Their pupils - the sparrows, as it were - of Gormenghast were racing to the vast red-sandstone yard - a yard surrounded on all sides by high ivy-covered walls of the same stone. [...] Many a boy had sobbed against these walls; many a knuckle been bruised as a head flicked sideways from the blow. Many a child had fought his way back into the open yard with bloody mouth, and a thousand swaying pyramids of boys had tottered and collapsed as the topmost clung to the ivy.
(M. Peake; Gormenghast)
Is it describing a great many boys who fell trying to climb the walls by means of the ivy and the few topmost, as it were, who achieved the summit?
Thanks.
(M. Peake; Gormenghast)
Is it describing a great many boys who fell trying to climb the walls by means of the ivy and the few topmost, as it were, who achieved the summit?
Thanks.