ap--crish--crash--hurry--rustle--bump--bump--Bump!" went a
noise; and, in less time than it takes to tell it, down came Harry,
fully twenty feet, on to the grass at his brother's and cousin's feet,
where he remained, looking very white, frightened, and confused; when
all at once he got up, and making a wry face, said--

"There, I told you I could get it."

Poor Harry! He was much quicker in his descent than ascent, for the
branch upon which he sat had snapped in two and let him down from bough
to bough of the thickly-limbed tree till he bumped on the last, which
was not above five feet from the ground, and at its extremities almost
touched. It was a most fortunate thing that he was not injured
seriously; but a few bruises and scratches were the full extent of the
damages done to his skin, though his trousers and shirt told a very
different tale.

"There," said Harry again, rubbing the green off his trousers, "I told
you I could get the tail, didn't I?"

His companions both acquiesced in the ability, but did not seem to
admire the plan of execution any more than Harry, who walked with a kind
of limp, and contented himself with holding the kite up when the repairs
were completed, and letting Philip run with the string, which he did so
successfully that the kite shot up into the air and seemed to be most
evenly balanced, for it rose and rose as the string was slowly let out,
till it attained a great height, and then seemed to be quite stationary
in that soft and gentle breeze; but all the while pulling hardly at the
string as though alive, and desirous to fly away and escape to some
far-off region--though its destination would most probably have been the
first tree, or, escaping that, the ground some quarter of a mile further
on.

The boys sat down in the long grass, and took it in turns to hold the
stick, amusing themselves by sending disks of paper up to the kite as
messengers,--watching the paper circles as they skimmed lightly along
the string. But they were very untrustworthy messengers as a rule, for
some of them stopped half, quarter, or three-quarters of the distance up
the string, sometimes for a long time, until an extra puff of wind
started them again, and, what was worst of all, they none of them
brought back any person.

They were sitting down, dreamily watching the kite and the great white
silvery clouds floating across the blue sky, looking like mountains in
some far-off land; some with snowy peaks