gs when work was over they wandered about the
lanes, making love; and the hopping season was generally followed by
weddings. They went out in carts with bedding, pots and pans, chairs and
tables; and Ferne while the hopping lasted was deserted. They were very
exclusive and would have resented the intrusion of foreigners, as they
called the people who came from London; they looked down upon them and
feared them too; they were a rough lot, and the respectable country folk
did not want to mix with them. In the old days the hoppers slept in barns,
but ten years ago a row of huts had been erected at the side of a meadow;
and the Athelnys, like many others, had the same hut every year.

Athelny met Philip at the station in a cart he had borrowed from the
public-house at which he had got a room for Philip. It was a quarter of a
mile from the hop-field. They left his bag there and walked over to the
meadow in which were the huts. They were nothing more than a long, low
shed, divided into little rooms about twelve feet square. In front of each
was a fire of sticks, round which a family was grouped, eagerly watching
the cooking of supper. The sea-air and the sun had browned already the
faces of Athelny's children. Mrs. Athelny seemed a different woman in her
sun-bonnet: you felt that the long years in the city had made no real
difference to her; she was the country woman born and bred, and you could
see how much at home she found herself in the country. She was frying
bacon and at the same time keeping an eye on the younger children, but she
had a hearty handshake and a jolly smile for Philip. Athelny was
enthusiastic over the delights of a rural existence.

"We're starved for sun and light in the cities we live in. It isn't life,
it's a long imprisonment. Let us sell all we have, Betty, and take a farm
in the country."

"I can see you in the country," she answered with good-humoured scorn.
"Why, the first rainy day we had in the winter you'd be crying for
London." She turned to Philip. "Athelny's always like this when we come
down here. Country, I like that! Why, he don't know a swede from a
mangel-wurzel."

"Daddy was lazy today," remarked Jane, with the frankness which
characterized her, "he didn't fill one bin."

"I'm getting into practice, child, and tomorrow I shall fill more bins
than all of you put together."

"Come and eat your supper, children," said Mrs. Athelny. "Where's Sally?"

"Here I am, mother."

She ste