The "hock-cart" was the cart that brought home the last load of corn. It was sometimes called the "hockey-cart"; and one of the dainties of the feast was the "hockey-cake." In an almanac for 1676, under August, we read:—
"Hocky is brought home with hallowing,
Boys with plum-cake the cart following."
The harvest-home is alluded to in 1 Henry IV. (i. 3. 35), where Hotspur, describing the "popinjay" lord who came to demand his prisoners, says:—
"and his chin new-reap'd
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home."
In The Merry Wives of Windsor (ii. 2. 287) Falstaff says of Mistress Ford, to whom he intends to make love, "and there's my harvest-home."
In the interlude in The Tempest (iv. 1. 134) the dance of the Reapers was apparently a reminiscence of harvest-home sports. Iris says:—
"You sunburnt sicklemen, of August weary,