Page:A School History of England (1911).djvu/18

 No doubt there were a few sneaks and lazy wretches then, as there are now, who tried to beg from other people instead of fighting for themselves and their wives. But I fancy such fellows had a worse time of it then than they have now. A man who wouldn't work very soon died.

No doubt there were holidays, too, after a successful hunt; or long lazy summer days, when it was too hot to go out after deer or bison, and when even the women laid aside their everlasting skin-stitching and told each other stories of their babies; and the babies toddled about after butterflies, larger and brighter than the peacocks and tortoiseshells of to-day. I don't suppose that these men thought of Britain as their ‘country’; but they thought of their family or their tribe as something sacred, for which they would fight and die; and the spirit of the good land took hold of them, the smell of the good damp mother-earth, the hum of the wild bees, the rustle of heather and murmur of fern; they made rude songs about it, and carved pictures of their fights on the shoulder-blades of the beasts they had killed. As time went on they grew still more cunning, and began to tame the young of some of the beasts, such as puppies, lambs, calves and kids; and they found out the delights of a good drink of milk. And so to the hunting trade they added the shepherds trade, which is a much more paying one. Then some wonderful fellow discovered how to sow seeds of wheat, or some other corn; and that these, when ripened, gathered and ground to powder, made a delicious food, which we call bread. When that was found out real civilization began; for a third trade was added, that of agriculture, the most paying of all.