[Illustration:  237.jpg A wealth of harvest]

Then the golden harvest came, waving on the broad hill-side, and nestling in the quiet nooks scooped from out the fringe of wood.  A wealth of harvest such as never gladdened all our country-side since my father ceased to reap, and his sickle hung to rust.  There had not been a man on Exmoor fit to work that reaping-hook since the time its owner fell, in the prime of life and strength, before a sterner reaper.  But now I took it from the wall, where mother proudly stored it, while she watched me, hardly knowing whether she should smile or cry.

All the parish was assembled in our upper courtyard; for we were to open the harvest that year, as had been settled with Farmer Nicholas, and with Jasper Kebby, who held the third or little farm.  We started in proper order, therefore, as our practice is:  first, the parson Josiah Bowden, wearing his gown and cassock, with the parish Bible in his hand, and a sickle strapped behind him.  As he strode along well and stoutly, being a man of substance, all our family came next, I leading mother with one hand, in the other bearing my father’s hook, and with a loaf of our own bread and a keg of cider upon my back.  Behind us Annie and Lizzie walked, wearing wreaths of corn-flowers, set out very prettily, such as mother would have worn if she had been a farmer’s wife, instead of a farmer’s widow.  Being as she was, she had no adornment, except that her widow’s hood was off, and her hair allowed to flow, as if she had been a maiden; and very rich bright hair it was, in spite of all her troubles.

After us, the maidens came, milkmaids and the rest of them, with Betty Muxworthy at their head, scolding even now, because they would not walk fitly.  But they only laughed at her; and she knew it was no good to scold, with all the men behind them.

Then the Snowes came trooping forward; Farmer Nicholas in the middle, walking as if he would rather walk to a wheatfield of his own, yet content to follow lead, because he knew himself the leader; and signing every now and then to the people here and there, as if I were nobody.  But to see his three great daughters, strong and handsome wenches, making upon either side, as if somebody would run off with them—­this was the very thing that taught me how to value Lorna, and her pure simplicity.

After the Snowes came Jasper Kebby, with his wife, new-married; and a very honest pair they were, upon only a hundred acres, and a right of common.  After these the men came hotly, without decent order, trying to spy the girls in front, and make good jokes about them, at which their wives laughed heartily, being jealous when alone perhaps.  And after these men and their wives came all the children toddling, picking flowers by the way, and chattering and asking questions, as the children will.  There must have been threescore of us, take one with another, and the lane was full of people.  When we were come to the big field-gate, where the first sickle was to be, Parson Bowden heaved up the rail with the sleeves of his gown done green with it; and he said that everybody might hear him, though his breath was short, “In the name of the Lord, Amen!”