Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/101

Rh A very fine and interesting church, deserving a visit, is that of Altarnon (Alt-ar-Nôn, the cliff of S. Non). The village is called Penpont (the head of the bridge). The church is rich in carved oak, benches, and screen. On several of the benches may be seen carved the corn man, that is to say the little figure that was plaited out of the heads of wheat in the last sheaf at a harvest.

About this and the custom of "crying, 'A neck!'" at harvest I will say a few words.

Towards the end of last century the member for North Devon was extremely unpopular, especially with the lower classes, and there had been a disturbance on the occasion of his election, in which he had run some personal risk. The time was when Lord North was Prime Minister.

Not long after the election he went to Dunsland, the seat of George Bickford.

Whilst strolling near the house he came near a harvest field, whereon he saw a rush of men, and he heard a cry of "Us have'n! us have'n! A neck! a neck!"

Panic-stricken, he ran, nimble as a hare, to the house, and shouted to Mr. Bickford, "For God's sake, hide me, anywhere, in the cellar or the attics! There is a mob after me who want to string me up!" What the M.P. for North Devon saw and heard was the "crying, ’A neck!'" a custom universal in Devon and Cornwall till reaping machines came in and abolished it. It is now most rarely practised, but I can remember it in full swing some forty or fifty years ago.