rated by a "harvest home" in the Perrymans' big barn. They were
kind enough to send me the usual invitation, which I accepted "with
pleasure"--a phrase in which, for once in my frequent use of it, I spoke
the truth. The prospect of going down to Deadborough served, of course,
to revive the painful memory of our humiliating defeat. Looked at in the
perspective of time, our enterprise stood out in all its essential
folly. But I have frequently found that the contemplation of a past
mistake has a strange tendency to cause its repetition; and it was so in
this case. For it suddenly occurred to me that this "harvest home" might
give us an opportunity for a flank attack on the soul of Snarley Bob,
whereby we might retrieve the disaster of our frontal operations on
Quarry Hill. I lost no time in divulging my plan in the proper quarters.
Mrs. Abel replied exactly as Lambert did when Cromwell, "walking in the
garden of Brocksmouth House," told him of that sudden bright idea for
rolling up the Scottish army at Dunbar--"She had meant to say the same
thing." The plan was simple enough; but had its execution rested with
any other person than Mrs. Abel--with the Literary Counterpart, for
example--it would have miscarried as completely as its fore-runner.

The company assembled in the Perrymans' barn consisted of the labouring
population of three large farms, men and women, all dressed in their
Sunday best. To these were added, as privileged outsiders, his Reverence
and Mrs. Abel, the popular stationmaster of Deadborough, Tom Barter--who
supplied the victuals--and myself. Good meat, of course, was in
abundance, and good drink also--the understanding with regard to the
latter being that, though you might go the length of getting "pretty
lively," you must stop short of getting drunk.

The proceedings commenced in comparative silence, the rustics
communicating with one another only by such whispers as might be
perpetrated in church. But this did not last very long. From the moment
the first turn was given to the tap in the cider-barrel, the attentive
observer might have detected a rapid crescendo of human voices, which
rose into a roar long before the end of the feast. When all had eaten
their fill, songs were called for, and "Master" Perryman, of course, led
off with "The Farmer's Boy."

Others followed. I was struck by the fact that nearly all the songs were
of an extremely melancholy nature--the chief objects celebrated by the
Muse