The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-05-20

liugton-where Sir Thomas Wyatt
through his passion for the Kentish
beauty, Queen Anne Boleyn, wrote almost
the earliest and some OF the sweetest
love songs in the English tongue-the
green depths of whose forests throbbed
with the endless melody of birds, and
from whose gentle hills the hop gardens
Of Kent stretch away to the south and
the east like impenetrable masses of
shadows, toward ancient Canterbury and
tile sea.
Nor were they alone in their pilgrim
age. From every highway. by-path and
lane leading, as it seemed, from every
| contiguous shire and centering about
Maidstone, fioated low clouds of dust.
These half hid and half disclosed masses
of oncOming pilgrim bands. They came
| not IN hundreds, but in thousands. They
came in vans, in carts and on foot. Thou.
sands OF Gypsies were among their num-
| Der Every railway train which halted
| at every station in the entire district,
left scores or hundreds from the London
slums; and these set out with fierce
| halloas upon the crowded roads in mad
racings for favorite gardens and masters.
From the hillside where their van had
halted for the night they could see for
| miles and miles the wild thrOngs thicken.
The hedges were alive with them
| Every spring or stream or well was seized
| upon as by armies in their pestilential. all
/ lung udEClbS. lHGY crowded
! from the hedges into field corners. They
! broke into the meadows and wallowed in
! the aftermath. Wave-like they beat up
! against the farmhouses and fought like
! beasts for sheds and half-sheltered spots
! beneath division walls, or for hollows be-
| side the highways. Far as the eye could
| reach, it seemed that writing, wrig-
! CLING, ungoyernable countless thousands
| OF frantic humans were wedged in upon
each other simply for savage outlawry
| and destruction.
As the night came down the valley,
scene and sound were more impressive
still, hundreds of Pickering campires
were lighted in the plain below. No
| human was visible, but the mutteriags OF
| this unmarshaled army of labor were
more dreadful in contemplation than
! their unnasked ranks by day. Hoarse
| hallOas, laughter from which all iuno-
| cence had forever flown cries of drunken
men and shrieking women mingled in hor-
rible discord and fioated blastingly over
| this sweetest of English wales.
| Butlate, late at night, one by one the
valley fires grew dim, and one by one the
blessed stars, as if shuddering and shrink
| ing from the bestial scenes below, swung
| their trembling lanterns in the sky. And
! not until then could at least two of the &C.
cupants of the van at old Abingdon forest
! side, realize that the air was full of odor-
! hop gardens brought the sweetest of all
| repose; and that in no other land beneath
| the stars do labor ana night invite the
tired and unfortunate to such wondrously
! life-giving and ever dreamless sleep as
| among the beauteous hop gardens of an
Clent Kent.
The next Monday morning found the
Pelhams, Ike and Hetty vigorously at
work in the hop-gardens of the farms at
tached to a large demesne in the out
skirts of Aylesford, a charming hamlet
which climbs a pretty hillside to an
ancient church, a few miles north of
Maidstone on the gently winding Midway
stream.
To the bop-pickers in general the place
was simply known as The Hall" 1t
was historic place, no doubt, for the
battlemented turrets of a huge structure
showed loftily above the park trees of the
demeSne, But to those who annually
came and toiled, its chief interest lay in
the fact that fair prices were paid for
hop-gathering and that the Overseers |
were careful in selecting pickers from
among rural village folk rather than from
the vile rabble of the London slums.
That the Pelhams were thus fortunate
was Tue to the genius and diplomacy of
Chathnch Ike, who swore a great coster
oath to Hetty that ''afore he'd let thu
hempress mix with tn regular Lunnon
MOP as goes 'oppin,' he would chuck
| 'er in tn wan, an run away 'ome acin'
so he would and so the four, who were
provided with a bin to themselves.
found their surroundings far more pleas
ant than falls to the lot of most who
scram BILE among the odorous hop-ields of
Kent.
AT the close of the first day George and
Mercy Pelham returned to their van,
which stood beside the ancient Aylesford
church, with sore limbs and bleeding
bands. But there was compensating
magic in the hearty outdoor life: exhil-
aratlon IN the very striving of the labor;
elation in the merry rivalry; and Won
drouS human interest in the bright, quaint
| groups about them
Then there were the strange signals
for bringing the piczers together. morn
ing and afternoon; the conch-shell horns,
the hand bells, the cries more wondrous
! than those of London hawkers and the
musical numbers from tho old farm house
belfries. There were the huge four
wheel carts, gathering the hops from the
| bins for the "oasts'' or kilns; the over
seers measuring the feathery fruitage;
the pole puliersn ever coming and going
with mountains of vines and stacks of
empty poles; the "tally-man" with his
quick figuring and CHEEKY words of en-
enlargement; the evening cry of mo
more poles - which closed the long day
of toll; and then the bright, genial,
almost social aspect of eventide as the
pickers trailed along the lanes and high
ways to their village homes, forming
wonderful pastoral groupings against the
mellow and reposeful autumnal landscape.
And so, with toll and song, the days
came and went until the cry of mo more
poles!" closed the labors of the first
week, and the overseer came to the
'singin' bin" as the other pickers had
learned to call the one from which so
often sweet songs or registering coster
ballads were heard. with words of VIC
tory TO Mercy, George. Hetty and Ike
that they had ''outpicked the field while,
I more glorious STILL their "tally-book''
showed that their weeks toll had gained
for the four loyal friends the princely
sum of eight pounds, ten shillings and
fourpence!
All, George, " cried Mercy in the grand
est enthusiasm, -four weeks more like
this, and Wen sail home second cabin,
at least"
An hour later the brother and sister
had entered an open ancient church Tor a
bit of quiet and rest Ike had knocked
OFF, at noon for a tramp to Maidstone, to
inquire for any letters which might have
been forwarded from Cheyne Row; and
faithful Hetty, occasionally involved with
"Boliver," now unduly facetious from his