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What present am I to take to father? It is this question which moiders our young brains as often as his birthday recurs. My thoughts are trailing back over all our former gifts to him. What is there left to give him? A cigar-case? He does not smoke. A hunting-flask? He has half a dozen. A Norwegian stove?
A wind sprang high in the west, like a wave of unreasonable happiness, and tore eastward across England, trailing with it the frosty scent of forests and the cold intoxication of the sea. In a million holes and corners it refreshed a man like a flagon, and astonished him like a blow.
That very evening, as I watched from between two great boulders, I beheld a Turkish convoy of about six hundred infantry, led by a bimbashi on a gray horse, with a string of pack-mules trailing out behind them, and five loaded donkeys led by soldiers in the midst. They were heading toward the hills, and I sent a man running to bring Ranjoor Singh to watch them.
Dias and Jose soon arrived at a gallop, with the long poles trailing behind them and a fagot of short sticks fastened to each saddle. "Those are capital poles, Dias," Harry said as he examined them "strong enough for anything. We will chop notches in them for the rungs to lie in. There will be no fear then of their shifting, which they might do if the lashings stretched.
"Well," said Mother Mayberry as she hurried around the corner of the house with the depleted and milk-hungry Martin Luther trailing at her skirts, "did you make out to manage 'em? Why, ain't that fine; every one in and settled and Fuss-and-Feathers in that end coop where I have been wanting her to be for a week, seeing Dominick have got so many more chickens and needs that larger barrel.
There was just light enough to see the child, perched on the edge of the bed, her soft blue dressing-gown trailing over the white night-dress, while her black and long-fringed eyes shone through the dimness of morning. She yielded gladly to my grasp, and I could fondle again the silken hair, the velvety brunette cheek, the plump, childish shoulders.
Gold was in the embroidery that stiffened her trailing skirts; gold was sewn into her gloves, and golden chains twined in her lustrous hair added to the spirited poise of her head a touch of stateliness. No wonder that her mouth curved into a smile as she gazed. "It cannot be denied that I look woman-like now," she murmured. "It is a great boon for me that he likes my hair."
It came in time to be part of the color of the camp, just as were the pines and birches, or the cold northern sky. At the fall of night, exhausted, trailing their long ears almost to the ground, they returned to the cook, who fed them and made much of them. Next morning they were at it as hard as ever. To them it was the quest for the Grail, hopeless, but glorious.
Something in her bearing and trailing dress, perhaps, gave her a mediaeval aspect which suited with the house. The latter, I have been told, was formerly a baronial holding, and the fair Enid and the young Elaine appeared to be at one with her own childhood.
"Might as well stay here and have grub, now we're dismounted," suggested Nort. The idea was voted a good one, and was soon put into operation. They ate and talked of what had passed and what lay before them. Of the latter they could only conjecture, but it is safe to say that not one of them in his wildest imagination ever conjectured such an ending to their trailing as actually occurred.
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