July 20, 1665
July 20, 1665The shrieking had risen to a still higher pitch. To Coke, lying with his sore feet in the Thames, where they awaited the barge that would carry them the last stage back to London, it seemed that they were competing in this too. Striving for the highest note. The boy had the advantage of fewer years, the actress her trained voice. Yet the noise was incidental to the main event: the height that each would reach while vaulting. The lowest branch of the oak beneath which they leaped provided evidence of success in snatched leaves. But most had been cleared in the ten minutes they’d been at it. They needed to reach higher. And surely, Coke thought, they must be tiring.
Evidence for this appeared with Dickon’s next leap. His hands slapped lower on Sarah’s back, pushi
