards the tree.
“I shan’t fall,” said Harry; “don’t you be a goose. I’ve climbed harder trees than that, haven’t I, Phil?”
“I should think so,” said Philip; “but don’t go too far, Hal, so as to get in, for it’s ever so deep there!”
“All right,” said Harry; “give me a bump up.”
Philip laid hold of his brother’s leg, and gave him a lift just as he grasped the tree with both arms, and then, taking advantage of the inequalities of the bark with his boots, Harry managed to climb slowly and laboriously to where the tree forked, and the branch reached forth from the parent stem over the deep pool, while Fred stood half aghast at what seemed to him the most daring act he ever beheld.