A little while after they heard a rat-a-tat at the garden door.

Then they heard a rat-a-tat, and the voice of their mother calling: 'Here!

It was probably that, with some of the shells in the rack, that made all that rat-a-tat.

The other guns quickly took up the rat-a-tat; the range was sent to the other five guns.

Rat-a-tat, rat′-a-tat′, n. sound of repeated knocks, as of a drumstick.