'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.