Not pleasant company are these pilgrims. As a rule they are uncleanly, their habits coarse, their language foul, and their morality doubtful. Many persons in Kent prefer to lose several pounds rather than let their children go into the fields and associate with the mixed company from the East-End. Poor people! they are after all what their circumstances have made them; a sweep can hardly be blamed for having a black face. A few years since men, women, and children all slept together indiscriminately in barns and outhouses. Now, as regards sleeping accommodation, there have been changes for the better, “And far and near With accent clear The hop-picker’s song salutes the glad ear: The old and the young Unite in the throng, And echo re-echoes their jocund song, The hop-picking time is a time of glee, So merrily, merrily now sing we: For the bloom of the hop is the secret spell Of the bright pale ale that we love so well; So gather it quickly with tender care, And off to the wagons the treasure bear.” The high road from London to the hopfields of Kent presents a curious appearance immediately before the hop-picking season. A stranger might imagine that the poorer classes of a big city were flying {94} before an invading army. Grey-haired, decrepit old men and women are to be seen crawling painfully along, their stronger sons and daughters pressing on impatiently. Children by the dozens, some fresh and leaping for very joy at the green fields and sunshine, others crying from fatigue, for the road is long and dusty. Nearly all these people carry sacks or baskets, or bundles, and some even push hand carts laden with clothing, rags, and odds and ends. Most of these folk are careless, merry people, and beguile the way as did Chaucer’s pilgrims, with many a coarse jest, but here and there will be seen some hang-dog bloated-faced ruffian tramping doggedly along, a discontented weary woman dragging slowly a few yards in his rear, as likely as not carrying a half-starved sickly child in her shawl. Such as these cause the coming of the hop-pickers to be regarded with anything but satisfaction in country districts, and at such time householders are doubly careful to see that their windows and doors are properly barred. But the majority of the pickers are well-behaved according to their lights, and guilty at most of a little rough horseplay towards the solitary traveller or among themselves. Towards evening the pickers cease their tramp, and take up their quarters for the night in woodland copse, or under hedge-row or sheltering bank. Baskets, sacks, and hand carts are unpacked, and here and there will be seen a whole family seated round a blazing wood fire, over which boils the family kettle. Others, less fortunate in having no family circle to join, betake themselves to more secluded quarters to munch the lump of bread of which their supper consists.