Dan’l pushed and poked about, and nearly broke a pane of glass, but the boy did not stir.
“Oh, very well: only you’d better get down; you’ll have it all the worse if I do fetch that ladder.”
Still the boy made no sign. He merely glanced to right and left, and could have dashed along the wall at once, but that would have taken him down the garden, toward the river, and that was the direction in which he did not want to go.
To his left there was a portion of the house, the wall rising a good height, so that there was no escape in that direction. His way was either by the garden wall, or else down the slope of the vinery, as he had gone up.
But, like a lion in his path, there at the foot of this slope stood Dan’l, with the great clothes-prop, and the boy, concluding that he was best where he was, sat and stared at the gardener, and waited.
“Oh, very well then, my fine fellow: ladder it is,” cried Dan’l; and, sticking the prop into the ground with a savage dig, he turned and ran off.
It was only a feint, and he turned sharply at the end of a dozen steps, to find, as he expected, that the boy had moved, and begun to descend.
Dan’l ran back, and the boy slipped into his former place, and sat like a monument of stone.
“Oh, that’s your game, is it!” said Dan’l. “But it won’t do, my fine fellow. Now, are you coming down?”
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