this field into the next. It had four steps, and a stone to cross over
when you came to the uppermost. It was impossible for me to climb this
stile, because every step was six foot high, and the upper stone above
twenty.

I was endeavoring to find some gap in the hedge, when I discovered one
of the inhabitants in the next field, advancing toward the stile, of the
same size with him whom I saw in the sea pursuing our boat. He appeared
as tall as an ordinary spire steeple, and took about ten yards at every
stride, as near as I could guess. I was struck with the utmost fear and
astonishment, and ran to hide myself in the corn, from whence I saw him
at the top of the stile, looking back into the next field on the right
hand, and heard him call in a voice many degrees louder than a
speaking-trumpet; but the noise was so high in the air that at first I
certainly thought it was thunder. Whereupon seven monsters, like
himself, came toward him with reaping hooks in their hands, each hook
about the largeness of six scythes. These people were not so well clad
as the first, whose servants or laborers they seemed to be; for, upon
some words he spoke, they went to reap the corn in the field where I
lay.

I kept from them at as great a distance as I could, but was forced to
move with extreme difficulty, for the stalks of the corn were sometimes
not above a foot distant, so that I could hardly squeeze my body betwixt
them. However, I made a shift to go forward till I came to a part of the
field where the corn had been laid by the rain and wind. Here it was
impossible for me to advance a step; for the stalks were so interwoven
that I could not creep through, and the beards of the fallen ears so
strong and pointed that they pierced through my clothes into my flesh.
At the same time I heard the reapers not above an hundred yards behind