*
THE TWO DROVERS.
CHAPTER I.
It was the day after Doune Fair when my story commences. It had
been a brisk market. Several dealers had attended from the
northern and midland counties in England, and English money had
flown so merrily about as to gladden the hearts of the Highland
farmers. Many large droves were about to set off for England,
under the protection of their owners, or of the topsmen whom they
employed in the tedious, laborious, and responsible office of
driving the cattle for many hundred miles, from the market where
they had been purchased, to the fields or farmyards where they
were to be fattened for the shambles.
The Highlanders in particular are masters of this difficult trade
of driving, which seems to suit them as well as the trade of war.
It affords exercise for all their habits of patient endurance and
active exertion. They are required to know perfectly the drove-
roads, which lie over the wildest tracts of the country, and to
avoid as much as possible the highways, which distress the feet
of the bullocks, and the turnpikes, which annoy the spirit of the
drover; whereas on the broad green or grey track which leads
across the pathless moor, the herd not only move at ease and
without taxation, but, if they mind their business, may pick up a
mouthful of food by the way.
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