264 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



He is hard at work making these sacks or " pokes," which, 

 when full and their necks stitched up, are as hard as wood. 

 Before the drying is over the full sacks will take up half 

 the room. The children tired of picking come to admire 

 and to visit all the corners of the room; of the granary 

 alongside and its old sheepbells, its traps, a crossbow and 

 the like; of the farmyard and barns, sacred except at this 

 time. For a few minutes the sun is visible as a shapeless 

 crimson thing above the mist and behind the elms. It is 

 twilight; the wheels and hoofs of the last waggon ap- 

 proach and arrive and die away. And so day after day 

 the fires glow with ruby and sapphire and emerald; the 

 cone wears its plume of smoke; and everything is yellow- 

 green the very scent of the drying hops can hardly be 

 otherwise described, in its mixture of sharpness and mel- 

 lowness. Then when the last sack is pressed benches are 

 placed round the chamber and a table at one end. The 

 master, who is giving up the farm, leans on the table 

 and pays each picker and pole-puller and measurer, with 

 a special word for each and a jest for the women. Ale 

 and gin and cakes are brought in, and the farmer leaves 

 the women and one or two older men to eat and drink. 

 The women in their shabby black skirts and whitish 

 blouses shuffle through a dance or two, all modern and 

 some American. One old man tipsily tottering recalls 

 the olden time with a step-dance down the room; some 

 laugh at him, others turn up their now roseate noses. 

 Next year the hops are to be grubbed up; the old man to 

 be turned out of his cottage for he has paid no rent 

 these seven years; but now it is cakes and ale, and the 

 farmer has hiccupped a lying promise that his successor 

 will go on growing hops. 



