For the stuffed chine the largest dish in the house had to be used. It was a great round joint, being the whole neck of a pig, cut and cured specially for the hay-home supper. It was lavishly stuffed with sage and onions and was altogether very rich and highly-flavoured. It would not have suited modern digestion, but most of those present at the hay-home supper ate of it largely and enjoyed it. Old Mr. Beer, in the little speech he made after supper, never forgot to mention the chine. “I’ve been a-meakin’ hay in them fields f’r this forty-six ‘ears,” he would say, “in your time, ma’am, an’ y’r feather’s an’ y’r gran’fer’s before yet, an’ th’ stuffed chines I’ve a-eaten at the suppers’ve always bin of the best; but of all the chines I’ve tasted in this kitchen that of which I sees the remains before me—if remains they can be called, f’r you wants to put on y’r spectacles to see ‘em—wer’ the finest an’ fattest an’ teastiest of any.”

After Miss Lane had replied to the speech of thanks, home-made wine was brought out, tobacco and snuff handed round, and songs were sung. It was a point of strict etiquette that every guest should contribute something to the programme, irrespective of musical ability. The songs were sung without musical accompaniment and many of them without a recognizable tune, but what they may have lacked in harmony was more than made up for in length.

Every year when Laura was present Mr. Beer obliged with his famous half-song, half-recitation, relating the adventures of an Oxfordshire man on a trip to London. It began:

Last Michaelmas I remember well, when harvest wer’ all over,

Our chaps had stacked up all the be-ans an’ re-aked up all th’ clover,

which lull in the year’s work gave one Sam the daring idea of taking a trip to Town:

For Sal went there a year ago, along wi’ Squire Brown,

Housemaid or summat, doan’t know what,

To live in Lunnon town,

An’ they behaved right well to Sal an’ give her cloathes an’ that,

An’ Sal ‘aved nation well to them and got quite tall and fat.

So Sam thought, if ‘Measter’ approved, he would pay his sister a visit. ‘If ‘Measter refused permission’, Sam said in quite a modern spirit:

Old Grograin then must give I work, a rum old fellow he! He grumbles when he sets us on, but, dang it! what care we.

But he had still his mother to deal with. She ‘cried aloud to break her heart at parting thus with me’; but cheered up and began to look into ways and means:

Well, since you ‘ull so headstrong be, some rigging we must get,

I’ll wash ‘ee out another shirt, an’ sprig ‘ee up a bit,

and gave as her parting advice: