Then there were the bonfires to be lighted on St. John's Day upon the hillsides, and the dance of the young people around them, the more venturesome youths leaping through the flames, all carrying home the firebrands and forming a glad procession. Afterwards followed the busy harvest-time, when everyone was too hard at work, and too tired at the end of the day's labours, to think of holiday-making; but at length came the harvest home, when the last sheaf was gathered in, and the harvest supper was a very joyous occasion. With light hearts, smiling faces, and cheerful shouts, the harvest labourers and their wives and children, carrying green boughs, a sheaf of wheat, and rude flags, formed a glad procession to the farmer's house, where they found the fuelled chimney blazing wide, and "the strong table groaning beneath the smoking sirloin." The feast over, they retired to some near hillock, and made the welkin ring with their shouts, "Holla, holla, holla, largess!"--largess being the presents of money and good things which the farmer had bestowed. Such was the harvest home in the good old days, a joy and delight to both old and young. Shorn of much of its merriment and quaint customs, it still lingers on; but modern habits and notions have deprived it of much of its old spirit and light-heartedness. The floors of the old churches were formerly unpaved and unbearded, simply made of clay, and were covered over with rushes. Once a year there was a great ceremony, called "rush-bearing." Rushes were cut in the neighbouring marsh, and made up into long bundles, decked with ribands and flowers. Then a procession was formed, everyone bearing a bundle of rushes, or placing them in the rush-cart beautifully adorned; and with music, drums, and ringing of bells, they marched to the church and strewed the floor with their honoured burdens. Long after the rushes ceased to be used in church the ceremony was continued, and I have myself witnessed a rush-bearing procession such as I have described. A village feast, followed by dancing round the May-pole, generally formed the conclusion to the day's festivities. "Beating the bounds" of the parish was another annual ceremony, which often took place on Ascension Day and is still in use at Oxford. Boundaries of property were not so clearly defined in those days as they are now; and hedgerows, walls, and railings were scarce. The bounds of the parish were often marked by trees, called "gospel trees," because the clergyman used to read the gospel for the day under their shade. The people carried a processional cross and willow wands, and boys were generally flogged at the boundaries, or ducked in the river, if that constituted a boundary, in order to impress upon their memories where the bounds were. The village feast afterwards made some amends to them for their harsh treatment.