very big stick.

This boy had not the least intention of giving himself up as a prisoner,
and he sat and stared at Dan'l, and Dan'l stared at him.

"Do you hear me?" cried Dan'l; but the boy did not move a muscle, he
only stared.

"Are you over there, Peter?" shouted Dan'l.

"Ay! All right!"

"You stop there, then, and nip him if he comes your way. I'll get a
ladder, and will soon have him down."

"All right!" came from Peter again; and the boy's eyes watched keenly
the old gardener's movements.

"Do you hear what I say!" continued Dan'l. "Am I to fetch that ladder,
or will you come down without!"

The boy did not move.

"Let's see: I can reach you with this here, though," Dan'l went on.
"Not going to have any more of your nonsense, my fine fellow, so now
then."

The boy's eyes flashed as he saw the gardener come close up to the foot
of the glass slope, and reach toward him with the long ash clothes-prop;
but he measured mentally the length of that prop, and sat still, for, as
he had quickly concluded, the gardener could not, even with his arm
fully extended, reach to within some feet of where he sat.

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
fe