longer, if such can be spared from the completion of the field, the
amusement of the wheat harvest is continued, with such exertions as draw
the reaping and binding of the field together with the close of the
evening. This done, a small sheaf is bound up, and set upon the top of
one of the ridges, when the reapers retiring to a certain distance,
each throws his reap-hook at the sheaf, until one more fortunate, or
less inebriated, than the rest strikes it down; this achievement is
accompanied with the utmost stretch and power of the voices of the
company, uttering words very indistinctly, but somewhat to this
purpose--_we ha in! we ha in! we ha in!_--which noise and tumult
continue about half an hour, when the company retire to the farmhouse
to sup; which being over, large portions of ale and cider enable them
to carouse and vociferate until one or two o'clock in the morning.

At the same house, or that of a neighbouring farmer, a similar scene
is renewed, beginning between eight and nine o'clock in the morning
following, and so continued through the precious season of the wheat
harvest in this county. It must be observed that the labourers thus
employed in reaping receive no wages; but in lieu thereof they have an
invitation to the farmer's house to partake of a harvest frolic, and at
Christmas, during the whole of which time, and which seldom continues
less than three or four days, the house is kept open night and day to
the guests, whose behaviour during the time may be assimilated to the
frolics of a bear-garden.

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