for the ceremony of "Crying the Neck." The labourers, their womenfolk
and children, had gathered together, and Annie, with a select party of
friends, took her place in the forefront of the crowd. A very old
labourer who bore the splendid name of Melchisedec Baragwaneth, went
from sheaf to sheaf, picking out a handful of the most heavily-bearded
ears, which, though they are apt to grind the worst, still make the
bravest show. He was stiff with his great age and the cruel rheumatism
that is the doom of the field-worker; and against the brass and leather
of his boots the stubble whispered loudly. Overhead the rooks and gulls
gave short, harsh cries as they circled around hoping for stray grains;
but the thousand little lives which had thriven in the corn--the field
mice and frogs and toads--had been stilled by the sickles; some few had
escaped to the shelter of the hedges, but most were sacrifices to the
harvest.

Melchisedec Baragwaneth intertwined with his wheat ears some splendid
stalks of ragwort and chamomile, like a cluster of yellow and white
stars, and twisted tendrils of bindweed, with frail, trumpet-shaped
blossoms already drooping, around the completed bunch. His thick old
fingers fumbled over the niceties of the task, but he pushed the women's
officious hands aside, and by the aid of his toothless but bone-hard
gums pulled the knot to successfully, and the bunch became the "Neck."
Then he set off, followed by the rest of the folk, to the highest field
under grass, cresting the slope behind Cloom, the field that had been
ploughed earth when the old Squire's dying eyes looked on it from his
bedroom window.

The last of the day still held the world, and from the western rim the
sunset beat up on to one vast level stretch of cloud that nearly covered
the sky, drenching it with rose-coloured light which refracted to the