Reaper Man

"There's three more of them out there, Modo says," said the Bursar.

They fell silent.

"We could go and pick up our staffs, couldn't we?" said the Dean.

The Archchancellor prodded a piece of exploded heap with the toe of his boot.

"Dead things coming alive," he murmured. "I don't like that. What's next? Walking statues?"

The wizards looked up at the statues of dead Archchancellors that lined the Great Hall and, indeed, most of the corridors of the University. The University had been in existence for thousands of years and the average Archchancellor remained in office for about eleven months, so there were plenty of statues.

"You know, I really wish you hadn't said that, " said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

"It was just a thought," said Ridcully. "Come on, let's have a look at the rest of those heaps."

"Yeah!" said the Dean, now in the grip of a wild, unwizardly machismo. "We're mean! Yeah! Are we mean?"

The Archchancellor raised his eyebrows, and then turned to the rest of the wizards.

"Are we mean?" he said.

"Er. I'm feeling reasonably mean," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

"I'm definitely very mean, I think," said the Bursar.

"It's having no boots that does it," he added.

"I'll be mean if everyone else is," said the Senior Wrangler.

The Archchancellor turned back to the Dean.

"Yes," he said, "it appears that we are all mean."

"Yo!" said the Dean.

"Yo what?" said Ridcully.

"It's not a yo what, it's just a yo," said the Senior Wrangler, behind him. "It's a general street greeting and affirmative with convivial military ingroup and masculine bonding-ritual overtones."

"What? What? Like "jolly good"?" said Ridcully.

"I suppose so," said the Senior Wrangler, reluctantly.

Ridcully was pleased. Ankh-Morpork had never offered very good prospects for hunting. He'd never thought it was possible to have so much fun in his own university.

"Right, " he said. ‘Let's get those heaps!"

"Yo!"

"Yo!"

"Yo!"

"Yo-yo."

Ridcully sighed. "Bursar?"

"Yes, Archchancellor?"

"Just try to understand, all right?"

Clouds piled up over the mountains. Bill Door strode up and down the first field, using one of the ordinary farm scythes; the sharpest one had been temporarily stored at the back of the barn, in case it was blunted by air convection. Some of Miss Flitworth's tenants followed behind him, binding the sheaves and stacking them. Miss Flitworth had never employed more than one man full time, Bill Door learned; she bought in other help as she needed it, to save pennies.

"Never seen a man cut corn with a scythe before," said one of them. "It's a sickle job."

They stopped for lunch, and ate it under the hedge.

Bill Door had never paid a great deal of attention to the names and faces of people, beyond that necessary for business. Corn stretched over the hillside; it was made up of individual stalks and to the eye of one stalk another stalk might be quite an impressive stalk, with a dozen amusing and distinctive little mannerisms that set it apart from all other stalks. But to the reaper man, all stalks start off as... just stalks.

Now he was beginning to recognise the little differences.

There was William Spigot and Gabby Wheels and Duke Bottomley. All old men, as far as Bill Door could judge, with skins like leather. There were young men and women in the village, but at a certain age they seemed to flip straight over to being old, without passing through any intermediate stage. And then they stayed old for a long time. Miss Flitworth had said that before they could start a graveyard in these parts they'd had to hit someone over the head with the shovel.

William Spigot was the one that sang when he worked, breaking into that long nasal whine which meant that folk song was about to be perpetrated. Gabby Wheels never said anything; this, Spigot had said, was why he had been called Gabby. Bill Door had failed to understand the logic of this, although it seemed transparent to the others.

And Duke Bottomley had been named by parents with upwardly-mobile if rather simplistic ideas about class structure; his brothers were Squire, Earl and King.

Now they sat in a row under the hedge, putting off the moment when they'd need to start work again. A glugging noise came from the end of the row.

"It's not been a bad old summer, then," said Spigot. "And good harvest weather for a change."

"Ah... many a slip ‘twixt dress and drawers," said Duke. "Last night I saw a spider spinnin' its web backwards. That's a sure sign there's going to be a dretful storm."

"Don't see how spiders know things like that."

Gabby Wheels passed a big earthenware jug to Bill Door. Something sloshed.

WHAT IS THIS?

"Apple juice," said Spigot. The others laughed.

AH, said Bill Door. STRONG DISTILLED SPIRITS, GIVEN HUMOROUSLY TO THE UNSUSPECTING NEWCOMER, THUS TO AFFORD SIMPLE AMUSEMENT WHEN HE BECOMES INADVERTENTLY INEBRIATED.

"Cor," said Spigot. Bill Door took a long swig.

"And I saw swallows flying low," said Duke. "And partridges are heading for the woods. And there's a lot of big snails about. And -"