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I immediately obeyed the injunction, and commenced a vigorous assault upon the trout, caught, as he informed me, "within twenty perches of the house." "Your poor friend's nose is scarcely regimental," said he, "this morning; and as for Fin, he was never remarkable for beauty, so, though they might cut and hack, they could scarcely disfigure him, as Juvenal says isn't it Juvenal?
Searles had taken an old theme and given a novel twist to it. The solution of the mystery of the father's exile and an amusing complication of lovers afforded a suspensive interest well sustained to the end. There were innumerable charming scenes, as where the girl in the outlandish costume in which she roamed the hills perches on a boulder and recites the "Iliad" to her suitors.
The Mason-bee of the Pebbles does not make up her mind to build a brand-new dome unless there be a dearth of old and not quite dilapidated nests. The mothers, sisters apparently and heirs-at-law to the domain, dispute fiercely for the ancestral abode. The first who, by sheer brute force, takes possession of the dome, perches upon it and, for long hours, watches events while polishing her wings.
But now a further sound broke the stillness a sound which perhaps accounted for the movements of the birds. A soft patter grew out of the distance like the pad of muffled feet. But it was faint and seemingly far off. The sharp eyes of the feathered watchers were scanning the horizon from their lofty perches. The sound grew.
A little while you are free and unlabelled, like the ground that you compass; but civilisation is coming and coming; you and your much-loved waste lands will be surely enclosed, and sooner or later brought down to a state of mere usefulness; the ground will be curiously sliced into acres and roods and perches, and you, for all you sit so smartly in your saddle, you will be caught, you will be taken up from travel as a colt from grass, to be trained and tried, and matched and run.
You can imagine us exchanging bulletins; how here was an island still unsubmerged, here a valley not yet covered with snow; what inventions were made; how his population lived in cabins on perches and travelled on stilts, and how mine was always in boats; how the interest grew furious, as the last corner of safe ground was cut off on all sides and grew smaller every moment; and how in fine, the food was of altogether secondary importance, and might even have been nauseous, so long as we seasoned it with these dreams.
She perches on the shoulders of the sentry in the sentry-box: she whispers the porter sleeping in his arm-chair: she glides up the staircase, and lies down between the king and queen in their bed-royal: this very night I daresay she will perch upon poor old Goody Twoshoes' meagre bolster, and whisper, "Will the gentleman and those ladies ask me again! No, no; they will forget poor old Twoshoes."
A wild uguisu perches on a cedar by the window, and in a burst of savage sweetness challenges my caged pet to a contest in song; and always though the golden air, from the green twilight of the mountain pines, there purls to me the plaintive, caressing, delicious call of the yamabato: Tete poppo, Kaka poppo Tete poppo, Kaka poppo, tete. No European dove has such a cry.
We waited in tense expectancy for the decision of the fates whether final victory or defeat should end the long and arduous campaign. At night the guards in the perches around the Stockade called out every half hour, so as to show the officers that they were awake and attending to their duty. The formula for this ran thus: "Post numbah 1; half-past eight o'clock, and a-l-l 's w-e-l-l!"
He had not made any mistake in judging just where he should aim, for with the report of his rifle the grizzly floundered, and fell over. "Wow! That did the business!" shouted Jerry. "Hold on, boys! Don't get down yet!" called Mr. Mabie hastily, as he thought he detected a disposition on the part of either Bluff or Jerry to drop from their secure perches to the ground.
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