The green leaves were all round him, a green tent with pretty loopholes through which he could take peeps at the home that was on the point of vanishing forever from his eyes. He paused on a level with the broad eaves, and looked through between branches at a window on the first floor landing. The casements stood wide open; the square of glass glittered; the muslin curtains just stirred, trembled whitely. Far down below his feet were the flagged pathway, the wooden bench, and three shining milk-pans.
He climbed higher; and it seemed to him that from the moment he left the ground till now he had been like a drowsy man shaking off his sloth, like a drugged man recovering consciousness, like a man who was supposed to be dead rapidly coming to life again. With every inch added to the height from the ground, he felt stronger, more active, fuller of nervous and muscular energy. His fingers gripped each branch as firmly as if they had been iron clamps; his feet, encumbered by the stout boots, seemed to catch hold and cling to the slightest irregularities of the smooth bark as skilfully and tenaciously as if they had been the prehensile paws of a cat; not a touch of vertigo troubled him; he felt as fearless and splendidly alive as when he climbed tall trees for buzzards' eggs thirty-three years ago.
Soon he had climbed so high that he knew it would not be safe to climb higher. He must stop here. At this point the main stem was still thick enough to take the shock that in a minute he would give it. Above this point it might not stand the strain. Besides, this was high enough for appearances. He was within reach of the branch that had some decayed wood at the top of it. Sitting astride a branch close to the stem, he adjusted and fixed his rope, binding it round and round the stem and over and under the branch, reefing it, making it taut and trim so that no strain could loosen it; and all the while he was conscious of the power in his arms and hands, the volume of air in his lungs, the flow of blood in his veins, the nervous force bracing and hardening his muscles. The rope was fast now. Now he assured himself that its free length--the part from the tree to the noose--was absolutely correct as to its amount. Nothing remained to do, nothing but to stand upon the branch, fix the noose round his neck, and step off into the air.
Lightly and easily he changed his position, stood upon the branch, holding the stem with his left hand, the noose with his right; and the life in him pulsed and throbbed with furious strength. It tingled through and through him, filled him as if he had been a battery overstored with electricity, shot out at his extremities in lightning flashes.