Be the worst we shall see."
Follows then a game of rounders, in which the Vicar, after much persuasion, agrees to play, if another somewhat elderly pillar of the Church will take a hand too. It were long to tell the varying fortunes of the game; how the portly figure of the wheelwright was hampered by the unwonted dignity—as to workadays, that is—of a long frock coat; how the village butcher, glorious in a white waistcoat, forgets it in the heat of battle; how a tall young lady in grey makes the most brilliant of catches; and how the pillar of the Church was thrown out by the long curate. And if the Vicar plays no very conspicuous part in the game, his boys are the life of it; and it is his daughter too, who, in a far corner of the field, leads a dance of village children, to the old-world ditty, "As we go gathering nuts in May, nuts in May, nuts in May," their sweet young voices sounding clear above the shouts of the players.
But the game is ended. The next move is to the tent, hung now with clusters of lamps, and with everything cleared ready for a dance. The band on a daïs in the centre, an uncommonly good band too, strikes up a lively air. There is a little shyness at first starting—not more than fifty couples, perhaps, to begin with; a little awkwardness, and a few collisions; but the company is pervaded with such imperturbable good humour that no one cares for any mishap. As the evening wears on the gaps on the seats against the canvas walls grow wider. And when the first square dance is about to begin there is a good deal of active searching for partners. "Have you got a 'vizzyvizze'?" says a young farmer to a village belle. The Vicar pleads that his dancing days are over; but it is clear that no one takes more delight than he in the innocent merry-making of his flock. A hundred pairs of dancers are footing merrily on the short, dry turf. "Warm, b'aint it?" says one sturdy young farmer to another, who stands mopping his brow at the end of the set.
But as the summer night wears on, and the revellers settle to their work in earnest, it is a warmer business still. Hats are tilted further and further back; waistcoats are loosened; and at length, in the closing reel, hats are tossed aside and coats even are discarded. It is an orderly company, quiet and well-behaved to the very last, breaking off their revels on the stroke of midnight, trooping out of the tent that, with its multitudinous lamps, is bright against the moonless sky, its festoons of flags and creepers showing clearly through the canvas walls. They go their several ways across the wide parish, along the dim, unlighted lanes, to meet no more, under such conditions at any rate, until next year brings round another Harvest Home.
WINTERHEAD: AFTERMATH.
There are many symbols on the dial of Nature to mark the changing of the year. Such signs are the brightening colours of the meadows, and the growing hosts of insect life. Such a sign is the strange, noonday silence of the woodland; and such, too, is the change in the cuckoo's cry—faltering, even before the longest day. Such signs are the gathering of the swallows, the purple mist on the plumed reeds by the river, the blackberry clusters ripening fast along the hedge-row, the butterflies that flutter in through the open windows, seeking already some dark nook in which to hide themselves in good time before the setting in of winter.