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"We get the bark off the tree, and then we go hammer, hammer, thump, thump, till all the hard thick stuff comes off;" and Lucy, looking near, saw that the substance was really all a lacework of fibre, about as close as the net of Nurse's caps. "Is that all your clothes?" she asked. "Yes, till I am a warrior," said the boy; "then they will tattoo my forehead, and arms, and breast, and legs."
Small wonder was it that when Burleigh came driving out at tattoo for a brief conference with the colonel, his sallow face took on a darker shade as he suddenly caught sight of that couple standing at the moment apart from the dancers, seeing neither them nor him, hearing for the moment no music but that which trembled in the tones of his deep voice, for Elinor was strangely silent.
The door bell rang, and soon after a servant brought her a card: "Mr. D.G. Manning. To see Miss Earl." Flattered and frightened by a visit from one whose opinions she valued so highly, Edna smoothed her hair, and with trembling fingers changed her collar and cuffs, and went downstairs, feeling as if all the blood in her body were beating a tattoo on the drum of her ears.
And the sound of their bills on the empty box made the jolliest tattoo that ever came out of a camping kit. I crept away more cautiously than I had come, and, standing carelessly in my tent door, whistled the call I always used in feeding the birds. Like a flash Killooleet appeared on the edge of the cracker box, looking very much surprised.
During the time he was awaiting his rider, it would have been hard to discover in him the least grace; but as soon as he heard the drums beat the tattoo which announced the presence of his Majesty, he reared his head most proudly, tossed his mane, and pawed the ground, and until the very moment the Emperor alighted, was the most magnificent animal imaginable.
"Here he is, captain, all a-tanto, but not very neat," said Phillips, shoving Willy up the hatchway, for he was so encumbered with the weight of his new apparel that he never could have ascended without assistance "I have stowed away some spirits in his hold, and he no longer beats the devil's tattoo with his grinders."
But a din of horns, kettles, and tea-trays, and a wild tattoo of door-knockers, sounded along the streets behind the stores and houses that lined the water-side. Already the town-boys were ushering in the month of May. The man waited until the half-hour chimed over the 'long-shore roofs from the church-tower up the hill; set his watch with care; and sat down to wait for the sun.
Following a quick tattoo of hoofs on the baked earth came a flash like the trout's leap for the fly a curving plunge the sound as of a breaking willow branch, and then palpitating silence. The dun cloud of dust settled, disclosing the foam-flecked, sweat-blackened colt, oddly beautiful in her poised immobility. Near her lay Jasper Lane, face downward. The pony sniffed at his crumpled sombrero.
The next moment she was standing before him. His breathing checked itself, and his knees began that sickening tattoo. He was instantly so miserable that he longed to die. Yet he faced her big eyes, brown and good-natured and smiling with recognition, and dumbly pushed the check and the dollar across the counter. "Why, hello!" she said lightly. "Hello," came a quavering echo.
These light pieces, being of the nature of cannon rather than muskets, obtained more deference, being recognized as of the same genus with the great guns which then constituted a ship's broadside. On one occasion they were incautiously left out overnight on the drill-ground. Between tattoo and taps, 9.30 to 10 P.M., was always a half-hour of release from quarters.
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