“The enemy, by Jove!” whispered George, who was leading in his usual eager fashion, pointing out the flag and the hamlet to the lieutenant.  “Wouldn’t it be a good joke to whip off their flag from that old mill, sir!”

The officer laughed at the notion; he was not much more than a boy himself.

“My lad,” said he, “we must know how many the enemy are first.”

“I’ll climb to the roof there, and from it I can see right down into the village and command a view of everything in it.”

“Do you mean to say, youngster, that you would risk it?” the officer asked in surprise.

“Oh, wouldn’t I, sir,” the lad replied with flushed face.  “Say the word, sir, please.”

The lieutenant nodded, saying, “It’s worth it.  But be cautious.”

The soldiers looked on while the boy carried out his freak, for such they judged his bit of reconnoitring to be.  Cautiously George crept towards the mill, the sloping roof of which came almost down to the very hill side.  Tying a wisp of long grass and weeds round each boot, he crawled noiselessly up till within a foot or two of the ridge.  He paused a moment to gaze down the dingle.  There, well seen from his vantage point, a couple of miles away, ran a far larger valley, which was filled with tents.  “The enemy’s main body!” he thought.  He waved his arm in the direction of the camp, but his comrades did not understand the action, as they stood peering down upon the lad from among the trees higher up the slope.

Now flat on his face the boy ventured to peep over the roof ridge down into the village street at no great distance below.  Not an eye was directed upwards, so far as he could see, the men laughing and chattering gaily as they drank.  Then the temptation seized him, and in a moment he had lifted the flag from the old chimney in which the staff was loosely set.  “I’m in for it now!” he cried to himself, as he slid like an avalanche down the roof, leapt to the ground, and made off up the steep slope towards his comrades, the flag triumphantly in his hand.

He had reached a spot half way up when suddenly wild shouts were heard from below, and at the same instant a bullet whistled close past his ear.  A little turn in the path had discovered his head to the enemy.

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” shouted the lieutenant, and the Englishmen prepared to receive the French soldiers dashing up to the attack.  George stumbled on unhurt, but fell at his officer’s feet, utterly breathless.  There he lay, unable to rise, while shots were rapidly exchanged.  For a minute’s space it was hot work, but then the French began to fall back, and with a shout the English handful followed.  Fairburn pulled himself together and stood on the edge of the rock-shelf where he had fallen breathless.  To his horror, he saw a Frenchman on the shelf below, taking deliberate aim at the lieutenant.

With a loud cry, the lad sprang down upon the enemy, regardless of the steepness of the place, and in an instant the man was locked in his arms, just as the musket report came.  Down the two fell, bounding over two or three shelves of rock, and then pitching headlong some twenty or thirty feet into the thick brushwood below.