nce and its silent record of passing
generations, who have welcomed its shade at blazing summer noontides,
or crept close to its warm touch for shelter from the winter's
chilling blast and the hissing hail.

Tom was always the leader of my team of mowers when the grass was cut,
for, with the large staff I employed on purpose for the all-important
hop-gardens, I never wanted, till towards the end of my time, to make
use of a machine. The steady swing of his scythe, with scarcely an
apparent effort, the swish, as the swathe fell beneath its keen edge,
and the final lift of the severed grasses at the end of the stroke,
all in regular rhythmic action, were very fascinating to watch. At
intervals came a halt for "whetting" the blade, and the musical sound
of rubber (sharpening stone) against steel, equally adroitly
accomplished, proved the artist at his work, with a delicacy of touch
which, perhaps in different circumstances, might have produced the
thrills with which Pachmann's velvet caress or Paderewski's refined
expression enchant a vast and rapturous audience.

As a land-drainer, too, I loved to watch him standing in the slippery
trench, with not an inch more soil moved than was necessary, lifting
out the decreasing "draws," and leaving a bottom nicely rounded
exactly to fit the pipes, and finally the methodical adjustment of
each pipe, with the concluding tap to bring it close to the last one
laid. Draining is an art which taxes the ability of the best of men,
for it must be remembered that, like the links of a chain, its
efficiency is no greater than that of its weakest part.

When I had to arrange for the harvesting of my first hop crop, it was
necessary to find a man who could be entrusted with the critical work
of drying the hops, and Tom was the man I chose. I had my kiln ready,
constructed in an old malthouse, on the latest principles, and in time
for the first crop. The kiln consisted of a space about 20 feet
square, walled off at one end of the old building, but with entrances
on the ground and first floors. Beneath, in the lower compartment, was
the fireplace, a yard square, and 16 feet above was the floor on which
the hops were dried. Anthracite coal was used for fuel, the fire being
maintained day and night throughout the picking--the morning's picking
drying between 1 p.m. and 12 midnight, and the afternoon's picking
between 1 a.m. and 12 o'clock noon. Tom was therefore on duty for the
whole twenty-four