gged a company as if you were to dream
of a Symposium of Scarecrows. Alarmed imagination beheld harvest
treading on the heels of Christmas,

"And Britain sadden'd at the long delay!"

when, whew! to dash the dismal predictions of foolish and false
prophets, came rustling from all the airts, far, far and wide over the
rain-drenched kingdom, the great armament of the Autumnal Winds! Groaned
the grain, as in sudden resurrection it lifted up its head, and knew
that again the Sun was in Heaven. Death became life; and the hearts of
the husbandmen sang aloud for joy. Like Turks, the reapers brandished
their sickles in the breezy light, and every field glittered with
Christian crescents. Auld wives and bits o' weans mingled on the
rig--kilted to the knees, like the comely cummers, and the handsome
hizzies, and the lo'esome lassies wi' their silken snoods--among the
heather-legged Highlandmen, and the bandy Irishers, brawny all, and with
hook, scythe, or flail, inferior to none of the children of men. The
scene lies in Scotland--but now, too, is England "Merry England"
indeed, and outside passengers on a thousand coaches see stooks rising
like stacks, and far and wide, over the tree-speckled champaign, rejoice
in the sun-given promise of a glorious harvest-home. Intervenes the rest
of two sunny Sabbaths sent to dry the brows of labour, and give the last
ripeness to the overladen stalks that, top-heavy with aliment, fall over
in their yellowy whiteness into the fast reaper's hands. Few fields
now--but here and there one thin and greenish, of cold, unclean, or
stony soil--are waving in the shadowy winds; for all are cleared, but
some stooked stubbles from which the stooks are fast disappearing, as
the huge wains seem to halt for a moment, impeded by the gates they
hide, and then, crested perhaps with laughing boys and girls,

"Down the rough slope the ponderous waggon rings,"

no--not rings--for Beattie, in that admirable line, lets us hear a cart
going out empty in the morning--but with a _cheerful dull_ sound,
ploughing along the black soil, _the clean dirt_ almost up to the
axletree, and then, as the wheels, rimmed you might always think with
silver, reach the road, macadamised till it acts like a railway, how
glides along downhill the moving mountain! And see now, the growing
Stack glittering with a charge of pitchforks! The trams fly up from
Dobbin's back, and a shoal of sheaves overflows the mire. Up they go,
tos