164 Autiimn 



doctor's bill or a year's rent or have been quite un- 

 profitable. If the season has been dry and fine, and 

 thirty pounders are plentiful, the autumn moon will 

 shine on a happy group of faces, and the long road by 

 the college and past dark Hethpool will tire no merry 

 heart ; but if otherwise, a dolorous party will start 

 homewards through the bog and the mist. Next day 

 begins the division of the spoil ; and then does he 

 who was most careful with his feeding during the 

 preceding winter reap his due reward, for his virgin 

 swarms will have produced the tops which the Squire 

 and the rector and the doctor and the factor are 

 anxious to buy. But he who doled out his boiled 

 beer and sugar as though it were molten gold will 

 have but scanty eight and ten pound hoards, fit only 

 for the cadger or the grocer. Very likely, too, he will 

 have to smoke his skeps with dried fungus, so as to 

 make strong hives by throwing two or three into one. 

 Yet even that unthrifty process has its compensation. 

 It promises enough honeycomb to satisfy the children, 

 and a store besides, out of which the good wife makes 

 mead that will be good to drink when the merry 

 toilers that provided it are fast asleep under the 

 snow wreaths of Christmas. 



