As we passed the old town-hall and came out at the end of the road, the white arms of the mill detached themselves against the bright sky where the sun, sinking nearer to the horizon, rayed the west with glory. Father stood a moment on the crest of the hill looking down into the valley, upon whose confines the broad meads of the South Downs swelled into rising ground again; a stream wound across the plain, that was intersected by dikes at intervals; far to the left lay the sea—a dim, blue line across the stems of the trees, breaking into a little bay in the dip of the hill where the valley met the marsh.
"The Elms" stood on the brow of the hill nearer the sea; the hop-gardens that belonged to it lay close at our feet. We went down the hill among the sheep and the sturdy lambs that leaped lightly still after their dams; father walked slowly in front, Mr. Harrod and I followed. The hop plantations covered the slopes, and swept across the valley to the other side. We left the house to our left above us, and went down into the valley.
The hops, according to their sort, had grown to various heights: some three feet, some less, and the women and girls from the village had been out during the last month tying them, so that they were now past the second bind.
Father and Mr. Harrod walked in a critical way through the lines of plants, examining them carefully. Here and there Trayton Harrod pinched off the flower of a bine that had been left on.
"It's very strange," said he, "that pruning and branching of the hops used not to be done some years ago. I read in an old book that the practice was first introduced since farmers noticed how hailstones, nipping off the bine-tops early in the summer, made the plants grow stronger."
They walked on again, Harrod showing father where the Jones hops grew, and where the Goldings, and arguing that, for purposes of early foreign export, the Jones hops easily took the place of the Early Prolifics, and came to a far finer, taller growth, while for later introduction into the market the Goldings were the best grown. Father stated the same objections that Reuben had stated—Trayton Harrod fighting each one vigorously, and coming off victorious, as he somehow always did.
We walked on through the gardens and then up by the house and back along the brow of the hill.
The sun had sunk below the horizon, and the crimson of the after-glow lay, a lump of fire, in the purple west, and sent rays of redness far into the heavens on every side, washing the clouds with a hundred tints from the brightest rose to the tenderest violet, the faintest green, the softest dove-color above our heads. Behind the village and its houses a row of dusky-headed pines stood tall or bent their trunks, bowed by the storm-winds, across the road; father stopped there a moment and looked at the glowing sky from between their red stems. The hills lay round the plain, wonderfully blue; the sunset gilded the quiet little stream upon the marsh till it looked like a streak of molten metal. He had not spoken a word, and now he sighed, half impatiently, as he turned homeward. I remember that Mr. Harrod left us at that point. He promised to be in to supper, and father and I walked on alone.
When we got to the dip of the road where the hill begins to go down towards the sea-marsh, we met Mr. Hoad coming up in his smart little gig, with his daughter Jessie at his side. I was for passing them with merely a bow, for they showed no signs of stopping, and I desired no conversation with either of them; but father stopped the gig.
"Hoad, can you spare me a few minutes?" asked he. "I should be much obliged to you. Miss Jessie, you'll come in and have a cup of tea," added he, courteously.