Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/42

The Loom of Destiny on he went. For seven enchanted miles he stuck to his band. His one sorrow was that his short legs could not keep in time with the music. But he could nearly almost do it, and by a sort of dot and carry one, he made a rhythm of his own in the marches. He pulled his peaked, puny little stooped shoulders back, and thrust out his narrow chest. He all but burst the one button from his threadbare coat with its neat patches at the elbows.

And all the while he marched, hobbled, stumbled on, drinking in the martial sound. An occasional policeman would try to kick him away, but he dodged in between the lines, where the soldiers came to look upon him as a joke. They poked him in the ribs with their white-gloved fists, in brutal good nature, but he did not feel it. He followed on ecstatically, with his stern little freckled Scottish face and his puckered-out chest, causing many a smile along the line of march.

That day he was not afraid to face the biggest policeman on the force. By this time there were big water blisters on his heels, 30