Watch Your Language

We have also just begun reading together as a family G. A. Henty's The Cat of Bubastes: A Tale of Ancient Egypt. Henty was the prolific author of 122 works of historical fiction. His adventure stories were well-received in the late 19th century and have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in the last decade or so. I was reading aloud to the boys when I suddenly heard this sentence:

Now from behind the lines of the Egyptian archers a column of men advanced a hundred abreast, each carrying a great faggot; their object was evident, they were about to prepare a wide causeway across the marsh by which the chariots could pass.

In addition to being carried, the faggots went on to be laid down, torched, trodden, forced deep into the mire, etc. So, who knows what kind of faggot Henty wrote about, and how did we come to have such a decidedly different meaning of the word?