CHAPTER XIX.
A FARM TO LET That storm on the festival of St.Michael broke up the short summer weather of the north.

A wet and tempestuous month set in, and the harvest, in all but the very best places, lay flat on the ground, without scythe or sickle.

The men of the Riding were not disturbed by this, as farmers would have been in Suffolk; for these were quite used to walk over their crops, without much occasion to lift their feet.

They always expected their corn to be laid, and would have been afraid of it if it stood upright.

Even at Anerley Farm this salam of the wheat was expected in bad seasons; and it suited the reapers of the neighborhood, who scarcely knew what to make of knees unbent, and upright discipline of stiff-cravated ranks.
In the northwest corner of the county, where the rocky land was mantled so frequently with cloud, and the prevalence of western winds bore sway, an upright harvest was a thing to talk of, as the legend of a century, credible because it scarcely could have been imagined.