[249] for it was just at that moment the very height of the wheat harvest and of all the other cereal crops; and he said that he was afraid lest out of despair of the preservation of their national and hereditary laws and customs, the men might conceive such a contempt for life as either themselves to lay waste their lands, or to burn all the corn-bearing district, whether mountainous or champaign country, and, therefore, that he might require a guard to secure a careful gathering in of the crops, and that not only of such as were borne on the arable land but of those produced by fruit-bearing trees;