There were such portentous shepherdesses among the Ladies Dedlock dead and gone, he told us, that peaceful crooks became weapons of assault in their hands. They tended their flocks severely in buckram and powder and put their sticking-plaster patches on to terrify commoners as the chiefs of some other tribes put on their war-paint. There was a Sir Somebody Dedlock, with a battle, a sprung-mine, volumes of smoke, flashes of lightning, a town on fire, and a stormed fort, all in full action between his horse's two hind legs, showing, he supposed, how little a Dedlock made of such trifles. 
There were such portentous shepherdesses among the past Ladies Dedlock, he told us, that peaceful crooks became weapons of assault in their hands; and a Sir Somebody Dedlock had a battle, volumes of smoke, flashes of lightning and a town on fire behind him.
