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Spain never hid her light under a bushel; and here, in the Governor's Palace, was a huge escutcheon with a horse standing on the earth and pawing at the sky. The motto blazoned on it was to the effect that the earth itself was not enough for Spain Non sufficit orbis. Drake's humor was greatly tickled, and he and his officers kept asking the Spaniards to translate the motto again and again.

A faint tickle grew soon into a clear and continuous jingling, rhythmical with the movements of the horses, now stopping, now resuming in a sudden peal accompanied by the deadened noise of an iron-shod hoof, pawing the ground. The door closed suddenly. All the noise ceased. The frozen passengers stopped talking: they stood motionless and stiff.

The townspeople knew him likewise, and many were slinking away even before he spoke, as his charger stood pawing the ground. "What's this I hear, you villain," said he to Weld, in his deep, ringing voice, "that you have not only provoked a row with one of the King's sailors, but have dared send a child into that tavern with your fool's message?"

Never had the dull round of the lives of the gentle brethren of Waverley been broken by so fiery a scene. Springing to right and swooping to left, now with its tangled wicked head betwixt its forefeet, and now pawing eight feet high in the air, with scarlet, furious nostrils and maddened eyes, the yellow horse was a thing of terror and of beauty.

I have more than once seen the dance circle a cloud of dust raised by one pawing woman, and the people at the margin of the circle dodging the gravel thrown back, yet they only laughed and left the woman to pursue her peculiar and discomforting "step."

Omrah was well aware that a gnoo is as much irritated at a red handkerchief as a bull, and as soon as he commenced waving it, one of the largest males stepped out in that direction, pawing the ground and preparing for a charge.

Then Peter fired over their heads. He had to, for a chap was pawing at his throat. The answer was a clatter of bullets on the wall above us. It looked as if they meant to take us alive, and that I was very clear should not happen. Better a bloody end in a street scrap than the tender mercies of that bandbox bravo. I don't quite know what happened next. A press drove down at me and I fired.

He heard the commanding officer distinctly give the word halt. A pause of silence followed, interrupted only by the occasional neighing or pawing of an impatient charger. "Whose house is this?" said a voice, in a tone of authority and command. "Milnwood, if it like your honour," was the reply. "Is the owner well affected?" said the enquirer.

The most mulish mule in the whole braying family was selected for the operation, and if we did not have some tall fun I will admit that I am no judge. A hog on ice or a bristling porcupine are bad enough, but an ugly mule outstrips them all. It seems as if the irascible animal tried to do his prettiest, flouncing around in a most laughable manner, pawing and kicking at times furiously.

Crossing Fleet Street, close to Chancery Lane, the pole of an omnibus struck my shoulder and flung me several yards along the road. The driver of a hansom cab shouted aloud as he jerked his horse to its haunches to avoid running over me. And in that moment, pawing wildly, the horse struck the back of my head with one of his fore feet.