THIS
is magnificent."
CHAPTER XXXVI
BY THE ROADSIDE EVERYWHERE
His breakfast and the talk over it with Penzance seemed good things. It
suddenly had become worth while to discuss the approaching hop harvest
and the yearly influx of the hop pickers from London. Yesterday the
subject had appeared discouraging enough. The great hop gardens of the
estate had been in times past its most prolific source of agricultural
revenue and the boast and wonder of the hop-growing county. The neglect
and scant food of the lean years had cost them their reputation. Each
season they had needed smaller bands of "hoppers," and their standard
had been lowered. It had been his habit to think of them gloomily, as
of hopeless and irretrievable loss. Because this morning, for a remote
reason, the pulse of life beat strong in him he was taking a new view.
Might not study of the subject, constant attention and the application
of all available resource to one end produce appreciable results? The
idea presented itself in the form of a thing worth thinking of.
"It would provide an outlook and give one work to do," he put it to his
companion. "To have a roof over one's head, a sound body, and work to
do, is not so bad.
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