Inside the Oast
Many of the oasts are now heated by oil burners, and these add to the hollow and incessant moan, setting up a duet by supplying the lower voice, which wavers a little, with the most melancholy result. The sound is that of an elegy for lost worlds ; an embodiment of the Teu- tonic sveltschmers. This year the note of foreboding has been augmented by the weather, storm after storm drenching the gardens and pickers.
Once inside the oast, however, and all is cheerful, dry and warm. The colour-schemes, too, are a great joy to the attention ; pastel shades of soft French greens and greys, dusty blooms from the pollen of the heads, a dust that makes floors, walls, beams, Machinery and bags as delicately surfaced as butterfly wings. You touch a handle, a sack, soft to your skin, and you smutch the magic texture.
The glow from the fires, and even from the oil burners, brings a further magic to the scene, making it theatrical. The dryer, who spends night and day there, snatching naps of sleep on a straw mattress in a recess, is changed by that sombre gleam into a figure almost mythical. He is dusted with the grey-green pollen, and his eyes are inflamed somewhat by heat, lack of sleep, and possibly another cause due to antidotes against the excessive dryness of his occupation. But his job is matter-of-fact enough, for the financial value of the, hops depends upon his watchfulness and skill. The drying has to be just right, like the cooking of pastry ; a little too long on the drying floor, or a fire too fierce, and the delicate petals of the hop are scorched and
discoloured. Down goes the price. •
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