6 VILLAGE ENGLAND 



keep pace with the other three or fall back behind the 

 leader. He started some ten or at most twenty yards 

 behind and meant to finish some ten yards behind. 

 The scythes were armed with a rail of wooden bars that 

 carried the weight of the heavy math along with the 

 stroke ; and while the bigger man would shift the weight 

 by the mere sway and swing of the body, Old George 

 had to shove every scytheful with an extra flip of the arm- 

 He was red-haired and the hairs were only less thick on 

 his arms (for he was seldom sleeved), than on his head. 

 The fore-arms looked like the leg of a fox. He enjoyed 

 the struggle. He was earning good money and keeping 

 his place and the harvest was good* With the rest of 

 the village he as thoroughly enjoyed a good harvest 

 as his predecessors in days when a poor harvest meant 

 a hungry winter and a tight belt. Even those who 

 disliked the farmer they worked for rejoiced in the quality 

 of the crops. It was the properest standard of the year s 

 happiness. 



The old sort of harvest survived (indeed it still sur 

 vives) longer in countries of small holders, such as 

 France and Ireland, than in this England of tenant far 

 mers. I saw the opposite number of Old George cutting 

 his harvest in France within sound of the guns. He too 

 had the better peasant qualities in high power, though 

 his ways were continental. He cut his crop not like Old 

 George outwards and away from the standing straws, but 

 inward, so that what he cut lay in a slope against the still 

 uncut swathe. By this means his old wife, who followed 

 close behind, could get her arms under the sheaf, lift it 

 and bind it, without too low a stoop for her poor old 

 back. She had to struggle, not to be left behind, for her 

 husband was a famous mower, quite untiring (for rhythm 

 alone gives the artist his endurance) and so smooth and 



