第40章

and 'Mr.Leney, the Wateringbury brewer, brother to Mr.Herbert Leney, is another heavy loser.' As for the hoppers, they did not count.Yet Iventure to assert that the several almost square meals lost by underfed William Buggles, and underfed Mrs.Buggles, and the underfed Buggles kiddies, was a greater tragedy than the L10,000lost by Mr.Fremlin.And in addition, underfed William Buggles'

tragedy might be multiplied by thousands where Mr.Fremlin's could not be multiplied by five.

To see how William Buggles and his kind fared, I donned my seafaring togs and started out to get a job.With me was a young East London cobbler, Bert, who had yielded to the lure of adventure and joined me for the trip.Acting on my advice, he had brought his 'worst rags,'

and as we hiked up the London Road out of Maidstone he was worrying greatly for fear we had come too ill-dressed for the business.

Nor was he to be blamed.When we stopped in a tavern the publican eyed us gingerly, nor did his demeanor brighten till we flashed the color of our cash.The natives along the road were all dubious; and 'bean-feasters' from London, dashing past in coaches, cheered and jeered and shouted insulting things after us.But before we were done with the Maidstone district my friend found that we were as well clad, if not better, than the average hopper.Some of the bunches of rags we chanced upon were marvellous.

'The tide is out,' called a gypsy-looking woman to her mates, as we came up a long row of bins into which the pickers were stripping the hops.

'Do you twig?' Bert whispered.'She's on to you.'

I twigged.And it must be confessed the figure was an apt one.

When the tide is out boats are left on the beach and do not sail, and a sailor, when the tide is out, does not sail either.My seafaring togs and my presence in the hop field proclaimed that I was a seaman without a ship, a man on the beach, and very like a craft at low water.

'Can yer give us a job, governor?' Bert asked the bailiff, a kindly faced and elderly man who was very busy.

His 'No,' was decisively uttered; but Bert clung on and followed him about, and I followed after, pretty well all over the field.Whether our persistency struck the bailiff as anxiety to work, or whether he was affected by our hard-luck appearance and tale, neither Bert nor I succeeded in making out; but in the end he softened his heart and found us the one unoccupied bin in the place- a bin deserted by two other men, from what I could learn, because of inability to make living wages.

'No bad conduct, mind ye,' warned the bailiff, as he left us at work in the midst of the women.

It was Saturday afternoon, and we knew quitting time would come early; so we applied ourselves earnestly to the task, desiring to learn if we could at least make our salt.It was simple work, woman's work, in fact, and not man's.We sat on the edge of the bin, between the standing hops, while a pole-puller supplied us with great fragrant branches.In an hour's time we became as expert as it is possible to become.As soon as the fingers became accustomed automatically to differentiate between hops and leaves and to strip half a dozen blossoms at a time there was no more to learn.

We worked nimbly, and as fast as the women themselves, though their bins filled more rapidly because of their swarming children each of which picked with two hands almost as fast as we picked.

'Don'tcher pick too clean, it's against the rules,' one of the women informed us; and we took the tip and were grateful.

As the afternoon wore along, we realized that living wages could not be made- by men.Women could pick as much as men, and children could do almost as well as women; so it was impossible for a man to compete with a woman and half a dozen children.For it is the woman and the half-dozen children who count as a unit and by their combined capacity determine the unit's pay.

'I say, matey, I'm beastly hungry,' said I to Bert.We had not had any dinner.

'Blimey, but I could eat the 'ops,' he replied.