Well, on, brave boys, to your lord's hearth, Glittering with fire; where, for your mirth, You shall see, first, the large and chief Foundation of your feast, fat beef; With upper stories, mutton, veal, And bacon (which makes full the meal), With several dishes standing by, And here a custard, there a pie, And here all-tempting frumenty." The "hock-cart" was the cart that brought home the last load of corn. It was sometimes called the "hockey-cart"; and one of the dainties of the feast was the "hockey-cake." In an almanac for 1676, under August, we read:-- "Hocky is brought home with hallowing, Boys with plum-cake the cart following." The harvest-home is alluded to in _1 Henry IV._ (i. 3. 35), where Hotspur, describing the "popinjay" lord who came to demand his prisoners, says:-- "and his chin new-reap'd Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home." In _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ (ii. 2. 287) Falstaff says of Mistress Ford, to whom he intends to make love, "and there's my harvest-home." In the interlude in _The Tempest_ (iv. 1. 134) the dance of the Reapers was apparently a reminiscence of harvest-home sports. Iris says:-- "You sunburnt sicklemen, of August weary, Come hither from the furrow and be merry. Make holiday; your rye-straw hats put on, And these fresh nymphs encounter every one In country footing." The following passage in the 12th Sonnet, though it has nothing of festival joyousness, may have been suggested by the ceremonial bringing home of the last load of grain:-- "When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, _And summer's green all girded up in sheaves_ _Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard_," etc. MARKETS AND FAIRS. In a quiet country town like Stratford the weekly market was an occasion of some interest to the boys as to their elders. There is still such a market on Fridays at Stratford, when wares of many sorts are exposed for sale in the streets, and people from the neighboring villages come to buy. In old times there would have been a greater throng of buyers and sellers. "The housewife from her little farm would ride in gallantly between her paniers laden with butter, eggs, chickens, and capons. The farmer would stand by his pitched corn, and, as Harrison complains, if the poor man handled the sample with the intent to purchase his humble bushel, the man of many sacks would declare that it was sold. There, before shops were many and their stocks extensive, would come the dealers from Birmingham and Coventry, with wares for use and wares for show,--horse-gear and women-gear, Sheffield whittles, and rings with posies." We find a number of allusions to these markets in Shakespeare's plays. In _Love's Labour's Lost_ (v. 2. 318) Biron, ridiculing Boyet, says of him:--