When he returned from the conduit, struggling two-handed with his burden, slopping water across his path, the enclosed square beside the craftsman's three-storied house was full of light. Stephen stood down his bucket, wiped a damp hand across his brown forehead and paused to glance up at the west wall which overlooked Master Gessel's shop next door and where their own apple tree, squat and stunted, was shedding its prolific blossoms to carpet the alley between. With a cry of horror Stephen spurted for the door and tore up two flights of stairs until he was pushing his way by the moth-eaten curtain which covered the attic doorway. He pounced upon the sleeping figures sprawled on the row of straw pallets, shaking one, darting to another and pummelling him into consciousness. ‘Dick, Harry, get up! Wake up, please!’ Harry Holt stirred, squinted at the light shafting in through the tiny window in the eaves, scratched his red head and yawned. ‘You're not sleep-walking again, young Stephen?
