Four years later Reuben bought the farmstead of Totease. Brazier died, and the Manor, anxious as usual for ready money, put up his farm for sale. It was a good place of about sixty acres, with some beautiful hop gardens and plenty of water. Reuben felt that it would be unwise to neglect such an opportunity for enlarging the boundaries of Odiam. He outbid one or two small farmers, put the place under repair, engaged more hands, and set to work to develop a large business in hops.

His enthusiasm was immense; he saw quicker returns from hops than from anything else, and the sheltered position of Totease made it possible to cover the whole of it with goldings and fuggles. He built a couple of new oasts with concrete roofs, and announced his intention of engaging London pickers that autumn. There was great perturbation at the Rectory—the Manor had long since abandoned social crusades—because Reuben housed these pickers indiscriminately in a barn. It was also said that he underpaid them. The rector was quite insensible to his argument that if a man were fool enough to work for two shillings a day, why should wise men lose money by preventing[Pg 407] him? Also he compelled no one to come, so the indiscriminate sleepers were only, so to speak, volunteers—and when the rector persisted he became coarse on the subject.

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