They Are Saying That It Is A 'pretty
Day,' 'pretty Weather' - It Is Always 'pretty' With Them, Instead Of Fine.
Pretty Weather For The Hopping; And So That Leads On To Climbing Up Into
The Loft And Handling The Golden Scales.
The man with the hoe dips his
brown fist in the heap and gathers up a handful, noting as he does so how
the crisp, brittle, leaf-life substance of the hops crackles, and yet
does not exactly break in his palm.
They must be dry, yet not too dry to
go to powder. They cling a little to the fingers, adhering to the skin,
sticky. He looks for rust and finds none, and pronounces it a good
sample. 'But there beant nothen' now like they old Grapes used to be,' he
concludes. The pair have not long gone down the narrow stairs when a
waggon stops outside in the lane, and up comes the carter to speak with
the 'drier' - the giant trampling round in the pocket - and to see how the
hops 'be getting on.' In five minutes another waggoner looks in, then a
couple of ploughboys, next a higgler passing by; no one walks or rides or
drives past the hop-kiln without calling to see how things are going on.
The carters cannot stay long, but the boys linger, eagerly waiting a
chance to help the 'drier,' even if only to reach him his handkerchief
from the nail. Round and round in the pocket brings out the perspiration,
and the dust of the hops gets into the air-passages and thickens on the
skin of his face. One of the lads has to push the hops towards him with a
rake. 'Don't you step on 'em too much, that'll break 'em.' On the light
breeze that comes now and then a little chaff floats in at the open
window from the threshing. A crooked sort of face appears in the doorway,
the body has halted halfway up - a semi-gipsy face - and the fellow thrusts
a basket before him on the floor. 'Want any herrings?' 'No, thankie - no,'
cries the giant. 'Not to-day, measter; thusty enough without they.'
Herrings are regularly carried round in hop-time to all the gardens, and
there is a great sale for them among the pickers. By degrees the 'drier'
rises higher in the pocket, coming up, as it were, through the floor
first his shoulders, then his body, and now his knees are visible. This
is the ancient way of filling a hop pocket; a machine is used now in
large kilns, but here, where there is only one cone, indicative of a
small garden, the old method is followed.
The steps on which I sit lead up to the door of the cone. Inside, the
green hops lie on the horsehair carpet, and the fumes of the sulphur
burning underneath come up through them. A vapour hangs about the surface
of the hops; looking upwards, the diminishing cone rises hollow to the
cowl, where a piece of blue sky can be seen. Round the cone a strip of
thin lathing is coiled on a spiral; could any one stand on these steps
and draw the inside of the cone? Could perspective be so managed as to
give the idea of the diminishing hollow and spiral? the side opposite
would not be so difficult, but the bit this side, overhead and almost
perpendicular, and so greatly foreshortened, how with that? It would be
necessary to make the spectator of the drawing feel as if this side of
the cone rose up from behind his head; as if his head were just inside
the cone. Would not this be as curious a bit of study as any that could
be found in the interior of old Continental churches, which people go so
many miles to see? Our own land is so full of interest. There are
pictures by the oldest Master everywhere in our own country, by the very
Master of the masters, by Time, whose crooked signature lies in the
corner of the shadowy farmhouse hearth.
Beneath the loft, on the ground-floor, I found the giant's couch. The bed
of a cart had been taken off its wheels, forming a very good bedstead,
dry and sheltered on three sides. On the fourth the sleeper's feet were
towards the charcoal fire. Opening the furnace door, he could sit there
and watch the blue and green tongues of sulphur flame curl round about
and above the glowing charcoal, the fumes rising to the hops on the
horsehair high over. The 'hoppers' in the garden used to bring their
kettles and pots to boil, till the practice grew too frequent, and was
stopped, because the constant opening of the furnace wasted the heat. The
sulphur comes in casks. A sulphur cask sawn down the middle, with a bit
left by the head for cover, is often used by the hoppers as a cradle.
Another favourite cradle is made from a trug basket, the handle cut off.
It is then like half a large eggshell, with cross pieces underneath to
prevent it from canting aside. This cradle is set on the bare ground in
the garden; when they move one woman takes hold of one end and a second
of the other, and thus carry the infant. If you ask them, they will find
you a 'hop-dog,' a handsome green caterpillar marked with black velvet
stripes and downy bands between. Their labour usually ends early in the
afternoon.
The giant at the kiln must watch and bide his time the night through till
the hops are ready to be withdrawn from the cone. He is alone. Deep
shadows gather round the farmstead and the ricks, and there is not a
sound, nothing but the rustle of a leaf falling from the hollow oak by
the gateway. But at midnight, just as the drier is drawing the hops, a
thunderstorm bursts, and the blue lightning lights up the red cone
without, blue as the sulphur flames creeping over the charcoal within.
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