With a heart as light as a feather, I reached home at three o'clock, when my father's servant informed me that the mowers had been gone forward nearly half an hour, and that they had left the bottles to be filled and carried to the field by me. Finding that I was rather behind my time, I merely then pulled off my coat and waistcoat, and put on my frock. I did not wait to take off either my tight leather breeches, (which were the fashion at that time,) or my boots; but as soon as the servant had filled the bottles with ale, I mounted a poney, and reached the field of oats, just as the other four men were stripped and whetting their scythes in order to begin; a thing which they had never before had an opportunity of doing, throughout the whole harvest, as the first stroke was uniformly struck by myself. They waited while I threw off my frock and took off my spurs, and having unbuttoned the knees of my breeches, we set to; and in ten minutes after the sun had sunk below the horizon, the last swarth was laid flat, and not an oat left standing; a day's work which stands unrivalled in that country, and which is the more uncommon, as, in fact, there were only four scythes at work during the greater part of the day; for, it being excessively hot, one of the men, the worst mower of course, was principally employed in riding to and from the Inn at Everly, to replenish the bottles. This was indispensible, every man being allowed as much ale as he could drink, with the exception of the two last bottles, containing three quarts each, which I was obliged to prohibit from being tapped till the oats were all down, as some of my partners by this time began to discover evident symptoms of inebriety. As we finished the last stroke, a very severe flash of lightning announced the approach of a storm, which had been gathering for several hours. I advised the men to hasten home, but they declared, now that the mowing was finished, they would finish the bottles before they left the field, and they kept their words. I hurried home as fast as my pony could gallop, and got in doors just in time to escape one of the most tremendous thunder-storms I ever witnessed; my four companions got jollily drunk, and slept upon the open down, drenched in rain all night; and although I met two of them returning home, the next morning at four o'clock, in a most wretched state, yet such was their hardy nature that neither of them took the least cold.