THE COUNTRY-SIDE: SUSSEX. 79 



ordinary walking-stick or with one in each hand. When 

 he walks he keeps putting the staff, which he calls a bat, 

 in front, and so poles himself along. There is an 

 invalid boy in the yard, who walks with a similar stick. 

 The farmer is talking with a friend who has looked in 

 from the lane in passing, and carries a two-spean spud, 

 or Canterbury hoe, with points instead of a broad blade. 

 Tliey 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 climb- 

 ing 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 



