looking at little Pete, said with a quick, imperious accent:

"Drum!"

If a man in an officer's uniform, with a shining piece of steel in his
hand, should order Pete to jump into the mouth of a cannon, he would
no more think of hesitating, than the cannon itself of refusing to go
off when the linstock was pulled. Without the change of a muscle in
his heavy face, he raised the drumsticks and brought them down on the
sheepskin.

And instantly the roll of the drum deafened the ears of the people,
utterly drowning the imperious tones of the selectman, and growing
louder and swifter from moment to moment, as the long unused wrists of
the drummer recalled their former cunning.

Woodbridge spoke yet a few words without being able to hear himself.
Then, his smooth, fleshy face purple with rage, he wheeled and glared
at Hamlin. It did not need the drum to silence him now. He was so
overcome with amazement and passion that he could not have articulated
a word. But if he thought to face down the man by his side, he was
mistaken. At least a head taller than Woodbridge, Perez turned and
looked down into the congested eyes of the other with cool, careless,
defiance.

And how about the people who looked on? The confident, decisive tone
of Hamlin's order to the drummer, the bold gesture that enforced it,
the fearless contempt for the village great man, which it implied, the
unflinching look with which he met his wrathful gaze, and accompanying
all these, the electrifying roll of the drum with its martial