Sept. 17.—The hop-picking has been in full swing for over a week—a week of the wretchedest weather. It has rained in all possible ways from insidious drizzle to roaring impetuous thunder-shower; but always it has rained, and for the most part a steady business-like downpour has prevailed. In this, sheltered or not according as they could contrive it with an old umbrella or so, the miserable hop-pickers have stood by their baskets, ten or twelve hours a day. Often, ere they could reach their work in the early morning, they must have been wet to the skin, and so remained until the evening. To this and their other discomforts—the clamminess of cold food, the sickening wetness of everything to the touch, the dismal rain-colour in all the air—there has been added that of unspeakable mud wherever they go, loading their boots, sticking itself to them as if alive, clinging in cakes to their drenched clothes.

The “ground” in which Bettesworth is employed is an out-of-the-way place lying about half a mile from the high-road. Even before getting so near to it as that, most of the people have two miles to walk. By going round another mile or so, they might come to the hopgarden by a sticky cart-track; but miles that have to be done before six in the morning are a consideration to burdened women, with children and perambulators; so a shorter cut is taken, along a neglected road that really ends in a field.