bushels he has picked; so that according to the aggregate amount of his tally-marks produced at the end of the hop-gathering, he may demand payment. "Board and lodging," meantime, is found for him at the expense of the employer. When we say board and lodging, we should observe that it amounts merely to bread, milk, potatoes, and a shed or barn. Some employers, however, afford a somewhat better fare than this; but we speak with reference to the more general character and limit of the dietary and accommodation allowed.

The sorts of hops are various: in the Weald of Kent the grapehop will be found the most common; the golden-hop is also a favourite where a somewhat warmer and drier quality of the soil favours its growth. A period of about six weeks constitutes the duration of the hop-harvest, from its commencement with the gathering of the earlier kinds, to its close with that of the latest. The mode of picking is convenient: the gatherers stand in long ranks or lines, facing each other, on either side of a row of wide and deep bags or sacks, swung between a sort of stands, or rude frameworks of wood: the hop-plants having been pulled down, together with the poles to which they cling, are put transversely over these stands by the side of the gatherers, who set to work, forthwith, and "whip off" the flowers, letting them drop from between their fingers into the sacks below.

An active picker has been known to gather as many as twenty-five bushels and upwards in a day's picking; but then the work has been carried on through a whole day, and extended to as late an hour even as ten o'clock at night; and by a bright moonlight, the scene is no less interesting than under the golden skies of a gladsome harvestday.

The general quantity picked by an individual gatherer in a day is about sixteen bushels: the work closing at sunset and commencing at different hours in the morning, sometimes at six, sometimes at eight nine, or eleven; for, suppose that on the preceding evening the hops, which have been picked, have not yet been all fully dried in the kiln, (and the drying process commences immediately after the gathering, or concomitant with it,) then there is a delay until the drying of the quantity at present in the kiln is concluded and the kiln empty, and ready for the reception of more hop-flowers. For if the flowers are picked any length of time before the drying process commences, the aroma evaporates, and the quality of the hop for the market is consequently spoiled.

We stated sixteen bushels a day as the general standard of a good picker's work of course the amount picked will vary according to the adroitness and knack, or the awkwardness and slowness of the gatherer. A shilling is considered a fair price for picking ten bushels ; tenpence is often given, but the price varies more or less as the crop is thicker in blossom or more scanty; for the work is more laborious if the crop is a sparing one as the picker has to search the boughs more nicely, and pick more diligently, than when he has boughs brought to hand loaded with blossoms, which he then strips off with all speed and readiness. The farmer is, thus, witnessed as losing both ways in the instance of a scanty crop: first of all in his bad crop; and secondly, in having more to pay for the picking it.

The signal for pausing in the labour is the accumulation of a suffi

cient quantity of hop-blossoms in the large canvass bags or sacks, already mentioned, of the picker, to make a "keel" as it is called. This word is a corruption of the term “kiln.”

The hop-kiln is much the same in appearance and construction as the malt-kiln; there are ovens on the ground-floor, then over the funnels of these is the flooring of lathe, covered over with horsehair cloths, woven fine, on which the layers of hops are strewed or spread.

The steam of sulphur which comes up from the ovens below, now permeates the drying-room, and brings the hop to that state which renders it fit for the market. The air is tempered by the escape overhead, through the huge hoodlike chimneys, cowls, or vanes, which swing backwards and forwards with the wind, and carry off the mingled fume of sulphur and hop, which thus tempered is exceedingly agreeable and diffuses a grateful odour round the spot of the drying.

Let the hop-grower beware how he hastens the work of drying too precipitately! If he does so, the effect is, that the outer layer of hops on the drying-floor is too dry, and the inner not dry enough; and hence the proper aroma or bouquet is lost, and the hop-" pocket" is returned to him by the factor or brewer (when he offers his "sample" for sale) as worthless! Guinness's or Barclay's gorge would rise at such rashly dried hop! though certainly an inferior dealer would do better to purchase it, damaged as it is, than resort to the villanous adulterations made up of quassia and other trashy ingredients, which too often form a substitute for hops in this land of hops-whether they are the growth of Worcestershire, Nottinghamshire, Herefordshire, Kent, Sussex, or exquisite Farnham.*

Well! the first "keel or kiln" being achieved, the picking goes on; and another kiln, and another is completed, until the hops are all exhausted, and the hop-garden, instead of presenting its late luxuriant show of garlanded poles, and the happy moil of the pickers in their motley groups-now presents a flat, naked space, covered with the brown haulm, or discarded stems of the hop-plants, which have been stripped of their blossoms. These stems are raked up and taken away for litter or fuel, and the poles are piled up in 'circular heaps, the tops all meeting in a point, and the lower ends protruding, so as to give the piles, or heaps of piles, the appearance of so many tents. The hop-grower considers himself well paid if he gets six pounds per hundredweight-he will not "sneeze" on occasions at five: he will grin from now till next year with satisfaction should he net seven pounds; and if you ask him what was the maximum price during the war he will tell you, "As high, bless you, as twenty pound!" But, then, mark! the hop was at the war period less generally cultivated than it has been subsequently. The amount of produce per acre of course varies greatly, according to the quality, superior or inferior, of the soil, and also according to the season. What think you of sixteen hundredweight, my honest friends of the "Weald?" Will you grumble at this?

When Farnham "pockets" are from 110s. to 130s. per cwt., those of the Weald of Kent are at 72s. to 82s.; Mid Kent, 83s. to 120s.; East Kent, 888. to 120s.; Sussex, at 70s. to 78s.; such is the relative value of the kinds quoted; and these prices are moderate.

Such then is the close of the hop-picking. The motley groups have passed away, happy in their pay. They have challenged of the "tallyman" the price of their "bushels :" let them take care they don't spend all their earnings in the glee of their hearts, almost as soon as they have gained it, and before the stain of the hop-flowers has worn off from their fingers.

The flower, by the by, stains the hand in picking, much as the walnut does. Never mind! to make up for this, the smell of the blossoms is most salubrious, and a genuine Katterfelto would tell you, if he catalogued it amongst his nostrums, that it was good for "head, blood, and chest,"-so, indeed, it is accounted in the hop districts.

The "tag, rag, and bobtail," of London importations having now vanished from the scene, the farmer calls together that portion of the pickers which consists of his own farming-men-their wives, daughters, and families. See the honest clodhoppers with spick span-new green-coloured smock-frocks (such is generally the hue of this rustic livery in the part of Kent which we have in view), new "corduroys," half-boots (for the hop-harvest always regenerates the peasant's wardrobe, just as her majesty's birthday does that of the postmen), and rough antigossamer" hats-see them throng to the master's hearth. Away they heel-and-toe it to the sound of the fiddle, and pan-pipe, and oboe, and "all sorts" of village minstrelsy. Heartily they laugh as they toss down mugs-full to the health of "Measter" and success to his hop

market.

The fiddle squeaks away, and the girls laugh and bounce down the middle and "oop agin," with hearty boys of Kent, while overhead hangs that mysterious "Bough"-(quite sibyline) — the "Lucky Bough," as an auspicious talisman of good luck to master and man. Happy is the girl or lad who is fortunate enough during "the picking" to light on a " Lucky Bough!" It is characterized by all its leaves and flowers growing only on one side of the stem, and just as if they had been all twisted in this peculiar position. It is not of frequent occurrence, and the individual who finds it is considered "lucky," and the hearth over which it hangs is sacred.

Such is the lowly as happy superstition of the "Lucky Bough!" There it hangs! fair and fragrant, no less than auspicious, over the heads of those jolly clodpoles and their bright-eyed partners; the fiddle is put on still severer duty as the heat of the dance now waxes warmerit would do you good to hear their hobnails clatter on the floor! It would do you good, too, to hear the cans clatter, and the mugs jingle, and master and man chuckle over happy recitals of the gathering" well "got in." It would do you good to join the hop-harvest-home (we wish it was more universally kept than it is!) and worship the "Lucky Bough."

46

THE TWO HEADS:

AN EXTRAVAGANZA.

I AM the second son of a gentleman of ancient descent but moderate fortune, in one of the northern states of Germany. My father, a man of high and honourable feeling, resolved that as his means would not allow him to provide adequately for all of his four sons, the younger ones should endeavour to carve out fortune for themselves, rather than pass their lives in the useless and often painful position of cadets de famille. He was esteemed by the sovereign of his country, and he trusted that with the aid of some interest and a good education, his children might rise high in the professions they should adopt. From an early age, therefore, one of my brothers was destined to the army, another to the church, and I, myself, was to become a lawyer.

However good my father's intentions undoubtedly were, he committed an error of judgment when he allotted to me the dry and steril study of the law, which was in every way unsuited to my character and disposition. Of a highly nervous and excitable temperament, it was painful, and almost impossible for me to fix iny mind and attention on any thing that did not in some degree appeal to or captivate my imagination. Even in my boyish days, and in my intercourse with lads of my own age, a tendency to the fantastic and ideal, and distaste for the more solid and material affairs of life revealed themselves in an unusual degree, and were unfortunately pampered by free access to a style of reading that should have been carefully withheld from me.

I had a maiden aunt who resided at my father's, a most determined reader of fiction, and who, pleased to discover a kindred taste in me, willingly supplied me with the kind of literature in which she delighted. The wildest and most fantastic creations of the German school were hourly in my hand, and I would remain whole days, filling my mind to repletion with this unwholesome food, till I attained such a pitch of excitement, that the hours allotted to sleep were passed in uneasy and dream-broken slumbers, or in tossing to and fro on my feverish bed, and recapitulating the horrors and wild fancies I had read of in the day.

At college my silent and unsociable disposition caused me to be little sought after by other students, whom I, in my turn, gladly avoided, devoting to solitude and the perusal of my favourite authors, all the time I was not compelled to give to study. Even now the pleasantest hours I can call to mind are those spent in the greenwoods that surround the university town of C. Many were the long summer afternoons I passed under their shade, absorbed in my books; and when my temples ached, and my brain grew dizzy with the excitement the latter occasioned, I would bury my face in the thick grass, and as though reflected on a black and shining mirror, scenes and figures surpassing the wildest dreams of Callot and Hoffmann, glided before my distempered vision.

My vacations I usually spent at a country-house belonging to my

father, which to me offered a peculiar charm, from its bizarre and antique construction, and still more from the thousand tales and superstitions that existed concerning it, and which it was my delight to collect from the neighbouring peasants, and from one or two old domestics, who had grown gray in the service of the family.

The outside of this mansion had been carefully preserved in all its picturesque rudeness, but the interior had undergone numerous changes suggested by increase of luxury, and was as comfortable as a more modern dwelling could have been. One room, however, had been in no way altered since its first construction. It was a spacious apartment, of greater length than width, roofed and wainscotted with black oak. Its original destination was that of a picture-gallery, and to this use it had always been applied. Panels three or four feet in width were left plain, and filled up with pictures, between which were carved devices of the most strange and fanciful nature. Fauns and satyrs, grim-looking helmeted heads, fabulous animals, and chimeras of all kinds, were placed round the spaces occupied by the pictures, which latter were, for the most part, family portraits.

This gallery, which was seldom visited, except by some dust-detesting menial, was my favourite haunt. There was one picture that attracted my particular attention. It represented a lady in an eastern costume, holding in her hand a large open fan, on which was depicted a combat between Moorish and Christian cavaliers, minutely and beautifully painted. The lady's face was of exceeding loveliness, and bore the impress of stormy passions and much suffering.

There was a story connected with this picture and one of my ancestors who had gone to aid the Spaniards in their wars against the infidel.

He had been taken prisoner, so ran the legend, and escaped by the assistance of the daughter of a Moorish prince. Before they had got far from the fortress in which he had been confined, they were met by the lady's father. A struggle ensued, and the Christian being unarmed, was about to be overcome, when his mistress supplied him with a poniard, which a moment later was reddened in her father's blood. The escape was effected, but the lady died of remorse a year afterwards.

Before this picture I used to pass hours, lying on an old settee, book in hand, and occasionally suspending my reading to gaze on that beautiful face, in which fierce passion and deep remorse were so strangely blended.

I cannot define the feeling which the contemplation of this painting occasioned me. Had the picture had a living original, I doubt not I should have become passionately enamoured of her, so great was the fascination which those deep, sad, and yet fierce eyes exercised over me. If, however, I remained in the gallery after dusk, my admiration was exchanged for a superstitious terror, and I would hasten trembling away, hardly daring to turn my back to the picture lest it should leave its frame and follow me.

Habits and reveries of the nature I have sketched, were, as may be supposed, by no means favourable to serious study, and I scarce know how it was, and at what rare intervals I succeeded in gaining a