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Valleys run out on every side from the main one in which it stands; and the hills, which are everywhere at some distance, wind about in a very pleasant and picturesque manner, covered with mingled woods and fields, and hop-grounds. The house now presents two principal fronts.
His earliest memories were filled with pictures of the endless hop-grounds and orchards, and the little child "thought it all extremely beautiful!" Through the long years of his short life he was always consistent in his love for Kent and the old surroundings. When the after days came and while travelling abroad, how vividly the childish love returned!
Warner up there at Manley Bridge." At eight years old he was sent out on to the common to mind cows; at ten he was thought big enough to be helpful to his father, at piece-work in the hop-grounds; and in due time he began to go "down into Sussex" with his father and others for the harvesting.
When I took the road again next morning, I found that it lay through a succession of hop-grounds and orchards. It was sufficiently late in the year for the orchards to be ruddy with ripe apples; and in a few places the hop-pickers were already at work.
Some historians have affirmed that Henry VI. forbade the planting of hops; but it is certain that "bluff King Hal" ordered brewers to put neither hops nor sulphur into their ale. In the reign of James I. the produce of hop-grounds were insufficient for the consumption, and a law was made against the introduction of "spoilt hops."
In much the same way as country folk on the Continent take their country produce into town markets the men of this valley took, into the hop-grounds and fields of the neighbouring valley, or into its old-fashioned streets and stable yards, their toughness, their handiness, their intimate understanding of country crafts; and, returning home in the evening, they slipped back again into their natural peasant state, without any feeling of disharmony from the day's employment.
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