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They could show how the long-sighted people were always cut to pieces in hand-to-hand struggles with axe and knife; until, with the invention of bows and arrows, the advantage veered to the long-sighted, and their enemies were shot down in droves. I could easily write a ruthless romance about it, and still more easily a ruthless anthropological theory.
Just then came the Barbarians, pouring in distinct droves: here, with stones, with wooden javelins hardened in the fire, and with the broken limbs of trees, they battered the palisade: there with hurdles, faggots and dead bodies, they filled the trench: by others, bridges and ladders, both before framed, were planted against the battlements; these they violently grappled and tore, and struggled hand to hand with those who opposed them.
Great storehouses were built, wharves constructed, and vast intrenchments thrown up for the defence of the spot. The slaves, escaping from the neighboring plantations, came in droves, begging to be allowed to work; but they received but a cold welcome, for they were still looked upon as property, and the officers did not wish to be charged with enticing them away from their masters.
In a few minutes more, mounted on a stout cob, with a serviceable pair of pistols in his holsters, he was jogging along the road to Cambridge by the side of Master Brinsmead, accompanied by an ample number of drovers in charge of one of the largest droves of cattle which had for some time past left the Trent valley.
On their estates the planter, the ranchman, and the mine owner lived like feudal overlords, waited upon by Indian and negro peasants who also tilled the fields, tended the droves, and dug the earth for precious metals and stones.
They had not gone to bed overnight, and from the windows of their deserted home, a little before dawn, they saw the dwindled moon, a late riser, break through droves of hunted cloud, directly topping their ancient guardian height, the triple peak and giant of the range, friendlier in his name than in aspect for the two young people clinging to the scene they were to quit.
"I think so, too; it will be well for us to get not too far from each other, for we ought to be in shape to give mutual support." "Of course; there must be other droves on the march, and we ought to get a twist on them that will make them squeal." The supper being finished, the two leading cattlemen sat down under the shelter of the covered wagon and smoked their pipes.
The long droves of cattle went slowly along the roads, which in most places were little better than causeways roughly raised from the mud that lay on either side in bad weather. Even the best highways were allowed to fall into a miserable condition, so that carriages could with difficulty traverse them, except in the immediate neighbourhood of London and some of the larger cities.
I never saw but one drove, that went on their way making merry. In that one they were blowing horns, singing, &c., and appeared as if they had been drinking whisky. "They generally appear extremely dejected. I have seen in the course of five years, on the road near where I reside, 12 or 15 droves at least, passing to the south. They would average 40 in each drove.
Precious tapestries, and lusters with great gilt chains, were drawn from the cupboards; an army of the poor were engaged in sweeping the courts and washing the stone fronts, whilst their wives went in droves to the meadows beyond the Loire, to gather green boughs and field-flowers.
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