8o FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



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 thresh- 

 ing. 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 holloMf 

 and spiral ? the side opposite would not be so diflicultf 

 but the bit this side, overhead and almost perpendicular| 

 and so greatly foreshortened, how with that ? It woulf 

 be necessary to make the spectator of the drawing fe 

 as if this side of the cone rose up from behind his head 

 as if his head were just inside the cone. Would not tl 

 be as curious a bit of study as any that could be foui 



