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"Oh, for the sword of Gideon, to rid the land of tyrants, to bring down the pride of apostates, and to smite the ungodly with confusion!" muttered John Brydone to himself, as he went into the fields in the September of 1645, and beheld that the greater part of a crop of oats, which had been cut down a few days before, was carried off.

And the grey mare saw a vision of her warm light stall, and the oats dropping between her manger bars, and fled with light hoofs along the lanes where the side-lamps shot two moving gleams over dark beech-hedges that rustled crisply in the northeast wind. Again and again she sneezed in the pleasure of that homeward flight, and the light foam of her nostrils flicked the faces of those behind.

The custom prevailed, in more rude and uncouth times, of giving up to the people on the spot the oats, as soon as the hereditary marshal had taken away his share; the fountain and the kitchen, after the cup-bearer and the carver had performed their offices. But this time, to guard against all mischief, order and moderation were preserved as far as possible.

There is a great difference in the resistance of different varieties. A few dark-colored oats are practically rust-proof, and you can get seed of them from the seedsmen in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Such varieties are chiefly grown on the southern coast.

Two fine black steeds stood at the fodder-trough and fed off the finest oats. Marvelling how they got there, she put a few handfuls of the oats into her pocket, and passed on into a second chamber. A chest stood there, and on the chest lay a black dog. Near him was a loaf of bread, in which a knife was stuck.

We had not been many minutes engaged, when one of the sailors brought another on his back to the cockpit, where he tossed him down like a bag of oats, and pulling out his pouch, put a large chew of tobacco in his mouth without speaking a word. Morgan immediately examined the condition of the wounded man, and cried out, "As I shall answer now, the man is as dead as my great grandfather."

The next morning, after breakfast, my kind host set me on the way to Tiptree by a footpath through alternating fields of wheat, barley, oats, beans, and turnips, into which an English farm is generally divided. These footpaths are among the vested interests of the walking public throughout the United Kingdom. Most of them are centuries old.

On a certain morning in September, Aasta the Fair sat crouched at the door of the little cot wherein she dwelt. She was grinding oats in a small stone hand mill. Old Elspeth sat within doors spinning. Presently Aasta raised her eyes and looked over towards the little isle of Inch Marnock, where on the green knolls some sheep were grazing.

"Oh, yes," said Ralph, "I easily caught her again, and I curried and polished her up myself, and trimmed her mane and tail and fetlocks, and since she has been having good meals of oats, you can hardly imagine what a sleek-looking beast she has become. We drove her into Thorbury when Miriam returned your call.

And now they began to leave the woods behind: the hedges began to get scarcer and shorter, and at last they were out in the marsh a marsh no longer, but a large and far spreading plain, divided by broad drains and ditches, and dotted over with enormous cattle grazing in the rich fat grass; while here and there the land seemed waving in the gentle breeze as it lightly passed over the bending crops of wheat, oats, rye, and barley.